INSTALLATION NOTES for OpenBSD/sparc 2.1 What is OpenBSD? ---------------- OpenBSD is a Berkeley Networking Release 2 (Net/2) and 4.4BSD-Lite -derived Operating System. It is a fully functional UN*X-like system which runs on many architectures and is being ported to more. Continuing the multi-platform tradition, OpenBSD has added ports to mvme68k, powerpc and arc machines. Kernel interfaces have continued to be refined, and now several subsystems and device drivers are shared among the different ports. You can look for this trend to continue. Security of the system as a whole has been significantly improved. Source code for all critical system components has been checked for remote-access, local-access, denial-of-service, data destruction, or information-gathering problems. Tools like ipf, ipnat, and nc have been added to the tree because security conscious people often need them. OpenBSD 2.1 has significantly enhanced the binary emulation subsystem (which includes iBCS2, Linux, OSF/1, SunOS, SVR4, Solaris and Ultrix compatibility) and several kernel subsystems have been generalized to support this more readily. The binary emulation strategy is aimed at making the emulation as accurate as possible. Cryptography components are part of OpenBSD. OpenBSD is from Canada, and export of these pieces (such as kerberosIV) to the world is not restricted. Note that it can not be re-exported from the US once it has entered US. Because of this, take care NOT to get the distrib- ution from an FTP server in the US if you are outside of Canada and the US. Many new user programs have been added in OpenBSD 2.1, as well, bringing it closer to our goal of supplying a complete and modern UN*X-like environment. Tools like perl and ksh are standard, as are numerous other useful tools. OpenBSD/sparc 2.1 is brought to you by the same people who did the first free BSD sparc port (based on Chris Torek's 4.4BSD work). Many more sparc models and devices are now supported. In addition to the providing SunOS 4.1 compatibility, OpenBSD 2.1 will also run some number of SunOS 5 (SVR4) executables in binary emulation mode. OpenBSD/sparc has gone though several development cycles since it's origin, but the OpenBSD/sparc 2.1 release should be considered as "under active development" rather than a production ready release. There are still known problems with the kernel and missing support for some common devices. What this means is that if you try to install OpenBSD/sparc as a replacement for SunOS or Solaris in a production envionnment, you will get the features mentioned above, but probably not a stable/reliable system. On the other hand, if you're looking for an operating system for a personal workstation or for working with unix tools and internals, you might find OpenBSD/sparc quite satisfactory as released. Sources of OpenBSD: ------------------- This is a list of currently known ftp servers: Germany: ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pub/unix/openbsd/mirrors/OpenBSD == ftp://ftp.de.openbsd.org/pub/unix/openbsd/mirrors/OpenBSD Japan: ftp://ftp.tut.ac.jp/OpenBSD == ftp://ftp.jp.openbsd.org/OpenBSD ftp://ftp.dti.ad.jp/pub/OpenBSD Switzerland: ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD == ftp://ftp.eu.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD USA: ftp://hydra.heuris.com/pub/OpenBSD == ftp://ftp1.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD ftp://freestuff.cs.colorado.edu/pub/OpenBSD == ftp://ftp2.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD ftp://ftp.ctaz.com/pub/OpenBSD == ftp://ftp5.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD ftp://pub.seastrom.com/pub/OpenBSD == ftp://ftp1.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD
As well, the file ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/2.1/ftplist contains a list which is continually updated. If you wish to become a distribution site for OpenBSD, contact deraadt@cvs.openbsd.org. OpenBSD 2.1 Release Contents: ----------------------------- The OpenBSD 2.1 release is organized in the following way. In the .../2.1 directory, there is one sub-directory per architecture, for each of the architectures that OpenBSD 2.1 has a binary distribution for. That is described further along in this document). The sparc-specific portion of the OpenBSD 2.1 release is found in the "sparc" subdirectory of the distribution. That subdirectory is organized as follows: .../2.1/sparc/ INSTALL.sparc Installation notes; this file kc21.fs The sparc boot floppy; see below. inst21.fs The sparc installation floppy; see below. upgr21.fs The sparc upgrade floppy; see below. miniroot21.fs The sparc miniroot filesystem; see below. floppy21.fs The sparc compressed ramdisk boot floppy *.gz sparc binary distribution sets; see below. bsd A stock GENERIC kernel bsd.rd A ramdisk kernel bsd.scsi3 A kernel with SCSI target 3 remapped as 0 and 0 mapped as 3. bootxx The OpenBSD/sparc boot block boot The OpenBSD/sparc secondary boot loader X11 The X Windows distribution for OpenBSD/sparc Please note that there are multiple bootable images and kernels, intended to allow installing OpenBSD/sparc in a variety of situations without requiring a pre-existing working operating system. The "kc21.fs" image is a bootable floppy image, which is used in conjunction with "inst21.fs" or "upgr21.fs", to allow installing or upgrading systems with supported floppy disk drives (not Sun4m at this time). The "miniroot21.fs" is a small bootable root filesystem that can be used for installtion or upgrade where there is some means to copy the miniroot image into a swap or unused partition on the system, and also for diskless or netbooting. This can be convenient if you have a exsting installation of OpenBSD, NetBSD, SunOS, or Solaris and wish to test or upgrade the existing system to OpenBSD. The "floppy21.fs" is a new bootable floppy image, with contents similar to a miniroot stored in a compressed kernel with pre-loaded ramdisk. As of release time, this version has not received adequate testing and may not work reliably on many systems, but is provided as a convenience for for people installing on Sun4m systems where the other floppy installation method doesn't work due to lack of Sun4m floppy driver support. These bootable images are also useful as "failsafe" boots for system maintenance and disaster recovery. The kernel and boot images are provided for net booting installations. While the OpenBSD bootblocks will work with the provided miniroot images, Sun bootblocks require a separate kernel image and root filesystem. Bootable installation/upgrade floppies: kc21.fs This disk is bootable, and only contains the boot loader and kernel. inst21.fs This disk contains an installation file system, and has enough utilities on board to prepare your hard disk drive for OpenBSD. upgr21.fs This disk contains a file system, and has holds the utilities needed in order to upgrade an existing OpenBSD (or NetBSD) system to a minimal working OpenBSD 2.1 system. floppy21.fs This disk contains a compressed ramdisk filesystem, and holds all utilities needed to install or upgrade to OpenBSD 2.1 miniroot21.fs This is a miniroot filesystem image which can be copied to the swap partition of an existing OpenBSD, NetBSD, SunOS, or Solaris installation to allow upgrading to OpenBSD 2.1 The OpenBSD/sparc binary distribution sets contain the binaries which comprise the OpenBSD 2.1 release for the sparc. There are seven binary distribution sets. These binary distribution sets can be found in "sparc" subdirectory of the OpenBSD 2.1 distribution tree, and are as follows: base21 The OpenBSD/sparc 2.1 base binary distribution. You MUST install this distribution set. It contains the base OpenBSD utilities that are necessary for the system to run and be minimally functional. It includes shared library support, and excludes everything described below. [ 13.1M gzipped, 41.7M uncompressed ] etc21 This distribution set contains the system configuration files that reside in /etc and in several other places. This set MUST be installed if you are installing the system from scratch, but should NOT be used if you are upgrading. (If you are upgrading, it's recommended that you get a copy of this set and then CAREFULLY upgrade your configuration files by hand.) [ 95K gzipped, 460K uncompressed ] comp21 The OpenBSD/sparc Compiler tools. All of the tools relating to C, C++, and FORTRAN. This set includes the system include files (/usr/include), the linker, the compiler tool chain, and the various system libraries (except the shared libraries, which are included as part of the base set). This set also includes the manual pages for all of the utilities it contains, as well as the system call and library manual pages. [ 8.7M gzipped, 28.8M uncompressed ] game21 This set includes the games and their manual pages. [ 2.9M gzipped, 7.3M uncompressed ] man21 This set includes all of the manual pages for the binaries and other software contained in the base set. Note that it does not include any of the manual pages that are included in the other sets. [ 2.5M gzipped, 9.4M uncompressed ] misc21 This set includes the system dictionaries (which are rather large), the typesettable document set, and man pages for other architectures which happen to be installed from the source tree by default. [ 1.8M gzipped, 6.2M uncompressed ] text21 This set includes OpenBSD's text processing tools, including groff, all related programs, and their manual pages. [ 1.0M gzipped, 3.9M uncompressed ] OpenBSD System Requirements and Supported Devices: -------------------------------------------------- OpenBSD/sparc 2.1 runs on the following classes of machines: - sun4c (e.g. the SS1, SS1+, SS2, IPC, ELC, IPX, and SLC) - sun4 (e.g. the 4/100, 4/200, and 4/300. note that support for the 4/400 processor is incomplete) - sun4m (e.g. sparc classic, 4, 5, 10, and 20) *** See Notes Below - faithful clones of the above Sun systems (e.g. Integrix) OpenBSD/sparc 2.1 does NOT run on these machines (yet): - Sun 4/400 -- Lacking support for the I/O cache, and related ethernet problems. - sun4m 4/6XX (e.g Sparcserver 600MP) -- Different registers (auxio vs. leds), VMEbus on sun4m arch, I/O cache??? - sun4d (e.g. SPARCcenter 2000, SPARCserver 1000) -- X-bus vs. M-bus multi-processor issues. - sun4u (e.g. Ultrasparcs) -- currently no support for 64-bit Sparc architecture extensions. - clones that are differnt from the Sun systems (e.g. Solbourne) The minimal configuration requires 4M of RAM and ~60M of disk space. To install the entire system requires much more disk space, and to run X or compile the system, more RAM is recommended. (OpenBSD with 4M of RAM feels like Solaris with 4M of RAM.) Note that until you have around 16M of RAM, getting more RAM is more important than getting a faster CPU.) Installation from "ramdisk" kernels requries 8M of RAM. Supported devices include: sun4c and sun4m SBus video: cgsix, cgthree, and bwtwo frame buffers sun4 video (not thoroughly tested...): P4 -- on-board bwtwo, cgfour, cgsix, cgeight VME -- cgtwo, cgthree, cgsix serial ports: ttya and ttyb (can be used as console if needed), ttyc and ttyd (Sun 4/300 only) ethernet: on-board AMD Lance ethernet ("le0"), SBus AMD Lance ethernet cards, on-board Intel 82586 ethernet (ie0 on 4/100's and 4/200's), VME Intel 82586 ethernet cards SCSI: on-board "esp" SCSI controller (sun4c's, and the 4/300), SBus "esp" SCSI controller, Sun "SUN-3"/"si" VME SCSI controller (polled mode only, slow), Sun "SCSI Weird"/"sw" on-board controller (4/110 only, polled) VME disks: Xylogics 7053 VME/SMD disk controller ("xd"), Xylogics 450/451 VME disk controller ("xy") [note: VME/IPI disks are not supported] Sun floppy disk drive on sun4c machines. Sun keyboard and mouse. sun4c audio. Hardware the we do NOT currently support, but get many questions about: multiprocessor machines (ignores other CPUs..) audio driver for sun4m machines floppy driver for sun4m (can boot/install from ramdisk floppies though) interrupt driven SCSI driver for Sun 4/100's and 4/200's VME mti 16-port serial card VME alm2 16-port serial card VME mcp 4-port serial card VME IPI controller VME cgfive framebuffer VME cgnine framebuffer VME GP/GP2 Graphics Processor SBus cgeight framebuffers SBus GS framebuffer (aka cgtwelve) SBus GT framebuffer ("Graphics Tower") SS20 SX framebuffer (aka cgfourteen) SBus ZX framebuffer (aka Leo) S24 (ss5 only) framebuffer *** Note: sun4m and general sparc caveats As of of the OpenBSD 2.1 release there are still some outstanding problems with OpenBSD on the various Sparc architectures. The sun4m architecture, particularly the Viking/SuperSPARC implementations, is probably the least stable and is also lacking useful floppy/audio support. The supplied GENERIC kernel is the best attempt at a configuration that works on the widest range of machinery (sun4m and otherwise). Custom kernel configurations for sun4m may run into difficulties, as of release GENERIC is your best bet for a stable sun4m kernel. There are a number of people actively working on improving the stability of OpenBSD/sparc in the sun4m area. If you have problems with the OpenBSD 2.1 kernel in this distribution, please visit the OpenBSD web page (http://www.openbsd.org) and the mailing lists to review the current status and check for updates. If you have Sparc hardware you can donate or make available at nominal cost, please mention this on the lists, many things aren't being tested or developed simply because devlopers usually have only a Sparcstation at hand, not an array of systems. Donation or mid/long term loan of UltraSparc (sun4u) or HyperSparc (sun4m) systems would help ensure the long-term viability of OpenBSD on Sparc based systems. Your support in terms of documenting previously unknown problems with OpenBSD/sparc, helping debug known problems, implementing missing pieces, and testing OpenBSD on various architectures is actively encouraged. The OpenBSD mailing lists, web-pages and sendbug utility are your best tools for helping make OpenBSD/sparc a better release. Getting the OpenBSD System onto Useful Media: --------------------------------------------- Installation is supported from several media types, including: FFS partitions Tape Remote NFS partition CD-ROM FTP HTTP Not all methods are supported on all Sparc Systems and some of them work only with the new single-floppy installation or the miniroot installation, not with the older multi-floppy installation. If you have the OpenBSD CD-ROM distribution (and a CD-ROM drive), you may be able boot from it. Not all sparc systems support booting from CD-ROM and the current boot images is only known to work on Sun4c architecture workstations such as the IPC, SS1 or SS2. If you can boot from the CD-ROM, you are home free and can proceed to the installation steps. If not, you will need to do some setup work to prepare a bootable image, either floppies, a hard drive, or a compatible net boot server. In addition to the bootable image, you also need to consider how to access the binary distribution sets to actually install the system. If you have the OpenBSD CD-ROM distribution you can either access the CD-ROM directly from the bootable image or remotely mounted on another system via NFS. Although you can access the distribution sets directly from the CD-ROM or from one of the FTP mirrors over the internet, you may wish to transfer the sets to a local FTP or NFS server, or copy them to a partition on the target system's disk or onto a SCSI tape. The variety of options listed may seem confusing, but situations vary widely in terms of what peripherals and what sort of network arragements a user has, the intent is to provide some way that will be practical. Creating a bootable floppy disk using DOS/Windows: First you need to get access to the OpenBSD Bootable floppy images. If you can access the CD-ROM distribution under DOS the bootable disks are in the 2.1/sparc directory, otherwise you you will have to download them from one of the OpenBSD ftp or http mirror sites, using ftp or a web-viewer. In either case, take care to do "binary" transfers, since these are images files and any DOS cr/lf translations or control/z EOF interpretations will result in corrupted transfers. You will also need to go to the "tools" directory and grab a copy of the rawrite.exe utility and it's documentation. This program is needed to correctly copy the bootable filesystem image to the floppy, since it's an image of a unix partition containing a ffs filesystem, not a MSDOS format diskette. Once you have installed rawrite.exe, just run it and specify the name of the bootable image, such as "floppy.fs" and the name of the floppy drive, such as "a:". Be sure to use good quality HD (1.44MB) floppies, formatted on the system you're using. The image copy and boot process is not especially tolerant of read errors. Note that, when installing, the boot floppy can be write-protected (i.e. read-only). Creating a bootable floppy disk using SunOS or other Un*x-like system: First, you will need obtain a local copy of the bootable filesystem image as described above. If possible use cksum or md5 to verify the checksums of the images vs. the values in the CKSUM or MD5 files on the mirror site. Next, use the dd(1) utility to copy the file to the floppy drive. Under SunOS, the comand would be: dd if=floppy21.fs of=/dev/rfdc0 bs=36b If you are using someting other than SunOS, you may have to adapt this to conform to local naming conventions for the floppy and options suitable for copying to a "raw" floppy image. The key issue is that the device name used for the floppy *must* be one that refers to the whole 2880 block image, not a partition or compatibility mode, and the copy command needs to be compatible with the requirement that writes to a raw device must be in multiples of 512-byte blocks. The variations are endless and beyond the scope of this document. If you're doing this on the system you intend to be the floppy on, copying the floppy back to a file and doing a compare or checksum is a good way to verify that the floppy is readable and free of read/write errors. Creating a bootable hard disk using SunOS or other Un*x-like system: If you don't have a floppy drive you can copy the single floppy installation image "floppy.fs" or the mini-root "miniroot.fs" onto the hard disk you intend to boot on. Traditionally, the way to do this is to use dd(1) to place the bootable filesystem image in the "swap" partition of the disk (while running in single user mode), and then booting from that partition. Using the "b" partition allows you to boot without overwriting any useful parts of the disk, you can also use another partition, but don't used the "a" or "c" partition without understanding the disklabel issues described below under "uncompatible systems". This requires that you be running SunOS, Solaris, OpenBSD or NetBSD which have a compatible view of SunOS disk labels and paritions. Use the dd(1) utility to copy the file to the floppy drive. Under SunOS, the comand would be: dd if=floppy21.fs of=/dev/rsd0b bs=36b - or - dd if=miniroot21.fs of=/dev/rsd0b bs=36b The blocksize is arbitrary as long as it's a multiple of 512-bytes and within the maximum supported by the driver, i.e. bs=126b may not work for all cases. Again, device/parition names may vary, depending on the OS involved. If you are preparing the hard drive on an incompatible system or don't care about the hard disk contents, you can also install the bootable image starting at the beginning of the disk. This lets you prepare a bootable hard-drive even if don't have a working operating system on your Sparc, but it important to understand that the bootable image installed this way includes a "disk label" which can wipe out any pre-existing disklabels or paritioning for the drive. The floppy image is used only for booting, and can be placed in a partition that will be overwritten during the install process, since it actaully runs of of a ram-disk image in the kernel. In contrast the miniroot is a normal unix root filesystem and you must place in a parition that will not be overwritten until you've completed the installation process. To copy the floppy image to the whole disk, overwriting labels: dd if=floppy21.fs of=/dev/rsdXc bs=36b Two notes - X should be replaced by the unit number of the target disk, which is most likely *not* the disk/paritition that's your current root partition. Again names may vary depending on the OS involved. Second, after doing this, the disklable will be one that would be appropiate for a floppy, i.e. one parition of 2880 block, and you'll probably want to change that later on. If you're starting with a virgin disk and trying to do this under SunOS, use format(8) and newfs(8) to set up the paritions and mark the intended parition as an normal partiton type. If you're using OpenBSD, perhaps on another architecture, OpenBSD will create a "fictitious label" that will let you access the whole disk. To copy the flopy image to the hard disk, preserving SunOS, Solaris NetBSD or OpenBSD labels: dd if=floppy21.fs of=/dev/rsdXc bs=1b skip=1 seek=1 You need to be sure that your version of dd(1) supports the skip and seek operands, otherwise you can try a technique like: dd if=/dev/rsdXc of=/tmp/label bs=1b count=1 dd if=floppy21.fs of=/dev/rsdXc bs=36b dd if=/tmp/label of=/dev/rsdXc bs=1b count=1 In either case, you've created a situation where the disklabel and the filesystem information don't agree about the paritition size and geometry, however the results will be usable. Creating a network bootable setup using SunOS or other Un*x-like system: The details of setting up a network bootable environment vary considerably, depending on the networks host. Extract the OpenBSD diskless(8) man page from the share.tar.gz distibution set or see the copy on the OpenBSD web page. You will also need to reference the relevant man pages or adminstrators guide for the host system. Basically, you will need to set up reverse-arp (rarpd) and boot parameter (bootpd) information and make the OpenBSD bootblock, kernel/miniroot partition, and a swap file available as required by the netboot setup. The steps necessary to prepare the distribution sets for installation depend on which method of installation you choose. Some methods require a bit of setup first that is explained below. The new single floppy installation allows installing OpenBSD directly from FTP mirror sites over the internet, however you must consider the speed and reliability of your internet connection for this option. It may save much time and frustration to use ftp get/reget to transfer the distribution sets to a local server or disk and perform the installation from there, rather than directly on the internet. To install or upgrade OpenBSD using a tape, you need to do the following: To install OpenBSD from a tape, you need to make a tape that contains the distribution set files, each in "tar" format or in "gzipped tar format". First you will need to transfer the distribution sets to your local system, using ftp or by mounting the CD-ROM containing the release. Then you need to a tape with the files. If you're making the tape on a UN*X-like system, the easiest way to do so is make a shell script along the following lines, call it "/tmp/maketape". #! /bin/sh tape=/dev/nrst0 mt -f ${tape} rewind for file in base21 etc21 comp21 game21 man21 misc21 text21 do dd if=${file}.tar.gz of=${tape} done tar cf ${tape} bsd mt -f ${tape} offline # end of script And then: cd .../2.1/sparc sh -x /tmp/maketape If you're using a system other than OpenBSD or SunOS, the tape name and other requirements may change. To install OpenBSD using a remote partition, mounted via NFS, you must do the following: NOTE: This method of installation is recommended only for those already familiar with using BSD network configuration and management commands. If you aren't, this documentation should help, but is not intended to be all-encompassing. Place the OpenBSD distribution sets you wish to install into a directory on an NFS server, and make that directory mountable by the machine on which you are installing or upgrading OpenBSD. This will probably require modifying the /etc/exports file on of the NFS server and resetting its mount daemon (mountd). (Both of these actions will probably require superuser privileges on the server.) You need to know the the numeric IP address of the NFS server, and, if the server is not on a network directly connected to the machine on which you're installing or upgrading OpenBSD, you need to know the numeric IP address of the router closest to the OpenBSD machine. Finally, you need to know the numeric IP address of the OpenBSD machine itself. Once the NFS server is set up properly and you have the information mentioned above, you can proceed to the next step in the installation or upgrade process. If you're installing OpenBSD from scratch, go to the section on preparing your hard disk, below. If you're upgrading an existing installation, go directly to the section on upgrading. If you are upgrading OpenBSD, you also have the option of installing OpenBSD by putting the new distribution sets somewhere in your existing file system, and using them from there. To do that, you must do the following: Place the distribution sets you wish to upgrade somewhere in your current file system tree. At a bare minimum, you must upgrade the "base" binary distribution, and so must put the "base21" set somewhere in your file system. If you wish, you can do the other sets, as well, but you should NOT upgrade the "etc" distribution; the "etc" distribution contains system configuration files that you should review and update by hand. Once you have done this, you can proceed to the next step in the upgrade process, actually upgrading your system. Preparing your System for OpenBSD Installation: ----------------------------------------------- Before you start you might need to consider your disk configuration to sort out a quirk in SCSI-ID to SD-UNIT mapping that exists on Sun Sparcstations. Upon leaving the factory, SunOS and the OpenBOOT ROM map according to this table: SCSI-ID -> SunOS SD-UNIT 0 sd3 1 sd1 2 sd2 3 sd0 4 sd4 5 sd5 6 sd6 Unlike SunOS and the OpenBOOT ROM, a generic OpenBSD kernel numbers scsi drives sequentially as it finds them. The drive with the lowest scsi-id will be called sd0, the next one sd1, etc. To ease the installation process, two OpenBSD kernels are provide in the installation sets. The default OpenBSD kernel (bsd) is set up to use the OpenBSD mapping, while a special kernel (bsd.scsi3) is set up to match the Sun mapping above by hard-wiring scsi-id#3 to sd0 and scsi-id#0 to sd3. The remaining drives will be dynamically mapped to other sd* numbers. This is mostly a non-issue if you have only one drive on your system, but can get really confusing if you have multiple drives. If you plan to eliminate SunOS altogether it may be best to correct the scsi-id's of your drives, while if you plan to leave SunOS installed, it may be better to install OpenBSD on an external drive with scsi-id 1 or 0. Some OpenBoot proms provide and environment variable that controls the drive<->scsi-id mapping, you can change this to reflect the natural ordering or just set the boot related variables to boot from the correct drive, whatever the numbering. NOTE: if you elect to build a custom kernel you may want to "hardwire" the scsi-id's to sd0->scsi-id 0 or your desired scheme, this helps prevent accidents if you change the SCSI bus configuration or a drive is down. Your OpenBOOT ROM may need some setup. make sure you boot from `new command mode'. If your machine comes up and gives you a `>' prompt instead of `ok', type: >n ok setenv sunmon-compat? false ok This is needed because OpenBSD cannot handle the old-mode yet, and will firework on you. Also, you cannot use the security modes of the sparc OpenBOOT ROM. ok setenv security-mode none Please note that while OpenBSD and SunOS have a reasonable degree of compatibility between disk labels and filesystems there are some problems to watch out for during initial installation or when trying to maintain both OpenBSD and SunOS environments on the same system. If the OpenBSD fsck(8) utility is used on a SunOS filesystem, it will set OpenBSD "clean flags" and BSD4.4 summary fields in the superblock. SunOS does *not* like this and you will have to do a "fsck -b 32" under SunOS to access an alternate superblock to repair the filesystem. You should always specify SunOS filesystem with a "pass number" of 0 in their /etc/fstab entry to prevent this, and preferably mount them "RO". If SunOS fsck is used on an OpenBSD filesystem in the default OpenBSD (4.4BSD) format, it will first complain about the superblock and then about missing . and .. entries. Do *not* try to "correct" these problems, as attempting to do so will completely trash the filesystem. OpenBSD supports both OpenBSD "native" disklabels and "Sun compatible" disklabels. Unless you have some really good reason, you should stick with the Sun compatible labels. The disklabel(8) "-r" switch says to use OpenBSD labels, which is a bit counter-intuitive and contrary to the reasons why might want to use "-r" on other OpenBSD ports. Don't use "-r" with disklabel(8). The OpenBSD "Sun Compatible" disklabel have been extended to support 16 partitions, which may be compatible with Solaris, but the old SunOS format(8) utility only sees the first 8 partititions and may "lose" information about the extended partitions. Use SunOS format(8) only with *extreme* caution on drives that contain OpenBSD partitions. OpenBSD and Sun BSD bootblocks are similar in concept, though implemented differntly. The OpenBSD bootblocks are architecture independent and also understand the extended disklabels with 16 partitions. You can use SunOS bootblocks, but remember that OpenBSD bootblocks must be installed with OpenBSD installboot and SunOS bootblocks with SunOS installboot. Installing the OpenBSD System: ------------------------------ Installing OpenBSD is a relatively complex process, but if you have this document in hand it shouldn't be too much trouble. There are several ways to install OpenBSD onto a disk. The easiest way in terms of preliminary setup is to use the OpenBSD miniroot that can be booted off your local disk's swap partition. The normal way is to use the OpenBSD installation floppies. If your Sparc is hooked up in a network and you can find a server to arrange for a diskless setup, which is a convenient way to install on a machine whose disk does not currently hold a usable operating system. This is difficult to get set up correctly the first time, but easy to use afterwards. (see `Installing using a diskless setup' below). It is also possible to install OpenBSD "manually" from a running SunOS system, using SunOS tools and gnu tar and gunzip (see `Installing from SunOS' below). This section of the install document is really broken into several parts: - About the "new" and "old" Install Scripts - booting from the installation media - the "new" single floppy or miniroot install script - the "old" multiple floppy install script - after completing an installation - installing from Sun OS - net boot or diskless setup information The first section explains why we have two differnt install scripts. The second section gets you up to the point where you've booted the kernel from whatever media or setup described in the previous section, to where you have to respond to prompts from the install script(s). The next two sections describe the path through the "new" and "old" install scripts, which are quite different, and the remainder are notes which might be useful, but outside the bounds of simple "how two" instructions. About the "new" and "old" Install Scripts: The OpenBSD/sparc floppies come in two varieties, a newer single floppy version that is not well tested and the older multi-floppy set. Both accomplish the same thing, but the install/upgrade scripts and procedures are quite different between the old and new version. The other difference bewtween the the two forms are in their bootblocks, and filesystems. The "floppy21.fs" image is the compressed ramdisk form, the "kc21.fs" paired with either "inst21.fs" or "upgr21.fs" comprise a bootable kernel floppy and associated install/upgrade filesystem floppy. The CD-ROM, miniroot and netboot install scripts are essentially the same as the new single floppy install script. Booting from the Installation Media: Prior to attempting an installation, you should make sure that everything of value on the target system has been backed up. While installing OpenBSD does not neccessarily wipe out all the partitions on the hard disk, errors during the install process can have unforseen consequences and you will probably render the system unbootable if you start, but do not complete the installation. Have the installation media for the prior installation, be it a SunOS CD-ROM or *BSD install diskettes is good insurance if you want to be able to "go back" for some reason. After taking care of all that, bring your system down gracefully using the shutdown(8) and/or halt(8) commands. This will get you to the monitor prompt. Sun PROM monitor commands and setup differ considerably depending on the system architecure and age, you may needed to reference the PROM monitor manual for your system for details. There are three main cases: sun4 (older servers, deskside workstations): promt is a ">", boot command is "b", uses sd(c,s,p) syntax with s defined as scsi-unit*8+lun in hex OpenBoot Version 1 (newer servers, desktop workstations): prompt is "ok", boot command is "boot" uses sd(c,s,p) syntax with s defined as scsi-unit. OpenBoot Version 2 (newer servers, desktop workstations): prompt is "ok", boot command is "boot" uses diskn:p syntax. If you expect your workstation to have an OpenBoot Prom but get a ">", enter then "n" command to enter the "new command mode". You can set this as the default by doing a "setenv sunmon-compat? false" command, followed by a "reset" command. Note that OpenBoot Proms also do the Sun SCSI-ID shuffle for disks, this is described elsewere in some detail. For the purposes of this section, drive 0 refers to the internal or first SCSI drive, which usually has a SCSI-ID of 3. Booting from Floppy Disk installation media: ok boot fd()bsd # for version 1 OpenBOOT ROMs ok boot floppy bsd # for version 2 OpenBOOT ROMs This will cause the kernel contained in the floppy to be booted. After the kernel loads, it will eject the bootable floppy and prompt for a filesystem floppy - for the two floppy installation insert the appropriate filesystem flopppy, for the ramdisk installion, just hit return, the filesystem image is internal to the kernel. After the initial device probe messages you'll asked to start the install or upgrade procedure. Proceed to the section `Running the installation scripts' below. Booting From CD-ROM installation media: > b sd(,30,0)bsd # for Sun4 monitors (may not work) ok boot sd(,6,0)bsd # for version 1 OpenBOOT ROMs ok boot cdrom bsd # for version 2 OpenBOOT ROMs If the boot is successul, you will get a loader version message, executable sizes and then the Kernel copyright and device probe messages. Boot failure modes are typically a lot of CD-ROM drive action, but no messages or complaints about magic numbers, checksums or formats. Not all sparc systems support bootable CDROMS and the current boot image is only known to work on sun4c architctures. If it does not work, you'll have to create a boot floppy or bootable hard disk using the instructions under preparing boot media. After the initial device probe messages you'll asked to start the install or upgrade procedure. Proceed to the section `Running the installation scripts' below. Booting from SCSI disk (miniroot or flopy image) Boot the miniroot by typing the appropriate command at the PROM: > b sd(,,1)bsd # for sun4 monitors ok boot sd(,,1)bsd # for version 1 OpenBOOT ROMs ok boot disk:b bsd # for version 2 OpenBOOT ROMs If you've loaded the miniroot onto some other disk than the default drive 0, modify the boot specifier accordingly, keeping in mind the drive vs. scsi-id shuffling and partition a=0, b=1... > b sd(0,10,1)bsd # example - scsi target 2 on sun4 monitors* ok boot sd(0,3,1)bsd # example - scsi target 0 on V1 OpenBOOT ROM ok boot disk3:b bsd # example - scsi target 0 on v2 OpenBOOT ROM (*) for sun4 this is scsi-target*8+scsi-lun (usually 0) expressed in hex... This will cause the kernel contained in the miniroot to be booted. After the initial probe messages you'll asked to start the install or upgrade procedure. Proceed to the section `Running the installation scripts' below. Installing using a diskless setup. First, you must setup a diskless client configuration on a server. If you are using a OpenBSD system as the boot-server, have a look at the diskless(8) manual page for guidelines on how to proceed with this. If the server runs another operating system, you'll have to consult documentation that came with it (on SunOS systems, add_client(8) and the Sun System/Networks administrators guide constitute a good start). Boot your workstation from the server by entering the appropriate `boot' command at the monitor prompt. Depending on the PROM version in your machine, this command takes one of the following forms: > b le()bsd # for sun4 monitors ok boot le()bsd # for version 1 OpenBOOT ROMs ok boot net bsd # for version 2 OpenBOOT ROMs This will cause the kernel provided by the diskless setup to be booted. After the initial probe messages you'll asked to start the install or upgrade procedure. Proceed to the section `Running the installation scripts' below. Installing using the "new" Single Floppy, CD-ROM, miniroot or netboot procedure: The following is a walk-through of the steps you will take while getting OpenBSD installed on your hard disk. If any question has a default answer, it will be displayed in brackets ("[]") after the question. If you wish to stop the installation, you may hit Control-C at any time, but if you do, you may have to begin the installation process again from scratch. Using Control-Z to suspend the process may be a better option. Boot your machine from the installation media as described above. It will take a while to load the kernel especially from a floppy or slow network connection, most likely more than a minute. If some action doesn't eventually happen, or the spinning cursor has stopped and nothing further has happened, either your boot medias is proably bad, your diskless setup isn't correct or you may have a hardware or configuration problem. You will then be presented with the OpenBSD kernel boot messages. You will want to read them to determine your disk's name and geometry. Its name will be something like "sd0" or "wd0" and the geometry will be printed on a line that begins with its name. As mentioned above, you will need your disk's geometry when creating OpenBSD partitions. You will also need to know the device name to tell the install tools what disk to install on. While booting, you will probably see several warnings. You may be warned that the kernel can't figure out what device it booted from and that no swap space is present. Do not be alarmed, these are completely normal. The first warning occurs because while OpenBSD/sparc can boot from the floppy drive, the kernel itself lacks a floppy driver for some architctures. When the loading process is complete, the boot floppy will be ejected and you will be prompted to insert a filesystem floppy, just hit return since the filesystem is contained in the kernel image just loaded. Next there will be a prompt asking you for a shell name, just hit return to start executing the installion setup script. You will next be asked for your terminal type. If you are installing from a keyboard/monitor console, the default of "sun" if correct. If you are installing from a serial console you should choose the terminal type from amongst those listed. (If your terminal type is xterm, just use vt100). Next you will be prompted for a choice of which text editor to use at several places in the install script. You will probably want to use "vi" if your terminal supports this. After entering the terminal type you will be greeted by a welcome message and asked if you really want to continue. Assuming you answered yes, the install program will then tell you which disks of that type it can install on, and ask you which it should use. The name of the disk is typically "sd0". Reply with the name of your disk. Next you will have to edit or create a disklabel for the disk OpenBSD is being installed on. The installation script will invoke the text editor allowing you to do this. Note that partition 'c' inside this disk label should ALWAYS reflect the entire disk, including any non-OpenBSD portions. The root file system should be in partition 'a', and swap is usually in partition 'b'. It is recommended that you create separate partitions for root and /usr, you may also want to specify /var and /home partitions. The swap partition (usually 'b') should have a type of "swap", all other native OpenBSD partitions should have a type of "4.2BSD". Block and fragment sizes are usually 8192 and 1024 bytes, but can also be 16384 and 2048 bytes. The install program will now label your disk and ask which file systems should be created on which partitions. It will auto- matically select the 'a' partition to be the root file system. Next it will ask for which disk and partition you want a file system created on. This will be the same as the disk name (eg. "sd0") with the letter identifying the partition (eg. "d") appended (eg. "sd0d"). Then it will ask where this partition is to be mounted, eg. /usr. This process will be repeated until you just hit return. At this point you will be asked to confirm that the file system information you have entered is correct, and given an opportunity to change the file system table. Next it will create the new file systems as specified, OVERWRITING ANY EXISTING DATA. This is the point of no return. After all your file systems have been created, the install program will give you an opportunity to configure the network. The network configuration you enter (if any) can then be used to do the install from another system using NFS, HTTP or FTP, and will also be the configuration used by the system after the installation is complete. If you select to configure the network, the install program will ask you for a name of your system and the DNS domain name to use. Note that the host name should be without the domain part, and that the domain name should NOT include the host name part. Next the system will give you a list of network interfaces you can configure. For each network interface you select to configure, it will ask for the IP address to use, the symbolic host name to use, the netmask to use and any interface-specific flags to set. The interface-specific flags are usually used to determine which media the network card is to use. This is driver dependent, but for the sparc le(4) driver, the flags usually carry meaning: -link0 -link1 Use existing setting (only setup by netboot) link0 -link1 Use UTP (twisted pair) port -link0 link1 Use AUI port *** IMPORTANT - these are the correct setting for Sparc ehternet cards, the suggestions shown by the install script are generic and may or may not be correct... After all network interfaces have been configured the install pro- gram will ask for a default route and IP address of the primary name server to use. You will also be presented with an opportunity to edit the host table. At this point you will be allowed to edit the file system table that will be used for the remainder of the installation and that will be used by the finished system, following which the new file systems will be mounted to complete the installation. After these preparatory steps has been completed, you will be able to extract the distribution sets onto your system. There are several install methods supported; FTP, HTTP, tape, CD-ROM, NFS or a local disk partition. To install from a tape, the distrib- ution sets must have been written to tape prior to running the installation program, either as tar images or as gzipped tar images. Note that installation sets on multiple floppies is not currently supported. To install via FTP: To begin an FTP install you will need the following pieces of information. Don't be daunted by this list; the defaults are sufficient for most people. 1) Proxy server URL if you are using a URL-based ftp proxy (squid, CERN ftp, Apache 1.2 or higher). You need to define a proxy if you are behind a firewall that blocks outgoing ftp (assuming you have a proxy available to use). 2) Do you need to use passive mode ftp? Most modern ftp servers are capable of dealing with passive ftp connections. You only need to enable this option if you are behind a firewall that allows outgoing ftp but blocks incoming tcp ports > 1023. If in doubt say yes to this option. Note that you will not be asked about passive ftp if you are using a proxy. 3) The IP address (or hostname if you enabled DNS earlier in the install) of an ftp server carrying the OpenBSD 2.1 distribution. If you don't know, just hit return when asked if you want to see a list of such hosts. 4) The ftp directory holding the distribution sets. The default value of pub/OpenBSD/2.1/sparc is almost always correct. 5) The login and password for the ftp account. The default will be correct unless you are doing non-anonymous ftp. For instructions on how to complete the installation via ftp, see the section named "Common URL installations" below. To install via HTTP: To begin an HTTP install you will need the following pieces of information: 1) Proxy server URL if you are using a URL-based http proxy (squid, CERN ftp, Apache 1.2 or higher). You need to define a proxy if you are behind a firewall that blocks outgoing http connections (assuming you have a proxy available to use). 3) The IP address (or hostname if you enabled DNS earlier in the install) of an http server carrying the OpenBSD 2.1 distribution. If you don't know, just hit return when asked if you want to see a list of such hosts. 4) The directory holding the distribution sets. There is no standard location for this; You should use the directory specified along with the server in the list of official http mirror sites that you received in step 3. For instructions on how to complete the installation via http, see the section named "Common URL installations" below. To install from tape: In order to install from tape, the distribution sets to be installed must have been written to tape previously, either in tar format or gzip-compressed tar format. You will also have to identify the tape device where the distribution sets are to be extracted from. This will typically be "nrst0" (no-rewind, raw interface). Next you will have to provide the file number of the set that is to be extracted. Note that the file number starts at 1, which is the first file written to the tape. The install program will not automatically detect whether an image has been compressed, so it will ask for that information before starting the extraction. To install from CD-ROM: When installing from a CD-ROM, you will be asked which device holds the distribution sets. This will typically be "cd0". Next you will be asked which partition on the CD-ROM the distribution is to be loaded from. This is normally partition "a". Next you will have to identify the file system type that has been used to create the distribution on the CD-ROM, this can be either FFS or ISO CD9660. The OpenBSD CD distribution uses the CD9660 format. You will also have to provide the relative path to the directory on the CD which holds the distribution, for the sparc this is "2.1/sparc". For instructions on how to complete the installation from the CD-ROM distribution, see the section named "Common file system installations" below. To install from a NFS mounted directory: When installing from a NFS-mounted directory, you must have completed network configuration above, and also set up the exported file system on the NFS server in advance. First you must identify the IP address of the NFS server to load the distribution from, and the file system the server expects you to mount. The install program will also ask whether or not TCP should be used for transport (the default is UDP). Note that TCP only works with newer NFS servers. You will also have to provide the relative path to the directory on the file system where the distribution sets are located. Note that this path should not be prefixed with a '/'. For instructions on how to complete the installation from the CD-ROM distribution, see the section named "Common file system installations" below. To install from a local disk partition: When installing from a local disk partition, you will first have to identify which disk holds the distribution sets. This is normally "sdN" or "wdN" where N is a number 0 through 9. Next you will have to identify the partition within that disk that holds the distribution, this is a single letter between 'a' and 'p'. You will also have to identify the type of file system residing in the partition identified. Currently, you can only install from partitions that use the fast file system (ffs). You will also have to provide the relative path to the directory on the file system where the distribution sets are located. Note that this path should not be prefixed with a '/'. For instructions on how to complete the installation from the a local disk partition, see the next section. Common file system installations: The following instructions are common to installations from local disk partitions, NFS mounted directories and CD-ROMs. A list of available distribution sets will be listed. If any sets has already been extracted, those will be marked with an X. Enter the name of one distribution set at a time, until all desired distribution sets has been installed on your system. Common URL installations: Once you have entered the required information, the install program will fetch a file list and present a list of all the distribution sets that were found in the specified directory. (If no valid sets were found, you will be notified and given the option of unpacking any gzipped tar files found or getting a file list if none were found.) If any sets have already been extracted, those sets will be marked with an X. At this point you may individually select distribution sets to install or enter "all" to install all of the sets (which is what most users will want to do). You may also enter "list" to get a file list or "done" when you are done selecting distribution sets. (It is also possible to enter an arbitrary filename and have it treated as a file set). Once you have selected the file sets you want to install and entered "done" you will be prompted to verify that you really do want to download and install the files. Assuming you acquiesce, the files will begin to download and unpack. If not, you will be given the option of installing sets via one of the other install methods. When all the selected distribution sets has been extracted, you will be allowed to select which time zone your system will be using, all the device nodes needed by the installed system will be created for you and the file systems will be unmounted. For this to work properly, it is expected that you have installed at least the "base21" and "etc21" distribution sets. Installing using the old Multi-Floppy procedure. If you are upgrading a OpenBSD installation, start the upgrade script: OpenBSD# sh upgrade.sh else, start the installation script: OpenBSD# sh install.sh These scripts will do most of the work of transferring the system from the tar files onto your disk. You will frequently be asked for confirmation before the script proceeds with each phase of the installation process. Occasionally, you'll have to provide a piece of information such as the name of the disk you want to install on or IP addresses and domain names you want to assign. If your system has more than one disk, you may want to look at the output of the dmesg(8) command to see how your disks have been identified by the kernel. The installation script goes through the following phases: - determination of the disk to install OpenBSD on - checking of the partition information on the disk - creating and mounting the OpenBSD filesystems - setup of IP configuration - extraction of the distribution tar files - installation of boot programs After completing an installation: Now try a reboot. (If needed, swap your scsi id's first). Initially I'd suggest you "boot sd()bsd -bs", then try multiuser after that. if you boot single-user the OpenBSD incantation to make the root filesystem writable is OpenBSD# mount -u /dev/sd0a / The Sun monitor normally tries to load a file called "vmunix". On OpenBOOT ROM systems you can change it to load OpenBSD instead using the following commands: On version 1 OpenBOOT ROMs: >n ok setenv boot-from sd(0,0,0)bsd ok On version 2 OpenBOOT ROMs: ok setenv boot-file bsd ok setenv boot-device /sbus/esp/sd@0,0 On sun4 systems, you may not need to specify the boot file, as the OpenBSD boot blocks will look for "bsd" on the boot device by default. Congratulations, you have successfully installed OpenBSD 2.1. When you reboot into OpenBSD, you should log in as "root" at the login prompt. There is no initial password, but if you're using the machine in a networked environment, you should create yourself an account and protect it and the "root" account with good passwords. Some of the files in the OpenBSD 2.1 distribution might need to be tailored for your site. In particular, the /etc/sendmail.cf file will almost definitely need to be adjusted, and other files in /etc will probably need to be modified. If you will be running your OpenBSD system from a serial console, you may need to edit /etc/ttys and change the terminal type, and getty method from "sun" and "suncons" to "vt100" and "std.9600" or something similar. Also when running from a serial console, you may wish to adjust the eeprom settings for input-device, output-device, screen-#columns, and screen-#rows as appropriate. If you plan on using the extra serial ports on 4/300 systems, you'll need to make sure you have device nodes for them e.g.: mknod /dev/ttyc c 12 4 mknod /dev/ttyd c 12 5 To use these ports for terminals etc, you will want to add them to /etc/ttys. In order to use 'tip' on OpenBSD/sparc, you'll need to edit /etc/ttys and add "local" to the end of the tty configuration line, and run 'ttyflags -a' to put your changes into effect. On installing X11 for OpenBSD/sparc, you may wish to add a line similar to 'ldconfig /usr/X11R6/lib' to the end of your /etc/rc.local file. This will add the X libraries to your dynamic linking search path at boot time. If you are unfamiliar with UN*X-like system administration, it's recommended that you buy a book that discusses it. Installing from SunOS. You need a SunOS machine to install OpenBSD. You also need at least the following pieces: the *.tar.gz files you want to install (as a minimum, base.tar.gz) gunzip (GNU gzip) SunOS binary gtar (GNU tar) SunOS binary a "/boot" file from a SunOS machine that matches your machine type (e.g. sun or sun4c) a kernel, most likely "/bsd" All these pieces, except "/boot" and the GNU utilities are supplied in the OpenBSD/sparc distribution. You need to format and partition the disk using SunOS (since OpenBSD/sparc uses SunOS disk labels.) Give yourself adequate partition sizes. Here is an example layout: partition size offset will be.. sd2a 28140 0 / sd2b 16170 28140 swap sd2c 204540 0 `whole disk' sd2g 160230 44310 /usr BTW, These are not recommended sizes. They simply match the first (tiny) disk that OpenBSD/sparc ran on. Use SunOS to newfs the partitions which will have filesystems on them. (OpenBSD's filesystem format is identical to SunOS). sunos# newfs /dev/rsd2a [... lots of output] sunos# newfs /dev/rsd2g [... lots of output] NOTE: If you are able to, there is a performance benefit from newfs'ing using OpenBSD. If you newfs using the OpenBSD newfs command, be sure to use the -O flag for your / partition, so that newfs will use the 4.3BSD filesystem format, rather than the new 4.4BSD filesystem format. If you forget, you will not be able to boot -- the SunOS boot blocks do not understand the extended 4.4BSD filesystem format. Mount those partitions in a tree formation, under /mnt; ie: sunos# df Filesystem kbytes used avail capacity Mounted on [...] /dev/sd2a 11501 0 11501 0% /mnt /dev/sd2g 179529 0 179529 0% /mnt/usr Place a standard SunOS "boot" program in /mnt (your new root partition), and use the SunOS command "installboot" to make it work. The installboot man page says to do something like this: sunos# cp /usr/mdec/sdboot /mnt/boot sunos# sync; sync sunos# /usr/mdec/installboot -vlt /mnt/boot /usr/mdec/bootsd /dev/rsd2a You can now extract the provided "*.tar.gz files onto your disk. sunos# ls -FC base21.tar.gz etc21.tar.gz man21.tar.gz secr21.tar.gz comp21.tar.gz games21.tar.gz misc21.tar.gz text21.tar.gz bsd bsd.scsi3 sunos# gunzip < base21.tar.gz | (cd /mnt; gtar xvpf -) [...] for each set And finally copy an OpenBSD kernel (either bsd or bsd.scsi3) onto your disk. sunos# cp bsd.scsi3 /mnt/bsd The GNU gunzip and gtar programs are not distributed as part of SunOS, but may be present in your local/bin. If not, you will need to obtain them from a GNU archive and install before proceeding. The OpenBSD tar files are in the "new format" that includes directory information, and the standard SunOS tar will not extract from them successfully. After the files have been extracted, setup /mnt/etc/fstab to match your actual disk layout. (Minus the "/mnt" component of each path, of course :-) Now proceed to reboot the machine and the customize your installation. Net Boot or Diskless Setup Information: The set up is similar to SunOS diskless setup, but not identical, because the Sun setup assumes that the bootblocks load a kernel image, which then uses NFS to access the exported root partition, while the OpenBSD bootblocks use internal NFS routines to load the kernel image directly from the exported root partition. Please understand that no one gets this right the first try, since there is a lot of setup and all the host deamons must be running and configured correctly. If you have problems, extract the diskless(8) manpage, find someone who's been through it before and use the host syslog and tcpdump(8) to get visibility of what's happening (or not). Your Sparcstation expects to be able to download a second stage bootstrap program via TFTP after having acquired its IP address through RevARP when instructed to boot "over the net". It will look for a filename composed of the machine's IP address followed by the machine's architecture, separated by a period. For example, a sun4c machine which has been assigned IP address 130.115.144.11, will make an TFTP request for `8273900B.SUN4C'. Normally, this file is a symbolic link to an appropriate second-stage boot program, which should be located in a place where the TFTP daemon can find it (remember, many TFTP daemons run in a chroot'ed environment). You can find the boot program in `/usr/mdec/boot' in the OpenBSD/sparc distribution. Unfortunately, it is necessary to install this file differently for sun4 and sun4c clients: the sun4 version needs to have its `a.out' header stripped off (otherwise the machine will crash), while the sun4c version must retain it (otherwise the PROM will complain). Here's an example to illustrate this whole mess: server# cd //usr/mdec if client is a sun4: server# set SKIP=1 server# set KARCH=SUN4 else server# set SKIP=0 server# set KARCH=SUN4C server# dd if=boot of=/tftpboot/boot.sparc.OpenBSD.$KARCH skip=$SKIP bs=32 server# cd /tftpboot server# ln -s boot.sparc.OpenBSD.$KARCH 8273900B.$KARCH After the boot program has been loaded into memory and given control by the PROM, it starts locating the machine's remote root directory through the BOOTPARAM protocol. First a BOOTPARAM WHOAMI request is broadcast on the local net. The answer to this request (if it comes in) contains the client's name. This name is used in next step, a BOOTPARAM GETFILE request -- sent to the server that responded to the WHOAMI request -- requesting the name and address of the machine that will serve the client's root directory, as well as the path of the client's root on that server. Finally, this information (if it comes in) is used to issue a REMOTE MOUNT request to the client's root filesystem server, asking for an NFS file handle corresponding to the root filesystem. If successful, the boot rogram starts reading from the remote root filesystem in search of the kernel which is then read into memory. You will want export the miniroot21.fs filesystem to the client. You can dd this filesystem image to some spare partition, mount and export tat partition or use tar to copy the contents to a more convenient spot. Alternatively you an build bootable partition from the ditribution sets as follows: Unpack `base.tar.gz' and `etc.tar.gz' on the server in the root directory for your target machine. If you elect to use a separately NFS-mounted filesystem for `/usr' with your diskless setup, make sure the "./usr" base files in base.tar.gz end up in the correct location. One way to do this is to temporarily use a loopback mount on the server, re-routing /usr to your server's exported OpenBSD "/usr" directory. Also put the kernel and the install/upgrade scripts into the root directory. A few configuration files need to be edited: /etc/hosts Add the IP addresses of both server and client. /etc/myname This files contains the client's hostname; use the same name as in /etc/hosts. /etc/fstab Enter the entries for the remotely mounted filesystems. For example: server:/export/root/client / nfs rw 0 0 server:/export/exec/sun4.OpenBSD /usr nfs rw 0 0 Now you must populate the the `/dev' directory for your client. If you server runs SunOS 4.x, you can simply change your working directory to `/dev' and run the MAKEDEV script: `sh MAKEDEV all'. On SunOS 5.x systems, MAKEDEV can also be used, but there'll be error messages about unknown user and groups. These errors are inconsequential for the purpose of installing OpenBSD. However, you may want to correct them if you plan to the diskless setup regularly. In that case, you may re-run MAKEDEV on your OpenBSD machine once it has booted. Upgrading a previously-installed OpenBSD System: ------------------------------------------------ To upgrade to OpenBSD 2.1 from a previous version start with the general instructions in the section "Installing OpenBSD". If you are upgrading with the miniroot or the new single floppy image, select the (U)pdate option rather than the (I)nstall option at the prompt in the inststall process. If you are using the old multi-floppy installsyion procedure, use the "upgr21.fs" floppy rather than the "inst21.fs" floppy when prompted to put in the filesystem diskette. When you arrive at the shell prompt, run the "upgrade" script rather than "install" script. The upgrade script will use the existing disk partitions to install the new system in, and also preserves files in `/etc' which you are likely to have customized since a previous installation. Getting source code for your OpenBSD System: -------------------------------------------- Now that your OpenBSD system is up and running, you probably want to get access to source code so that you can recompile pieces of the system. A few methods are provided. If you have an OpenBSD CD, the source code is provided. Otherwise, you can get the pieces over the Internet using ANONCVS, CTM or FTP. For more information, see http://www.openbsd.org/anoncvs.html http://www.openbsd.org/ctm.html http://www.openbsd.org/ftp.html Using online OpenBSD documentation: ----------------------------------- Documentation is available if you first install the manual distribution set. Traditionally, the UN*X "man pages" (documentation) are denoted by 'name(section)'. Some examples of this are intro(1), man(1), apropos(1), passwd(1), and passwd(5). The section numbers group the topics into several categories, but three are of primary interest: user commands are in section 1, file formats are in section 5, and administrative information is in section 8. The 'man' command is used to view the documentation on a topic, and is started by entering 'man [section] topic'. The brackets [] around the section should not be entered, but rather indicate that the section is optional. If you don't ask for a particular section, the topic with the least-numbered section name will be displayed. For instance, after logging in, enter man passwd to read the documentation for passwd(1). To view the documentation for passwd(5), enter man 5 passwd instead. If you are unsure of what man page you are looking for, enter apropos subject-word where "subject-word" is your topic of interest; a list of possibly related man pages will be displayed. Administrivia: -------------- There are various mailing lists available via the mailing list server at . To get help on using the mailing list server, send mail to that address with an empty body, and it will reply with instructions. There are also two OpenBSD Usenet newsgroups, comp.unix.bsd.openbsd.announce for important announcements and comp.unix.bsd.openbsd.misc for general OpenBSD discussion. To report bugs, use the 'sendbug' command shipped with OpenBSD, and fill in as much information about the problem as you can. Good bug reports include lots of details. Additionally, bug reports can be sent by mail to: bugs@OpenBSD.ORG Use of 'sendbug' is encouraged, however, because bugs reported with it are entered into the OpenBSD bugs database, and thus can't slip through the cracks. As a favor, please avoid mailing huge documents or files to the mailing lists. Instead, put the material you would have sent up for FTP somewhere, then mail the appropriate list about it, or, if you'd rather not do that, mail the list saying you'll send the data to those who want it.