Installation procedure for NetBSD/macppc 10.1

NAME

INSTALL - Installation procedure for NetBSD/macppc.

CONTENTS 


 About this Document
 Quick install notes for the impatient
 What is NetBSD?
 Changes Between The NetBSD 9 and 10 Releases
 Features to be removed in a later release
 The NetBSD Foundation
 Sources of NetBSD
 NetBSD 10.1 Release Contents
    NetBSD/macppc subdirectory structure
    Binary distribution sets
 NetBSD/macppc System Requirements and Supported Devices
    Supported models
    Unsupported models
    Supported devices
    Unsupported devices
    Supported boot devices and media
 Getting the NetBSD System on to Useful Media
 Preparing your System for NetBSD installation
    Prepare yourself
 Preparing your Open Firmware 3 System for NetBSD
    Updating your BootROM
    Getting to Open Firmware 3
    Setting up Open Firmware 3 to boot NetBSD
    Available Boot Media
    Partitioning your hard drive for NetBSD
    Preparing the Open Firmware 3 Bootable Media
       Creating the NetBSD/macppc CD-R
       Preparing an HFS or HFS+ partition
       Preparing a custom hybrid HFS/ISO9660 CD-R
       Creating an MS-DOS disk
       Preparing the netboot server
       Preparing a SCSI or IDE drive with the CD-R image
 Preparing your Open Firmware 1.x or 2.x System for NetBSD
    Getting to Open Firmware on Apple Network Servers
    Open Firmware 1 and 2 System Preparation
    Getting to Open Firmware (MacOS X or Darwin)
    Getting to Open Firmware (Best, MacOS 8 or 9)
    Getting to Open Firmware (Harder, MacOS 7, 8, or 9)
    Getting to Open Firmware (Without using MacOS)
    Setting up Open Firmware 1 and 2 to boot NetBSD
    Available Boot Media
    Partitioning your hard drive for NetBSD
    Preparing the Open Firmware 1 or 2 Bootable Media
       Creating the NetBSD/macppc CD-R
       Creating the NetBSD install floppies
       Creating a custom ISO9660 CD-R
       Creating an MS-DOS disk
       Preparing the netboot server
       Preparing a SCSI or IDE drive with the CD-R image
 Installing the NetBSD System
    Open Firmware boot syntax
    Examples of Open Firmware boot commands
       Booting the NetBSD/macppc install CD-R
       Booting the NetBSD install floppies
       Booting an IDE or SCSI drive with an HFS partition
       Booting a custom CD-ROM
       Booting an MS-DOS floppy
       Booting over the ethernet
       Booting an IDE or SCSI drive with 'partition zero'
    Example of a normal boot
    Common Problems and Error Messages
       Black screen
       Grey screen with flashing question mark
       Information on your screen seems garbled or out of sync
       DEFAULT CATCH!
       CLAIM failed
       can't OPEN
       unrecognized Client Program formatstate not valid
       bad partition number, using 0no bootable HFS partition
       READ TIMEOUT@
       TFTP timeout
       enet:,/netbsd.ram.gz: Inappropriate file type or format
       Bootloader hangs before the copyright notice
       Hang after configuring devices
    Milestone
    Running the sysinst installation program
       Introduction
       General
       Quick install
       Booting NetBSD
       Network configuration
       Preparing a disk for Open Firmware 3 systems
       Installation drive selection and parameters
       Selecting which sets to install
       Partitioning the disk
       Preparing your hard disk
       Getting the distribution sets
       Installation from CD-ROM
       Installation using FTP
       Installation using NFS
       Installation from an unmounted file system
       Installation from a local directory
       Extracting the distribution sets
       Configure additional items
       Finalizing your installation
    Finalizing Open Firmware settings
       Booting NetBSD exclusively
       Additional Open Firmware tips
       Booting NetBSD and MacOS X or Darwin
       Booting NetBSD and MacOS 9 or earlier
       Other boot techniques
 Post installation steps
 Upgrading a previously-installed NetBSD System
 Compatibility Issues With Previous NetBSD Releases
 Using online NetBSD documentation
 Administrivia
 Thanks go to
 Legal Mumbo-Jumbo
 The End

DESCRIPTION

About this Document

This document describes the installation procedure for NetBSD 10.1 on the macppc platform. It is available in four different formats titled INSTALL.ext, where .ext is one of .ps, .html, .more, or .txt:

.ps
PostScript.

.html
Standard Internet HTML.

.more
The enhanced text format used on UNIX-like systems by the more(1) and less(1) pager utility programs. This is the format in which the on-line man pages are generally presented.

.txt
Plain old ASCII.

You are reading the HTML version.

Quick install notes for the impatient

This section contains some brief notes describing what you need to install NetBSD 10.1 on a machine of the macppc architecture.

What is NetBSD?

The NetBSD Operating System is a fully functional open-source operating system derived from the University of California, Berkeley Networking Release 2 (Net/2), 4.4BSD-Lite, and 4.4BSD-Lite2 sources. NetBSD runs on many different different system architectures (ports) across a variety of distinct CPU families, and is being ported to more. The NetBSD 10.1 release contains complete binary releases for most of these system architectures, with preliminary support for the others included in source form. For more information please visit https://www.NetBSD.org/.

NetBSD is a completely integrated system. In addition to its highly portable, high performance kernel, NetBSD features a complete set of user utilities, compilers for several languages, the X Window System, firewall software and numerous other tools, all accompanied by full source code.

NetBSD is a creation of the members of the Internet community. Without the unique cooperation and coordination the net makes possible, NetBSD would not exist.

Changes Between The NetBSD 9 and 10 Releases

The NetBSD 10.1 release provides many significant changes, including support for many new devices, hundreds of bug fixes, new and updated kernel subsystems, and numerous userland enhancements. The result of these improvements is a stable operating system fit for production use that rivals most commercially available systems.

One important new feature in this release is the support for extended attributes and access control lists on FFS file systems.

For new installations the installer will by default disable these features, so the file system is compatible with older NetBSD releases (before 10), and allow other operating systems to mount this file systems at least in read-only mode.

If you want a new installed file system to support extended attributes, change the file system type from ``FFSv2'' to ``FFSv2ea'' in the partitioning menu. You can also convert file systems later, using the fsck_ffs(8) utility. More details are available in this guide.

If you are upgrading from a version of NetBSD-current please also check the Compatibility Issues With Previous NetBSD Releases.

It is impossible to completely summarize the massive development that went into the NetBSD 10.1 release. The complete list of changes can be found in
CHANGES
CHANGES-10.1
which are also present in the top level directory of the NetBSD 10.1 release tree.

Features to be removed in a later release

The following features are to be removed from NetBSD in the future:

The NetBSD Foundation

The NetBSD Foundation is a tax exempt, not-for-profit 501(c)(3) corporation that devotes itself to the traditional goals and spirit of the NetBSD Project and owns the trademark of the word ``NetBSD''. It supports the design, development, and adoption of NetBSD worldwide. More information on the NetBSD Foundation, its composition, aims, and work can be found at:
       https://www.NetBSD.org/foundation/

Sources of NetBSD

Refer to mirrors

NetBSD 10.1 Release Contents

The root directory of the NetBSD 10.1 release is organized as follows:

.../NetBSD-10.1/

CHANGES
Changes between the 9.0 and 10.0 releases.

CHANGES-10.0
Changes between the initial 10.0 branch and final release of 10.0.

CHANGES-10.1
Changes between the 10.0 and the 10.1 release.

CHANGES.prev
Changes in previous NetBSD releases.

LAST_MINUTE
Last minute changes and notes about the release.

README.files
README describing the distribution's contents.

images/
Images (ISO 9660 or USB) for installing NetBSD. Depending on your system, these may be bootable.

source/
Source distribution sets; see below.

In addition to the files and directories listed above, there is one directory per architecture, for each of the architectures for which NetBSD 10.1 has a binary distribution.

The source distribution sets can be found in subdirectories of the source subdirectory of the distribution tree. They contain the complete sources to the system. The source distribution sets are as follows:

gnusrc
This set contains the ``gnu'' sources, including the source for the compiler, assembler, groff, and the other GNU utilities in the binary distribution sets.

sharesrc
This set contains the ``share'' sources, which include the sources for the man pages not associated with any particular program; the sources for the typesettable document set; the dictionaries; and more.

src
This set contains all of the base NetBSD 10.1 sources which are not in gnusrc, sharesrc, or syssrc.

syssrc
This set contains the sources to the NetBSD 10.1 kernel for all architectures as well as the config(1) utility.

xsrc
This set contains the sources to the X Window System.

All the above source sets are located in the source/sets subdirectory of the distribution tree.

The source sets are distributed as compressed tar files. Except for the pkgsrc set, which is traditionally unpacked into /usr/pkgsrc, all sets may be unpacked into /usr/src with the command:
       # cd / ; tar -zxpf set_name.tgz

In each of the source distribution set directories, there are files which contain the checksums of the files in the directory:

MD5
MD5 digests in the format produced by the command:
cksum -a MD5 file.

SHA512
SHA512 digests in the format produced by the command:
cksum -a SHA512 file.

The SHA512 digest is safer, but MD5 checksums are provided so that a wider range of operating systems can check the integrity of the release files.

NetBSD/macppc subdirectory structure
The macppc-specific portion of the NetBSD 10.1 release is found in the macppc subdirectory of the distribution: .../NetBSD-10.1/macppc/. It contains the following files and directories:

INSTALL.html
INSTALL.ps
INSTALL.txt
INSTALL.more
Installation notes in various file formats, including this file. The .more file contains underlined text using the more(1) conventions for indicating italic and bold display.
binary/
kernel/
netbsd-GENERIC.gz
A gzipped NetBSD kernel containing code for everything supported in this release.
netbsd-GENERIC_601.gz
A gzipped NetBSD kernel containing code for PowerPC 601 machines.
netbsd-GENERIC.MP.gz
A gzipped NetBSD kernel containing code for everything supported in this release. This kernel supports SMP on systems with more than one CPU.
netbsd-GENERIC_MD.gz
A gzipped NetBSD kernel containing code for everything supported in this release. It also has a RAM-disk installer. This is the kernel you should use when you want to install via netboot, from a CD-R, or an HFS partition on Open Firmware 3 systems.
netbsd-INSTALL.gz
A gzipped NetBSD kernel containing code only for Open Firmware 1.0.5, 1.1.22, 2.0.x, and 2.4 systems (i.e. those that have floppy drives). It has a RAM-disk installer.
netbsd-INSTALL_601.gz
A gzipped NetBSD kernel containing code only for PowerPC 601 machines, Open Firmware 1.0.5, 1.1.22, 2.0.x, and 2.4 systems (i.e. those that have floppy drives). It has a RAM-disk installer.
netbsd-POWERMAC_G5.gz
A gzipped NetBSD kernel containing code only for uniprocessor PowerPC 970FX and 970MP machines. It is intended for netbooting, uncompressed, via TFTP.
netbsd-POWERMAC_G5.MP.gz
A gzipped NetBSD kernel containing code only for multi-processor PowerPC 970FX and 970MP machines. It is intended for netbooting, uncompressed, via TFTP.
sets/
macppc binary distribution sets; see below.
installation/
floppy/boot1.fs
floppy/boot2.fs
macppc boot and installation floppy images. The first is the bootloader and kernel. The second image has the installation tools. Only usable on models that ship with a floppy drive (pre-Open Firmware 3); see below.
floppy/boot601_1.fs
floppy/boot601_2.fs
Same as boot1.fs, boot2.fs, except for PowerPC 601 machines only.
ofwboot.xcf
macppc bootloader; see below.
Binary distribution sets
The NetBSD macppc binary distribution sets contain the binaries which comprise the NetBSD 10.1 release for macppc. The binary distribution sets can be found in the macppc/binary/sets subdirectory of the NetBSD 10.1 distribution tree, and are as follows:

base
The NetBSD 10.1 macppc base binary distribution. You must install this distribution set. It contains the base NetBSD utilities that are necessary for the system to run and be minimally functional.

comp
Things needed for compiling programs. This set includes the system include files (/usr/include) 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.

debug
This distribution set contains debug information for all base system utilities. It is useful when reporting issues with binaries or during development. This set is huge, if the target disk is small, do not install it.

etc
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.

games
This set includes the games and their manual pages.

kern-GENERIC
This set contains a NetBSD/macppc 10.1 GENERIC kernel named /netbsd. You must install this distribution set unless you have a PowerPC 601 machine.

kern-GENERIC_601
This set contains a NetBSD/macppc 10.1 GENERIC_601 kernel named /netbsd. You must install this distribution set if you have a PowerPC 601 machine.

kern-GENERIC.MP
This set contains a NetBSD/macppc 10.1 GENERIC.MP kernel, which will use multiple processors (if present), named /netbsd.

man
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.

misc
This set includes the system dictionaries, the typesettable document set, and other files from /usr/share.

modules
This set includes kernel modules to add functionality to a running system.

rescue
This set includes the statically linked emergency recovery binaries installed in /rescue.

text
This set includes NetBSD's text processing tools, including groff(1), all related programs, and their manual pages.

NetBSD maintains its own set of sources for the X Window System in order to assure tight integration and compatibility. These sources are based on X.Org. Binary sets for the X Window System are distributed with NetBSD. The sets are:

xbase
The basic files needed for a complete X client environment. This does not include the X servers.

xcomp
The extra libraries and include files needed to compile X source code.

xdebug
This distribution set contains debug information for all X11 binaries. It is useful when reporting issues with these binaries or during development. This set is huge, if the target disk is small, do not install it.

xfont
Fonts needed by the X server and by X clients.

xetc
Configuration files for X which could be locally modified.

xserver
The X server. This includes the modular Xorg server.

The macppc binary distribution sets are distributed as gzipped tar files named with the extension .tgz, e.g. base.tgz.

The instructions given for extracting the source sets work equally well for the binary sets, but it is worth noting that if you use that method, the filenames stored in the sets are relative and therefore the files are extracted below the current directory. Therefore, if you want to extract the binaries into your system, i.e. replace the system binaries with them, you have to run the tar -xzpf command from the root directory ( / ) of your system.

Note:
Each directory in the macppc binary distribution also has its own checksum files, just as the source distribution does.

NetBSD/macppc System Requirements and Supported Devices

Currently, NetBSD/macppc requires the use of Open Firmware to boot. Open Firmware is a command environment using the FORTH language. The NetBSD kernel uses Open Firmware to gather information about your system and to control some of your devices. It is part of the boot ROMs in most PowerPC-based Macintosh systems. Until late 1996, Apple never intended to use Open Firmware for anything other than internal debugging and hardware support. It was not intended to be used to boot an operating system. This is why earlier machines have so much trouble with Open Firmware. This also means that PowerMacs and clones that lack Open Firmware cannot boot NetBSD on the macppc platform. Most machines introduced by Apple and the clone-makers after August 17, 1995 have Open Firmware and are supported.

Apple made several revisions of this Open Firmware environment, and each has various quirks and problems that we must work around. The single hardest step of installing NetBSD/macppc is to set up Open Firmware properly. Open Firmware versions 1.0.5 and 2.0.x act similarly and the same set of instructions applies to them. Open Firmware version 2.4 is slightly different with regards to booting. Open Firmware version 3 is altogether different, but easier to set up for NetBSD.

The minimal configuration requires 16 MB of RAM and 160 MB of disk space. To install the entire system requires considerably more, plus space for the swap partition (usually the RAM size, unless you've got a lot of RAM). To use X, 32MB of RAM is required. NetBSD with 16 MB of RAM is very slow. Until you have around 32 MB of RAM, getting more RAM is more important than getting a faster CPU.

Supported models
Find your model from the list below and take note of its Open Firmware version:

Open Firmware 1.0.5

Open Firmware 1.1.22

Open Firmware 2.0.x

Open Firmware 2.4

Open Firmware 3

Unsupported models
Supported devices
Unsupported devices
Supported boot devices and media
Each version of Open Firmware supports different devices and media that you may boot from. We define the terms ``bootable media'' as the media (hard drive, floppy, CD-R, ethernet) that will be used to bootstrap your macppc system into NetBSD, and ``distribution sets'' or ``distribution media'' as the media (hard drive, CD-R, ethernet) that contains the files that will be installed to generate a working NetBSD system onto your destination media.

Go to the NetBSD/macppc Model Support webpage and look up your system. Take note of the comments about your model and keep these in mind during the rest of this installation procedure.
       http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/models.html

Getting the NetBSD System on to Useful Media

You should wait to decide where to put the NetBSD distribution sets until you have figured out how you are going to boot your system. Refer back to this section after you have done so.

Note:
Some Mac OS ftp clients default to downloading files in `ASCII' mode. This will render the NetBSD files useless. Make sure to set your ftp program to download in `binary' mode.

Installation is supported from several media types, including:

The steps necessary to prepare the distribution sets for installation depend upon which installation medium you choose. The steps for the various media are outlined below.

CD-ROM / DVD / USB stick
Find out where the distribution set files are on the CD-ROM, DVD or USB stick. Likely locations are binary/sets and macppc/binary/sets. (You only need to know this if you are mixing installer and installation media from different versions - the installer will know the proper default location for the sets it comes with).

Proceed to the instructions on installation.

FTP
The preparations for this installation/upgrade method are easy; all you need to do is make sure that there's an FTP site from which you can retrieve the NetBSD distribution when you're about to install or upgrade. If you don't have DHCP available on your network, you will need to know the numeric IP address of that site, and, if it's not on a network directly connected to the machine on which you're installing or upgrading NetBSD, you need to know the numeric IP address of the router closest to the NetBSD machine. Finally, you need to know the numeric IP address of the NetBSD machine itself.

Once you have this information, you can proceed to the next step in the installation or upgrade process. If you're installing NetBSD 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.

NFS
Place the NetBSD 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 NetBSD. This will probably require modifying the /etc/exports file on 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 numeric IP address of the NFS server, and, if you don't have DHCP available on your network and the server is not on a network directly connected to the machine on which you're installing or upgrading NetBSD, you need to know the numeric IP address of the router closest to the NetBSD machine. Finally, you need to know the numeric IP address of the NetBSD 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 NetBSD 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.

Tape
To install NetBSD from a tape, you need to make a tape that contains the distribution set files, in `tar' format.

If you're making the tape on a UNIX-like system, the easiest way to do so is probably something like:

       # tar -cf tape_device dist_sets

where tape_device is the name of the tape device that represents the tape drive you're using. This might be /dev/rst0, or something similar, but it will vary from system to system. In the above example, dist_sets is a list of filenames corresponding to the distribution sets that you wish to place on the tape. For instance, to put the kern-GENERIC, base, and etc distributions on tape (the absolute minimum required for installation), you would do the following:


       # cd .../NetBSD-10.1
       # cd macppc/binary
       # tar -cf tape_device kern-GENERIC.tgz base.tgz etc.tgz

Note:
You still need to fill in tape_device in the example.

Once you have the files on the tape, you can proceed to the next step in the installation or upgrade process. If you're installing NetBSD 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.


Preparing your System for NetBSD installation

Prepare yourself
Take a deep breath.

Good. Now, make sure you are reading the PostScript or HTML version of this document, as the .txt and .more versions lack important formatting information that will prevent you from following the twisted path documented below. OK, good. Now, print out this document.

While it's printing, get some coffee, relax a bit, and mentally prepare yourself for something that promises to be confusing, frustrating, and annoying. If you assume the worst, you'll be pleasantly surprised when everything works easier than you expected. Also, forget everything you've been told about installing NetBSD/macppc. That's right, flush your knowledge cache -- some of it is almost certainly dirty.

Some of this document assumes familiarity with MacOS, e.g. how to download BinHex files and extract things with StuffIt Expander. If you've never heard of those terms before, it is possible to install NetBSD/macppc without booting or knowing how to use MacOS, but depending on your model it may be almost as painful as learning a little MacOS. See the FAQ for more help:        http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/faq.html#macos-newbie

It's done printing? Fine, time to get started.

The recommended installation procedure is as follows:

  1. Go to the NetBSD/macppc model support page and look up your model information and issues (I can't stress this enough times).
           http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/models.html

  2. Spend about 15 minutes and read through this document from this point onward. There will be many pages of instructions that apply to Open Firmware versions that you do not have. Throw them out. Do not read them -- at best you will be confused, at worst you may damage your system, requiring repairs.

  3. Now create your bootable media and media for the distribution sets.

  4. Prepare your machine, depending on the instructions for your model (for example: partition your drive, download and run System Disk, or hook up a serial console).

  5. Boot into Open Firmware and verify that it has the version of Open Firmware you think it does. Also make sure that the other variables are set correctly.

  6. Figure out the correct boot command and boot your machine from the bootable media you just created. If you're having trouble, be sure to read the section on Common Problems and Error Messages

  7. Celebrate! The worst is over, but you've still got some work to do. Take a break, maybe more coffee, maybe a quick walk around the block, whatever turns your fancy.

  8. Now use the installer to install the distribution sets onto your system and do some initial configuration.

  9. Figure out how to boot from the installed partition. Boot into NetBSD for the first time.

  10. You may then boot into Open Firmware and set it to always boot your favorite operating system.

  11. Configure to your preferences, install your favorite packages, and have fun with your new NetBSD/macppc machine!

Note:
You really actually truly do need to follow the procedure listed in this document in the order that we describe. These systems are rather tricky to boot for the novice and expert alike. Once you cross off the sections that don't apply to you, it will make more sense.

Note:
If the instructions in a subsection below do not apply to all versions of Open Firmware. There will be a line listing which versions of Open Firmware they apply to, such as:
(Open Firmware 1.0.5, Open Firmware 1.1.22, Open Firmware 2.0.x, Open Firmware 2.4, Open Firmware 3)
If you do not have an Open Firmware 3 system, skip down to Preparing your Open Firmware 1.x or 2.x System for NetBSD

Preparing your Open Firmware 3 System for NetBSD

Updating your BootROM
Open Firmware 3 systems have a rewritable ``firmware'', also called the BootROM. When you use an Apple firmware updater, it updates the BootROM. This will not change the version of Open Firmware in your machine -- it will still be Open Firmware 3. The BootROM is what is first executed when you power on or reset your system. The BootROM then loads Open Firmware, which boots your operating system.

Go to the `Apple Support Downloads' website at        http://support.apple.com/downloads/
and search for `firmware' and install the most recent version for your model. For most G3 and G4 models, you will need to run the FirmWare updater from MacOS 9.

Note:
If you accidentally change the load-base or real-base Open Firmware variables and reset your machine you will, in effect, rewrite the BootROM with garbage. This will permanently damage your machine. We recommend not doing this.

Note:
The most recent BootROMs available (4.1.7 and later) are a little picky about RAM. Initially, some PowerMacintosh G3 users found that their third-party RAM had been disabled, but the RAM vendors brought their RAM up to spec and it hasn't been much of an issue since then.

There is one report that FirmWare Update 4.1.9 on iMac (Summer 2000) will prevent the CD-ROM and the hard drive from operating together. You may get wdc0:0:1: lost interrupt problems.

Getting to Open Firmware 3
Hold down a special four-key combination when your system boots.

After the chime starts, but before it stops, hold down the four COMMAND-OPTION-O-F keys (the COMMAND key looks like a four-leaf clover or an open apple, and the OPTION key may look like a two-way switch with four straight line segments or say ALT) until you see the Open Firmware command prompt on your screen: 

Apple PowerBook3,1 2.1f1 BootROM built on 01/29/00 at 22:38:07
Copyright 1994-2000 Apple Computer, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
        

Welcome to Open Firmware.
To continue booting, type "mac-boot" and press return.
To shut down, type "shut-down" and press return.
 ok
0 >

Now, set your system to always stop at the Open Firmware prompt. 

0 > setenv auto-boot? false

Alternatively, if you are currently running MacOS X or Darwin, you can use the nvram command to set this variable before rebooting. 

# nvram auto-boot\?=false

You will need to escape the question-mark or enclose the whole nvram argument in double-quotes to prevent your shell from trying to interpret it.

Setting up Open Firmware 3 to boot NetBSD
This section describes some steps you must take to prepare Open Firmware to boot NetBSD. Additional resources are available in the FAQ regarding how to use the Open Firmware command environment, and the Open Firmware variables you may be using:
       http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/faq.html#ofw-access
       http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/faq.html#ofw-variables

Double-check your Open Firmware version: 

0 > dev /openprom
0 > .properties
name                    openprom
device_type             BootROM
model                   OpenFirmware 3
relative-addressing
supports-bootinfo
 ok

If you will be netbooting your system, you can look up your MAC address. 

0 > dev enet
0 > .properties
[...]
local-mac-address   CCCCCCCC CCCC
[...]

Note:
Some Open Firmware 3 machines have their MAC address stored incorrectly (little- vs. big-endian problem). If you look up your MAC address in MacOS, it will be different than what Open Firmware 3 uses to contact your netboot server. Your machine will still work, but its MAC address may conflict with another ethernet device on your network.

You can check your Open Firmware settings with the printenv command: 

0 > printenv
-------------- Partition: common -------- Signature: 0x70 ---------------
little-endian?      false               false
real-mode?          false               false
auto-boot?          false               true
diag-switch?        false               false
[...]
use-nvramrc?        true                false
real-base           -1                  -1
[...]
input-device        keyboard            keyboard
output-device       screen              screen
Available Boot Media
Open Firmware is capable of booting from a variety of media (such as hard drives, CD-ROMs, and ethernet). Open Firmware is able to boot files from a variety of file systems (such as ISO9660, HFS, HFS+, and MS-DOS FAT). Unfortunately, Open Firmware is not able to directly boot from the NetBSD file system (FFS) or Apple's BSD-based file system (UFS), so we must put the bootloader in a location that Open Firmware is capable of understanding.

Therefore, to boot the NetBSD kernel, Open Firmware must first load a `bootloader' (ofwboot.xcf) which knows how to load the NetBSD kernel.

Note:
Despite a note to the contrary in earlier releases that ofwboot.elf is obsoleted, that is no longer the case. It has been observed that on some newish machines (notably at least some Mac Minis), use of ofwboot.xcf will result in an early kernel panic when loading the GENERIC kernel from disk. For these machines it appears to be a workaround to use ofwboot.elf instead of ofwboot.xcf as the boot loader. The root cause for this problem has unfortunately yet to be found.

The following bootable media are available for loading the bootloader:

Once the bootloader is loaded, it can open the kernel from one of the following sources:

The boot CD image provided has both a `partition zero' bootloader and ofwboot.xcf on a hybrid partition so it can be booted on all Open Firmware versions. It also has an ISO9660 file system with an installation kernel and the distribution sets.

Partitioning your hard drive for NetBSD
You must have at least one disk that was partitioned before running the NetBSD installer.

This is the drive that will have the bootloader, ofwboot.xcf. Your NetBSD partitions may either be on this same disk (using the method described in the rest of this section), or on a separate disk accessible only to NetBSD.

This section describes how to make a single disk usable by both MacOS and NetBSD -- this is necessary for machines which have only one hard drive (such as the eMac, iBook, iMac, PowerBook, and PowerMacintosh Cube systems). If you do not want MacOS you must still follow this procedure, but create only a small HFS+ partition (large enough for the bootloader).

There are two partitioning tools available for NetBSD/macppc, disklabel(8) and pdisk(8). The former is used in the NetBSD sysinst installer, and will render your disk unusable by MacOS. It will also prevent Open Firmware 3 machines from booting from that disk. When running the installer, you will need to use the installer's ``Re-install sets'' option to skip the disklabel step.

Do not use disklabel or ``Re-install sets'' unless you will use one drive for NetBSD only and have another drive which will have the bootloader.

The process is more fully detailed in the Partitioning HOW-TO:
       http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/partitioning.html

You can create a partition map with pdisk(8), but the disk will not be usable with MacOS 9 and earlier. If this is a concern, you will need to use Apple's Drive Setup or Disk Utility.

If you are using Apple's Drive Setup tool, make sure you have version 1.8.1 or later. This tool only runs under MacOS 9 and earlier. Drive Setup will erase the contents of your drive -- it does not preserve data from any of your partitions.

Apple's Disk Utility only runs under MacOS X 10.0.0 and later. Make sure you click the ``Install Mac OS 9 Disk Drivers'' checkbox. Also, keep in mind that Disk Utility does not create the partitions that NetBSD/macppc requires. After creating the initial partition map with Disk Utility, you will need to use the NetBSD pdisk to change the partition types. Also, Disk Utility will erase the contents of your drive -- it does not preserve data from any of your partitions.

pdisk is the most flexible (and most difficult to use) partitioning tool available. It runs on almost all OSes that macppc machines support. Download it:
       https://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/macppc/netbsd-pdisk/
       https://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/macppc/macos-utils/pdisk.sea.hqx

There is built-in help describing how it works. When it asks you to enter the ``Type of partition'', use Apple_UNIX_SVR2 for NetBSD partitions, Apple_HFS for HFS and HFS+ partitions, and Apple_UFS for UFS partitions.

After you've written the partition map with pdisk, you will need to create the file systems. Use newfs(8) and mount(8) for NetBSD file systems, and hfstools to create and mount HFS file systems.
       https://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/pkgsrc/sysutils/hfsutils/

Make the following partitions:

HFS or HFS+
Must be large enough to hold the bootloader, over 100 KB. May be as large as you desire for MacOS usage.

A/UX Root
Must be at least 20 MB. Alternatively, you may decide to use one partition for your entire NetBSD installation, in which case it should be at least 200 MB. NetBSD interprets an A/UX Root partition as the first partition (a) on the disk. This partition is not readable from MacOS.

A/UX Swap
Any size. The recommendation is your RAM size, although this is not strictly necessary for machines with a lot of RAM. NetBSD interprets an A/UX Swap partition as the second partition (b) on the disk. This partition is not readable from MacOS.

A/UX User and A/UX Free1
Use these for any additional partitions you may want to use under NetBSD, such as /usr (at least 200 MB), /home, /usr/local, or /usr/pkg. NetBSD interprets these partitions as normal NetBSD-style partitions. These partitions are not readable from MacOS.

HFS
Any size. You may want to leave an additional partition available to transfer files between MacOS and NetBSD. If would like to create such a partition, then see the Partitioning HOW-TO.
       http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/partitioning.html#msdos

UFS
Any size. UFS partitions are not readable from MacOS versions prior to X 10.0.0. If you use an UFS partition as your root, then it may not be recognized by the NetBSD kernel as the first partition (a) on the disk. You will need to compile a new kernel with the root partition explicitly defined to be the UFS partition.

Now would be a good time to use pdisk to determine the partition numbers for your bootloader and kernel.

Preparing the Open Firmware 3 Bootable Media
The purpose of this section is to prepare the media from which your system will boot the installer. We'll describe how to put the files in the right places on your disk(s) or netboot server and prepare it for use on your system.

If you will be running your system diskless (i.e. entirely over NFS, not using any local hard drives), then you do not need to run the installer, you only need to extract the distribution sets on the diskless server.

To get the distribution sets onto appropriate media, see the above section entitled Getting the NetBSD System on to Useful Media. You may want to get the distribution sets when you create the bootable media.

Note:
Some MacOS ftp clients default to downloading files in `ASCII' mode. This will render the NetBSD files useless. Make sure to set your ftp program to download in `binary' mode.

What follows are the steps to create different types of bootable media for the NetBSD install kernel. You should only need to create one of these to get your system to boot the installer

Skip forward to Installing the NetBSD System

Preparing your Open Firmware 1.x or 2.x System for NetBSD

Getting to Open Firmware on Apple Network Servers
(Open Firmware 1.1.22)

The version of Open Firmware in the Apple Network Servers can only use a serial console. You must first hook up a serial console (38400 bps, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit, no handshaking) to `Port 2' (the `ttya' device in Open Firmware).

Hold down a special four-key combination on the keyboard attached to the ADB port on your system (not the serial console) when your system boots.

After the chime starts, but before it stops, hold down the four COMMAND-OPTION-O-F keys (the COMMAND key looks like a four-leaf clover or an open apple, and the OPTION key may look like a two-way switch with four straight line segments or say ALT) until you see some introductory text and the Open Firmware command prompt on your serial terminal: 

0 >

Your Apple Network Server's screen will remain black.

Now, set your system to always stop at the Open Firmware prompt. 

0 > setenv auto-boot? false

Skip down to the section on Setting up Open Firmware 1 and 2 to boot NetBSD since the next several pages are instructions for MacOS models.

Open Firmware 1 and 2 System Preparation
Open Firmware has two variables, `input-device' and `output-device', which specify how it accepts commands and displays output. All Open Firmware 1.0.5 and most Open Firmware 2.0.x systems will default to using the `Modem' serial port for the console instead of the ADB keyboard and the monitor attached to the on-board video.

Unless you use a MacOS-based utility to set these variables correctly, you will need to hook up a serial console temporarily to configure Open Firmware to use your keyboard and screen. Some models (such as the Performa 54xx, 6360, 6400, and 6500) have the `Modem' serial port covered with a piece of plastic since the internal modem usurps that serial port. You will either need to use Boot Variables to set the `input-device' and `output-device' variables to `ttyb' (which is the Printer serial port) or remove the internal modem.

Open Firmware seems to ignore the settings on most DB15 to VGA adapters. Depending on your model, it will default to either 640 x 480 at 60 Hz or to the resolution previously selected in MacOS. Make sure that your monitor can handle these resolutions.

Now would be a good time to look at the NetBSD/macppc Model Support webpage to determine the issues with your model.        http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/models.html

In particular, some models must use a serial console, or they will be unable to boot NetBSD at all. All models can be set to use a serial console, if you desire to bypass the keyboard and screen.

If, after re-reading the next several sections, you still need help figuring out your `input-device' and `output-device' settings, see the FAQ:
       http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/faq.html#ofw-input-output-devices

If you need to use a serial console, you can use a normal `printer' cable (mini-DIN 8 to mini-DIN 8) and a MacOS tool, such as ZTerm to connect a MacOS system to your NetBSD/macppc system.
       http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/HyperArchive/Archive/comm/term/zterm-101.hqx
       http://homepage.mac.com/dalverson/zterm/

See the NetBSD Serial Port Primer for additional help and references:
       http://www.NetBSD.org/docs/Hardware/Misc/serial.html

All Open Firmware 1 and 2 macppc systems have Open Firmware bugs. Luckily, Open Firmware has a small Non-Volatile RAM variable (NVRAM) which is reserved for FORTH commands which will be run before booting an operating system. Apple has released a freeware MacOS 9 tool called System Disk, which patches most of these bugs. We strongly recommend that you use this tool to patch your Open Firmware, as several systems cannot boot without these patches. Instructions for using System Disk are covered in the next section.

Unfortunately, some models are broken by or are unsupported by System Disk. If you have one of the following models, then skip down to the section on Getting to Open Firmware (Harder, MacOS 7 thru 9)
Apple Performa 4400, 5500, 6500, 54xx, 6400, and 6360,
Motorola Starmax 3000, 4000, 5000, and 5500,
APS Tech M*Power 604e/200,
PowerComputing PowerBase,
Umax Apus 2000, Apus 3000, C500, and C600
Umax S900

Getting to Open Firmware (MacOS X or Darwin)
When you install MacOS X or Darwin, it will install the necessary NVRAM bug fixes. Use the nvram command to set your system to always stop at the Open Firmware prompt, then reboot. 
# nvram auto-boot\?=false

You will need to escape the question-mark or enclose the whole nvram argument in double-quotes to prevent your shell from trying to interpret it.

You should now see the Open Firmware command prompt on your screen: 

Open Firmware, 1.0.5
To continue booting the MacOS type:
BYE<return>
To continue booting from the default boot device type:
BOOT<return>
 ok
0 >

If your screen is black, then your model has defaulted to using a serial console. You must hook up a serial console (38400 bps, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit, no handshaking).

Getting to Open Firmware (Best, MacOS 8 or 9)
Download System Disk:
       ftp://ftp.apple.com/developer/macosxserver/utilities/SystemDisk2.3.1.smi.bin

For a brief tutorial on how to use System Disk, see:
       http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/SystemDisk-tutorial/

Launch the MacOS System Disk tool. Click on ``Power User (Open Firmware)'' then click on the ``Advanced Options'' button. Now, click on the checkbox that says ``Stop Boot at Open Firmware prompt'' and select ``OK''. Click the ``Save'' button and reboot your system.

Note:
NVRAM patches and Open Firmware settings will be erased if you `zap your PRAM' by holding down COMMAND-OPTION-P-R keys during the boot chimes, or if you accidentally boot into MacOS 9 or earlier.

If your `output-device' is `/chaos/control' (i.e. you have a PowerMacintosh 7300 -- 8600 system), there is a chance that your monitor will not sync. See
       http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/SystemDisk-tutorial/of105patch.html

You should now see the Open Firmware command prompt on your screen: 

Open Firmware, 1.0.5
To continue booting the MacOS type:
BYE<return>
To continue booting from the default boot device type:
BOOT<return>
 ok
0 >

If your screen is black, then your model does not support using the on-board video in Open Firmware. You will need to connect a serial console to the `Modem' port of your system (38400 bps, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit, no handshaking).

Note:
The ``Stop Boot at Open Firmware prompt'' setting is persistent. It is equivalent to the Open Firmware command 

0 > setenv auto-boot? false

Note:
Unfortunately, there are a few models that are better off without the System Disk patches. If you find that your machine doesn't boot, then try: 

0 > setenv use-nvramrc? false
0 > reset-all
Getting to Open Firmware (Harder, MacOS 7, 8, or 9)
If System Disk doesn't work because your version of MacOS is too old or because System Disk says that it doesn't support your model, then you may try using the MacOS BootVars tool.


       https://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/macppc/macos-utils/bootvars/bootvars.sit.hqx

Note:
BootVars does not apply the (possibly critical) NVRAM patches that System Disk does. Expect some devices to not work (such as booting from hard drives and CD-ROMs).

Look up the proper `output-device' for your model on the NetBSD/macppc Model Support webpage.
       http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/models.html
If the NetBSD/macppc Model support webpage does not list an `output-device' for your model, then your system will default to using the on-board video. You needn't fill in the `output-device' and `input-device' variables.

Launch the MacOS BootVars tool. Uncheck the ``auto-boot?'' checkbox, then check on the ``All Variables'' checkbox and type kbd into the `input-device' box, and the proper device name into the `output-device' box. Click on the ``write'' button, and then reboot your system.

If your `output-device' is `/chaos/control' (i.e. you have a PowerMacintosh 7300 -- 8600 system), there is a chance that your monitor will not sync. See
       http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/SystemDisk-tutorial/of105patch.html

If you have a Performa 5500 or 6500, you may need to apply NVRAMRC patches to use your built-in video. See the information in the NetBSD/macppc Model Support webpage.

You should now see the Open Firmware command prompt on your screen: 

Open Firmware, 1.0.5
To continue booting the MacOS type:
BYE<return>
To continue booting from the default boot device type:
BOOT<return>
 ok
0 >

If your screen is black, then your model has defaulted to using a serial console. This is fairly common on Open Firmware 1 and 2 models if you do not use the System Disk tool to set up Open Firmware. You must hook up a serial console (38400 bps, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit, no handshaking).

Note:
The ``auto-boot?'' setting is persistent. Your system will always stop at the Open Firmware prompt. It is equivalent to the Open Firmware command 

0 > setenv auto-boot? false
Getting to Open Firmware (Without using MacOS)
(Open Firmware 1.0.5, Open Firmware 2.0.x, Open Firmware 2.4)

If you don't have MacOS, then you need to hold down a special four-key combination when your system boots. Do this on the keyboard attached to the ADB port on your system (not the serial console or PS/2 port) when your system boots.

Note:
Your system will not have the (possibly critical) NVRAM patches that System Disk applies. Expect some devices to not work (such as booting from hard drives and CD-ROMs).

After the chime starts, but before it stops, hold down the four COMMAND-OPTION-O-F keys (the COMMAND key looks like a four-leaf clover or an open apple, and the OPTION key may look like a two-way switch with four straight line segments or say ALT) until you see the Open Firmware command prompt on your screen or serial console: 

Open Firmware, 1.0.5
To continue booting the MacOS type:
BYE<return>
To continue booting from the default boot device type:
BOOT<return>
 ok
0 >

If your screen is black, then your system has defaulted to using a serial console. This is fairly common on Open Firmware 1 and 2 models if you do not use the System Disk tool to set up Open Firmware. You must hook up a serial console (38400 bps, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit, no handshaking).

Now, set your system to always stop at the Open Firmware prompt. 

0 > setenv auto-boot? false

To use your on-board video and keyboard, look up the proper `output-device' for your model on the NetBSD/macppc webpage
       http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/models.html
Run the following commands to use your screen instead of a serial console (replace `screen' with the correct `output-device' for your model): 

0 > setenv output-device screen
0 > setenv input-device kbd
0 > reset-all

Now you should see the Open Firmware prompt on your screen.

If your `output-device' is `/chaos/control' (i.e. you have a PowerMacintosh 7300 -- 8600 system), there is a chance that your monitor will not sync. See
       http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/SystemDisk-tutorial/of105patch.html

Setting up Open Firmware 1 and 2 to boot NetBSD
This section describes some steps you must take to prepare Open Firmware to boot NetBSD. Additional resources are available in the FAQ regarding how to use the Open Firmware command environment, and the Open Firmware variables you may be using:

       http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/faq.html#ofw-access


       http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/faq.html#ofw-variables

Double-check your Open Firmware version: 

0 > dev /openprom
0 > .properties
name                    openprom
model                   Open Firmware, 1.0.5
relative-addressing
 ok

If your system has Open Firmware prior to version 3, then you must set some Open Firmware variables before NetBSD can boot. Do not run these commands on Open Firmware 3 machines, as you may overwrite your firmware requiring a trip to Apple for repairs. 

0 > setenv load-base 600000
0 > setenv real-base F00000
0 > reset-all

The last command reboots your machine so that the settings are stored.

If you will be netbooting your system, you can look up your MAC address. 

0 > dev enet
0 > .properties
[...]
local-mac-address   CCCCCCCC CCCC
[...]
 ok

Note:
Some early Open Firmware 1.0.5 machines had their MAC address stored incorrectly on the motherboard (little- vs. big-endian problems). The patches the System Disk installs will correct this. Without the patch, the machine will still work, but its MAC address may conflict with another ethernet device on your network.

You can check your Open Firmware settings with the printenv command: 

0 > printenv
little-endian?      false               false
real-mode?          false               false
auto-boot?          false               true
diag-switch?        false               false
[...]
use-nvramrc?        true                false
real-base           F00000              -1
[...]
load-base           600000              4000
[...]
input-device        kbd                 ttya
output-device       /chaos/control      ttya

Note:
All Open Firmware 1.0.5 settings and nvram patches will be erased if you boot into MacOS 9 or earlier. You will need to re-enter them before booting NetBSD again.

Note:
Open Firmware 2.0.x and Open Firmware 2.4 systems will set the real-base environment variable to its default value (which prevents NetBSD from booting) if you boot into MacOS 9 or earlier.
Available Boot Media
Open Firmware is capable of booting from a variety of media (such as hard drives, floppy disks, CD-ROMs, and ethernet). Open Firmware is able to boot files from a variety of file systems (such as ISO9660, and MS-DOS FAT). Unfortunately, Open Firmware is not able to directly boot from the NetBSD file system (FFS) or Apple's file systems (HFS, HFS+, or UFS), so we must put the bootloader in a location that Open Firmware is capable of understanding.

Therefore, to boot the NetBSD kernel, Open Firmware must first load a `bootloader' which knows how to load the NetBSD kernel. Open Firmware 1 and 2 take either a two or three stage approach, depending on the boot media. In the two step approach, Open Firmware loads ofwboot.xcf from the boot media, which then loads the kernel. In the three step approach (used in the `partition zero' method), Open Firmware loads a primary bootloader bootxx from a disk which then loads the secondary bootloader ofwboot (which is functionally identical to ofwboot.xcf) which then loads the kernel.

Note:
Despite a note to the contrary in earlier releases that ofwboot.elf is obsoleted, that is no longer the case. It has been observed that on some newish machines (notably at least some Mac Minis), use of ofwboot.xcf will result in an early kernel panic when loading the GENERIC kernel from disk. For these machines it appears to be a workaround to use ofwboot.elf instead of ofwboot.xcf as the boot loader. The root cause for this problem has unfortunately yet to be found.

The following bootable media are available for loading the bootloader:

Once the bootloader is loaded, it can open the kernel from one of the following sources:

In theory, Open Firmware 2.4 systems should be able to load the bootloader from an HFS or HFS+ partition or a hybrid CD-R, but users have reported that it doesn't work.

The boot floppy images provided have a `partition zero' bootloader and a NetBSD file system with an installation kernel. The boot CD image provided has both a `partition zero' bootloader and ofwboot.xcf on a hybrid partition so it can be booted on all Open Firmware versions. It also has an ISO9660 file system with an installation kernel and the distribution sets.

Partitioning your hard drive for NetBSD
You must use the NetBSD installer to partition your disk if you want it to be bootable. With this release of NetBSD, there is no way to dual-boot MacOS and NetBSD on one hard drive.

You can use the instructions in this section to partition a disk that may also be used with MacOS, although a disk prepared in this way will not bootNetBSD. That means, your root partition (/) must be on a drive prepared with the NetBSD installer, but the partitions not necessary to boot (for example /usr, /home, or /export) may be on the same disk as MacOS.

Unless you are planning to use partitions on the same disk as MacOS, skip forward to Preparing the Open Firmware 1 or 2 Bootable Media

There are two partitioning tools available for NetBSD/macppc, disklabel(8) and pdisk(8). The former is used in the NetBSD sysinst installer, and will render your disk unusable by MacOS.

The process is more fully detailed in the Partitioning HOW-TO:
       http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/partitioning.html

You can create a partition map with pdisk(8), but the disk will not be usable with MacOS 9 and earlier. If this is a concern, you will need to use Apple's Drive Setup or Disk Utility.

If you are using Apple's Drive Setup tool, make sure you have version 1.8.1 or later. This tool only runs under MacOS 9 and earlier. Drive Setup will erase the contents of your drive -- it does not preserve data from any of your partitions.

Apple's Disk Utility only runs under MacOS X 10.0.0 and later. Make sure you click the ``Install Mac OS 9 Disk Drivers'' checkbox. Also, keep in mind that Disk Utility does not create the partitions that NetBSD/macppc requires. After creating the initial partition map with Disk Utility, you will need to use the NetBSD pdisk to change the partition types. Also, Disk Utility will erase the contents of your drive -- it does not preserve data from any of your partitions.

pdisk is the most flexible (and most difficult to use) partitioning tool available. It runs on almost all OSes that macppc machines support. Download it:
       https://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/macppc/netbsd-pdisk/
       https://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/macppc/macos-utils/pdisk.sea.hqx

There is built-in help describing how it works. When it asks you to enter the ``Type of partition'', use Apple_UNIX_SVR2 for NetBSD partitions, Apple_HFS for HFS and HFS+ partitions, and Apple_UFS for UFS partitions.

After you've written the partition map with pdisk, you will need to create the file systems. Use newfs(8) and mount(8) for NetBSD file systems, and hfstools to create and mount HFS file systems.
       https://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/pkgsrc/sysutils/hfsutils/

Make the following partitions:

A/UX Swap
Any size. The recommendation is your RAM size, although this is not strictly necessary for machines with a lot of RAM. NetBSD interprets an A/UX Swap partition as the second partition (b) on the disk. This partition is not readable from MacOS.

A/UX User and A/UX Free1
Use these for any additional partitions you may want to use under NetBSD, such as /usr (at least 200 MB), /home, /usr/local, or /usr/pkg. NetBSD interprets these partitions as normal NetBSD-style partitions. These partitions are not readable from MacOS.

HFS
Any size. You may want to leave an additional partition available to transfer files between MacOS and NetBSD. If would like to create such a partition, then see the Partitioning HOW-TO.
       http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/partitioning.html#msdos

UFS
Any size. UFS partitions are not readable from MacOS versions prior to X 10.0.0. If you use an UFS partition as your root, then it may not be recognized by the NetBSD kernel as the first partition (a) on the disk. You will need to compile a new kernel with the root partition explicitly defined to be the UFS partition.

Now would be a good time to use pdisk to determine the partition numbers for your bootloader and kernel.

Preparing the Open Firmware 1 or 2 Bootable Media
The purpose of this section is to prepare the media from which your system will boot the installer. We'll describe how to put the files in the right places on your disk(s) or netboot server and prepare it for use on your system.

If you will be running your system diskless (i.e. entirely over NFS, not using any local hard drives), then you do not need to run the installer, you only need to extract the distribution sets on the diskless server.

To get the distribution sets onto appropriate media, see the above section entitled Getting the NetBSD System on to Useful Media. You may want to get the distribution sets when you create the bootable media.

Note:
Some MacOS ftp clients default to downloading files in `ASCII' mode. This will render the NetBSD files useless. Make sure to set your ftp program to download in `binary' mode.

What follows are the steps to create different types of bootable media for the NetBSD install kernel. You should only need to create one of these to get your system to boot the installer



Installing the NetBSD System

Open Firmware boot syntax
The syntax of the Open Firmware boot command is:

       boot boot-device [boot-file] [-as]

where the boot-device describes where to find the bootloader, boot-file describes where to find the NetBSD kernel, and the options specify how you want to boot.

You use the boot-device to tell Open Firmware where to find ofwboot(8) by listing the device, the partition (if it's a disk), and the filename of the bootloader (if using ofwboot.xcf).

If the boot-file is on the same device and partition (if it's a disk) as the boot-device then you can just specify the kernel filename. Otherwise, you need to specify the full Open Firmware path to the kernel.

The -a flag will ask you for the location of the next item to load (i.e. the bootloader will ask where the kernel is (if unspecified), or the kernel will ask where the root file system is). The -s flag will boot into `single-user' mode.

The exact command you will be using depends on which version of Open Firmware your machine has and which device you will be booting from. Sometimes you may have to guess as we don't know all of the combinations of models, device names, and file names. In general the format is: device:[partition][,\filename]. Keep in mind for the future that you may be able to have your boot-device and boot-file on entirely different devices (such as the bootloader netbooted from enet and the kernel loaded from a hard drive on the ultra0 ATA/IDE bus).

We'll try to walk you through the process of figuring out what Open Firmware calls your device, partition, and file names. To start with, Open Firmware keeps a ``device tree'' with all of the devices it finds in your system. You can get a listing of the nodes in this device tree with the dev and ls commands. dev is similar to the unix cd command and is used to change between the nodes in the Open Firmware device tree (similar to a file system). ls of course is similar to the unix ls command and is used to list the contents of the current device node. To get a listing of all the devices available in your system, use the following commands: 

0 > dev /
0 > ls

Open Firmware has device aliases which are simple names for the full hardware path to a device (similar to alias in csh(1)). You can find out what device aliases Apple created on your machine with the devalias command. For example, here are the devaliases on a PowerMacintosh 7300: 

0 > devalias
vci0                /chaos@F0000000
pci1                /bandit@F2000000
pci2                /bandit@F4000000
fd                  /bandit/gc/swim3
kbd                 /bandit/gc/via-cuda/adb/keyboard
ttya                /bandit/gc/escc/ch-a
ttyb                /bandit/gc/escc/ch-b
enet                /bandit/gc/mace
scsi                /bandit/gc/53c94
scsi-int            /bandit/gc/mesh
 ok

On most systems, you'll find the devices you're looking for. Typical aliases are:

hd internal hard drive
cd CD-ROM drive
zip internal Zip drive
enet ethernet
fd floppy drive
scsi SCSI bus
scsi-int internal SCSI bus (on systems with multiple SCSI busses)
ata ATA/IDE bus
ideN ATA/IDE bus number N
ultraN Ultra/66 or Ultra/100 IDE bus number N

Note that some of these items are the device itself, and some are a bus. When you only have the devalias to a bus, you need to specify which device on that bus you want to use. You can use the Open Firmware dev and ls commands. For example, here are the devices on the internal SCSI bus of a PowerMacintosh 7300: 

0 > dev scsi-int
0 > ls
FF83C850: /sd@0,0
FF83D480: /st@0,0
 ok

In this case, Open Firmware seems to be saying there are two devices, both at address zero (one is a SCSI disk `sd@0,0' and the other is a SCSI tape `st@0,0 ).' Unfortunately, older systems will only list the naming convention and not the actual devices currently connected, but that's OK -- we've got more tricks up our sleeve.

If you've got ATA/IDE drives, you have all the device information you need (since Apple only ever ships drives as ``master'' which is typically something like ata-disk@0, ATA-Disk@0, atapi-disk, or disk@0 ).

You can find out the devices on your SCSI bus with the show-children command: 

0 > dev scsi-int
0 > show-children
Target 0
  Unit 0  Disk     IBM     DCAS-32160      S65A
Target 3
  Unit 0  Removable Read Only device    SONY    CD-ROM CDU-8005 1.0j
 ok

Open Firmware calls SCSI IDs ``Target''. The ``Unit'' number is the Logical Unit Number (LUN). This is almost always zero. Thus, this PowerMacintosh system has an IBM hard drive (DCAS-32160) at SCSI ID 0, and a Sony CD-ROM drive (CDU-8005) at SCSI ID 3.

Now, we've got enough information to construct the device name for Open Firmware. Just stick everything together to describe to Open Firmware what you want. For example, Open Firmware calls the CD-ROM drive in this system scsi-int/sd@3.

To determine if a device is bootable, type: 

0 > dev scsi-int/sd@3
0 > words
load          write        read          seek        close     open
write-blocks  read-blocks  max-transfer  block-size  dma-sync  dma-map-out
dma-map-in    dma-free     dma-alloc
 ok

If the word ``open'' is present in the list, then the device is almost certainly bootable.

Next, you need to figure out what partition Open Firmware thinks your bootloader is located on if you're going to boot from a disk. If you're using a ``partition zero'' bootloader, the answer is obvious: 0. Thus, your boot-device for the NetBSD/macppc CD-R image on an Open Firmware 1.0.5 system would be scsi-int/sd@3:0 since the image has a `partition zero' bootloader.

Other situations get a little trickier, as we know of no way to get a partition map from within Open Firmware, and it uses a different numbering scheme than either NetBSD or MacOS 9 (or earlier). You can use pdisk to get a listing of the partitions on a disk. See the Partitioning HOW-TO for help:
       http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/partitioning.html#pdisk

Typically, MS-DOS and ISO9660 formatted disks have their file systems at partition 1. Typically, Drive Setup formatted disks have their file systems starting at partition number 9. Often, if you omit the partition number, Open Firmware looks in the first partition it understands holding a valid file system.

Open Firmware uses a comma (,) to separate the partition number from the filename. It uses a backslash (the \ character) to separate directories. The bootloader uses forward slashes (the / character) to separate directories when specifying the boot-file. Thus, to specify the top of the file system on a CD-ROM in the example PowerMacintosh 7300 system, you'd use: scsi-int/sd@3:,\

Now, to confirm that you and Open Firmware are looking at the same files, you can get a directory listing of the file system on your device with the dir command. This command is only useful with file systems that Open Firmware understands and is able to boot from. On Open Firmware 1.0.5, 1.1.22, and 2.0.x systems, you can use dir on ISO9660 (not hybrid) and MS-DOS file systems. On Open Firmware 2.4, you can use it on HFS, HFS+, hybrid, ISO9960, and MS-DOS file systems. On Open Firmware 3, you can use it on HFS, HFS+, hybrid (not pure ISO9660), and MS-DOS file systems. The one exception to this rule is that Open Firmware cannot list files on a disk with a `partition zero' bootloader (including the NetBSD/macppc CD-R image and installation floppies). 

0 > dir fd:,\
FINDER  .DAT 022 2 2B8
DESKTOP .    022 0 0
RESOURCE.FRK 012 3 0
NETBSD~1.GZ  020 5 1FDFCA
TRASH   .    010 B00 0
OFWBOOT .XCF 020 A75 D8F4
 ok
You can see that this MS-DOS formatted disk has a bunch of stuff, as well as the two important files: NETBSD~1.GZ and OFWBOOT.XCF. Note that MacOS shortened netbsd-GENERIC_MD.gz to NETBSD~1.GZ since MS-DOS file systems can only natively hold 8 characters for the filename.

Note:
Keep in mind that Open Firmware is often case-sensitive when it comes to filenames.

Note:
You may need to append a ;1 to the filename when using a ISO 9660 file system. This ``version number'' is part of the ISO 9660 specification and will show up in the directory listing if it is present on the disk. For example: 
0 > boot cd:,\OFWBOOT.XCF;1 NETBSD.MACPPC;1

Note:
PowerPC 601 machines need to specify the NETBSD.601 kernel when booting from the install CD, and use the kern-GENERIC_601.tgz and netbsd-INSTALL_601.gz kernels.

If the dir command showed you the files you're looking for, then you've figure out how to tell Open Firmware to look for your bootloader! In this case, your `boot-device' is `fd:,\OFWBOOT.XCF' and your `boot-file' is `fd:,/NETBSD~1.GZ'.

For additional help, see ofwboot(8) and the FAQ on topics like how to use the Open Firmware command environment and how to boot from a device attached to a PCI card which has Open Firmware support:
       http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/faq.html#ofw-use
       http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/faq.html#boot-pci

Examples of Open Firmware boot commands
Here are some examples of the commands you might use to boot your system:
Example of a normal boot
Of course, a lot of the information in this example depends on your model and what your boot method is, but we'll include this anyways just so you get an idea of what to expect (user-typed commands are in bold). 
 Apple PowerBook3,1 2.1f1 BootROM built on 01/29/00 at 22:38:07
 Copyright 1994-2000 Apple Computer, Inc.
 All Rights Reserved
        

 Welcome to Open Firmware.
 To continue booting, type "mac-boot" and press return.
 To shut down, type "shut-down" and press return.
  ok
0 > boot enet:,ofwboot.xcf netbsd-GENERIC_MD.gz
 loading XCOFF
 tsize=C280 dsize=14AC bsize=2620 entry=600000
 SECTIONS:
 .text    00600000 00600000 0000C280 000000E0
 .data    0060D000 0060D000 000014AC 0000C360
 .bss     0060E4B0 0060E4B0 00002620 00000000
 loading .text, done..
 loading .data, done..
 clearing .bss, done..
        

 >> NetBSD/macppc OpenFirmware Boot, Revision 1.3
 >> (tsubai@mint.iri.co.jp, Sun Nov 26 01:41:27 JST 2000)
 1701508+177748 [100+68176+55886]=0x1e9468
        

  start=0x100000
 Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001
     The NetBSD Foundation, Inc.  All rights reserved.
 Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
     The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
        

 NetBSD 1.5.1 (INSTALL) #0: Thu Mar 15 00:52:56 PST 2001
     mw@al:/usr/src/sys/arch/macppc/compile/INSTALL
 total memory = 192 MB
 avail memory = 172 MB
 using 2483 buffers containing 9932 KB of memory
 [...]
 erase ^H, werase ^W, kill ^U, intr ^C, status ^T
 Terminal type? [vt100]
 Erase is backspace.
 (I)nstall, (S)hell or (H)alt ?
Common Problems and Error Messages
This is a brief list of some of the Open Firmware problems you may run into. See the NetBSD/macppc FAQ for a thorough list.
       http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/macppc/faq.html#boot-trouble

Note:
You may find it necessary to remove all non-Apple devices from your machine. Some users have found this necessary.

Milestone
If you've reached this point, then you must've gotten the NetBSD installer to boot. Congratulations! That was the hard part. From now through the rest of this document, there should be no more Open Firmware specific problems, so read everything because it applies to all models.

Running the sysinst installation program

  1. Introduction

    Using sysinst, installing NetBSD is a relatively easy process. Still, you should read this document and have it available during the installation process. This document tries to be a good guide to the installation, and as such, covers many details for the sake of completeness. Do not let this discourage you; the install program is not hard to use.

  2. General

    The following is a walk-through of the steps you will take while installing NetBSD on your hard disk. sysinst is a menu-driven program that guides you through the installation process. Sometimes questions will be asked, and in many cases the default answer will be displayed in brackets (``[ ]'') after the question. If you wish to stop the installation, you may press CONTROL-C at any time, but if you do, you'll have to begin the installation process again from scratch by running the /sysinst program from the command prompt. It is not necessary to reboot.

  3. Quick install

    First, let's describe a quick install. The other sections of this document go into the installation procedure in more detail, but you may find that you do not need this. If you want detailed instructions, skip to the next section. This section describes a basic installation, using a CD / DVD as the install medium.

  4. Booting NetBSD

    You may want to read the boot messages, to notice your disk's name and capacity. 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 may need your disk's geometry when creating NetBSD's partitions. You will also need to know the name, to tell sysinst which disk to use. The most important thing to know is that wd0 is NetBSD's name for your first IDE disk, wd1 the second, etc. sd0 is your first SCSI disk, sd1 the second, etc.

    Once NetBSD has booted and printed all the boot messages, you will be presented with a welcome message and a main menu. It will also include instructions for using the menus.

  5. Network configuration

    If you do not intend to use networking during the installation, but you do want your machine to be configured for networking once the system is installed, you should first go to the Utility menu and select the Configure network option. If you only want to temporarily use networking during the installation, you can specify these parameters later. If you are not using the Domain Name System (DNS), you can give an empty response when asked to provide a server.

  6. Preparing a disk which will be used for Open Firmware 3 systems

    Skip this step if you are installing NetBSD on an Open Firmware 1 or 2 system.

    Go to the Utility Menu, and select the Run /bin/sh option which will give you a shell prompt. From this shell prompt, you will do some of the steps that the normal install procedure runs automatically. Unfortunately, at the moment, our install tools aren't smart enough to deal with drives with Apple Partition Maps and will overwrite important information describing your partitions.

    You may need to type one of the following commands to get your delete key to work properly, depending on your keyboard:
           # stty erase '^h'
           # stty erase '^?'

    Type the following command (replacing wd0 with the name of your destination hard drive):
           # disklabel wd0

    This will print out the partition info that was generated by pdisk, Drive Setup, or Disk Utility. Note that, as discussed above in the Partitioning your hard drive for NetBSD section, your A/UX Root typically is the first partition (a) and your A/UX Swap typically is the second partition (b). You may also find that your A/UX User partition is the seventh partition (g). For example: 


    
      
# disklabel wd0

    
[...]
#        size   offset     fstype   [fsize bsize cpg/sgs]
  a:   426613   837432     4.2BSD        0     0     0   # (Cyl. 1622*- 2449*)
  b:   204800   632632       swap                        # (Cyl. 1226*- 1622*)
  c:  2134305        0     unused        0     0         # (Cyl.    0 - 4136*)
  d:   426616     1216        HFS                        # (Cyl.    2*- 829*)
  e:   204800   427832        HFS                        # (Cyl.  829*- 1226*)
  f:       21  2134284    unknown                        # (Cyl. 4136*- 4136*)
  g:   870239  1264045     4.2BSD        0     0     0   # (Cyl. 2449*- 4136*)
disklabel: boot block size 0
disklabel: super block size 0

    Now, you need to create file systems on the partitions that NetBSD will be using.

    Do not modify any partitions labeled HFS, UFS, or unknown. The partitions you will be using have their fstype listed as 4.2BSD.

    Run the newfs command on the 4.2BSD partitions: 


    
      
# newfs /dev/wd0a

    
newfs: /dev/wd0a: not a character-special device
Warning: 120 sector(s) in last cylinder unallocated
/dev/wd0a:      426612 sectors in 827 cylinders of 4 tracks, 129 sectors
        208.3MB in 52 cyl groups (16 c/g, 4.03MB/g, 1024 i/g)
super-block backups (for fsck -b #) at:
     32,   8432,  16832,  25232,  33056,  41456,  49856,  58256,  66080,
  74480,  82880,  91280,  99104, 107504, 115904, 124304, 132128, 140528,
 148928, 157328, 165152, 173552, 181952, 190352, 198176, 206576, 214976,
 223376, 231200, 239600, 248000, 256400, 264224, 272624, 281024, 289424,
 297248, 305648, 314048, 322448, 330272, 338672, 347072, 355472, 363296,
 371696, 380096, 388496, 396320, 404720, 413120, 421520,
newfs: ioctl (WDINFO): Invalid argument
newfs: /dev/wd0a: can't rewrite disk label
    You can ignore the `not a character-special device', `sector(s) in last cylinder unallocated', `ioctl (WDINFO): Invalid argument', and `can't rewrite disk label' warnings.

    Now you need to mount your destination root partition:
           # mount /dev/wd0a /mnt

    Make an fstab file for your new system (right now, you only really need to include /, /usr, and swap), for example:
           # mkdir /mnt/etc
           # cat > /mnt/etc/fstab
           /dev/wd0a / ffs rw 1 1
           /dev/wd0b none swap sw 0 0
           /dev/wd0g /usr ffs rw 1 2

    If you mess up while typing, you can press CONTROL-U to erase everything on the current line, or CONTROL-C to cancel the file creation, so you can start over. CONTROL-D finishes and writes the file to disk.

    Great, now create the mountpoints for the file systems you listed in the fstab:
           # mkdir /mnt/usr

    Clean up and return to sysinst:
           # cd /
           # umount /mnt
           # exit

  7. Installation drive selection and parameters

    To start the installation onto a dedicated NetBSD drive (Open Firmware 1 or 2), select Install NetBSD to hard disk from the main menu. To start the installation onto a drive with an Apple Partition Map (Open Firmware 3), select Re-install sets or install additional sets from the main menu.

    The first thing is to identify the disk on which you want to install NetBSD. sysinst will report a list of disks it finds and ask you for your selection. You should see disk names like wd0, wd1, sd0 or sd1.

    If sysinst reports
           I can not find any hard disk for use by NetBSD
    or the drive you wish to install onto is missing, then you should look at the FAQ entry.

  8. Selecting which sets to install

    The next step is to choose which distribution sets you wish to install. Options are provided for full, minimal, and custom installations. If you choose sets on your own, base, etc, and a kernel must be selected.

  9. Partitioning the disk

    You can skip a few steps, down to `Getting the distribution sets', if you are installing onto a drive with an Apple Partition Map (Open Firmware 3), i.e., you selected Re-install sets or install additional sets from the main menu.

  10. Editing the NetBSD disklabel

    The partition table of the NetBSD part of a disk is called a disklabel. In actuality, NetBSD/macppc uses an Apple Partition Map. The installer creates something like a real Apple Partition Map, but it is not compatible with Mac OS or Open Firmware, which is one of the reasons why you cannot use this installer to partition a disk that can be used with Mac OS or Open Firmware 3 systems.

    If your disk already has a disklabel written to it, you can choose Use existing partition sizes. Otherwise, select Set sizes of NetBSD partitions.

    After you have chosen your partitions and their sizes (or if you opted to use the existing partitions), you will be presented with the layout of the NetBSD disklabel and given one more chance to change it. For each partition, you can set the type, offset and size, block and fragment size, and the mount point. The type that NetBSD uses for normal file storage is called 4.2BSD. A swap partition has a special type called swap. Some partitions in the disklabel have a fixed purpose.

    a
    Root partition (/)

    b
    Swap partition.

    c
    The entire disk.

    d-p
    Available for other use. Traditionally, g is the partition mounted on /usr, but this is historical practice and not a fixed value.

    You will then be asked to name your disk's disklabel. The default response will be OK for most purposes. If you choose to name it something different, make sure the name is a single word and contains no special characters. You don't need to remember this name.

  11. Preparing your hard disk

    You are now at the point of no return. Nothing has been written to your disk yet, but if you confirm that you want to install NetBSD, your hard drive will be modified. If you are sure you want to proceed, select yes.

    The install program will now label your disk and create the file systems you specified. The file systems will be initialized to contain NetBSD bootstrapping binaries and configuration files. You will see messages on your screen from the various NetBSD disk preparation tools that are running. There should be no errors in this section of the installation. If there are, restart from the beginning of the installation process. Otherwise, you can continue the installation program after pressing the return key.

    Note:
    The bootstrapping code installed in this step will not boot a machine with Open Firmware 3. You will still need to have ofwboot.xcf on an HFS or HFS+ partition.

  12. Getting the distribution sets

    The NetBSD distribution consists of a number of sets that come in the form of gzipped tar files. At this point, you will be presented with a menu which enables you to choose from one of the following methods of installing the sets. Some of these methods will first transfer the sets to your hard disk, others will extract the sets directly.

    For all these methods, the first step is to make the sets available for extraction. The sets can be made available in a few different ways. The following sections describe each of the methods. After reading about the method you will be using, you can continue to the section labeled `Extracting the distribution sets'.

  13. Installation from CD-ROM

    When installing from a CD-ROM, you will be asked to specify the device name for your CD-ROM drive (usually cd0) and the directory name on the CD-ROM where the distribution files are.

    sysinst will then check that the files are actually present in the specified location and proceed to the extraction of the sets.

  14. Installation using FTP

    To install using FTP, you first need to configure your network setup if you haven't already done so. sysinst will help you with this, asking if you want to use DHCP. If you do not use DHCP, you can enter network configuration details yourself. If you do not have DNS set up for the machine that you are installing on, you can just press RETURN in answer to this question, and DNS will not be used.

    You will also be asked to specify the host that you want to transfer the sets from, the directory on that host, the account name and password used to log into that host using FTP, and optionally a proxy server to use. If you did not set up DNS, you will need to specify an IP address instead of a hostname for the FTP server.

    sysinst will then transfer the set files from the remote site to your hard disk.

  15. Installation using NFS

    To install using NFS, you first need to configure your network setup if you haven't already done so. sysinst will do this for you, asking you if you want to use DHCP. If you do not use DHCP, you can enter network configuration details yourself. If you do not have DNS set up for the machine that you are installing on, you can just press RETURN in answer to this question, and DNS will not be used.

    You will also be asked to specify the host that you want to transfer the sets from and the directory on that host that the files are in. This directory should be mountable by the machine you are installing on, i.e., correctly exported to your machine.

    If you did not set up DNS, you will need to specify an IP address instead of a hostname for the NFS server.

  16. Installation from an unmounted file system

    In order to install from a local file system, you will need to specify the device that the file system resides on (for example wd1e), the type of the file system, and the directory on the specified file system where the sets are located. sysinst will then check if it can indeed access the sets at that location. Remember, NetBSD/macppc doesn't grok HFS or HFS+ partitions

  17. Installation from a local directory

    This option assumes that you have already done some preparation yourself. The sets should be located in a directory on a file system that is already accessible. sysinst will ask you for the name of this directory.

  18. Extracting the distribution sets

    A progress bar will be displayed while the distribution sets are being extracted.

    After all the files have been extracted, the device node files will be created. If you have already configured networking, you will be asked if you want to use this configuration for normal operation. If so, these values will be installed in the network configuration files.

  19. Configure additional items

    The next menu will allow you to select a number of additional items to configure, including the time zone that you're in, to make sure your clock has the right offset from UTC, the root user's shell, and the initial root password.

    You can also enable installation of binary packages, which installs the pkgin(1) tool for managing binary packages for third-party software. This will feel familiar to users of package tools such as apt-get or yum. If you prefer to install third-party software from source, you can install the pkgsrc(7) tree.

    Finally, you can enable some daemons such as sshd(8), ntpd(8), or mdnsd(8).

  20. Finalizing your installation

    Congratulations, you have successfully installed NetBSD 10.1.

Finalizing Open Firmware settings
Now, you can reboot to get to the Open Firmware prompt. You still need to figure out how to get Open Firmware to boot the operating system(s) of your choice. First, try to get NetBSD/macppc running. Using the methods described in the section Examples of Open Firmware boot commands figure out the boot command for your installation of NetBSD. Try booting. Once you've got the syntax worked out, decide which operating systems you'll be using regularly.

Post installation steps

Once you've got the operating system running, there are a few things you need to do in order to bring the system into a properly configured state. The most important steps are described below.

  1. Before all else, read postinstall(8).

  2. Configuring /etc/rc.conf

    If you or the installation software haven't done any configuration of /etc/rc.conf (sysinst normally will), the system will drop you into single user mode on first reboot with the message

           /etc/rc.conf is not configured. Multiuser boot aborted.

    and with the root file system (/) mounted read-only. When the system asks you to choose a shell, simply press RETURN to get to a /bin/sh prompt. If you are asked for a terminal type, respond with vt100 (or whatever is appropriate for your terminal type) and press RETURN. You may need to type one of the following commands to get your delete key to work properly, depending on your keyboard:
           # stty erase '^h'
           # stty erase '^?'
    At this point, you need to configure at least one file in the /etc directory. You will need to mount your root file system read/write with:
           # /sbin/mount -u -w /
    Change to the /etc directory and take a look at the /etc/rc.conf file. Modify it to your tastes, making sure that you set rc_configured=YES so that your changes will be enabled and a multi-user boot can proceed. Default values for the various programs can be found in /etc/defaults/rc.conf, where some in-line documentation may be found. More complete documentation can be found in rc.conf(5).

    When you have finished editing /etc/rc.conf, type exit at the prompt to leave the single-user shell and continue with the multi-user boot.

    Other values that may need to be set in /etc/rc.conf for a networked environment are hostname and possibly defaultroute. You may also need to add an ifconfig_int for your <int> network interface, where your on-board interfaces may be one of mc0, bm0, tlp0 or gem0. For example:


           ifconfig_mc0="inet 192.0.2.123 netmask 255.255.255.0"

    or, if you have myname.my.dom in /etc/hosts:


           ifconfig_mc0="inet myname.my.dom netmask 255.255.255.0"

    To enable proper hostname resolution, you will also want to add an /etc/resolv.conf file or (if you are feeling a little more adventurous) run named(8). See resolv.conf(5) or named(8) for more information.

    Instead of manually configuring networking, DHCP can be used by setting dhcpcd=YES in /etc/rc.conf.

  3. Logging in

    After reboot, you can log in as root at the login prompt. If you didn't set a password in sysinst, there is no initial password. You should create an account for yourself (see below) and protect it and the ``root'' account with good passwords. By default, root login from the network is disabled (even via ssh(1)). One way to become root over the network is to log in as a different user that belongs to group ``wheel'' (see group(5)) and use su(1) to become root.

  4. Adding accounts

    Use the useradd(8) command to add accounts to your system. Do not edit /etc/passwd directly! See vipw(8) and pwd_mkdb(8) if you want to edit the password database.

  5. The X Window System

    If you installed the X Window System, you may want to read the chapter about X in the NetBSD Guide:

  6. Installing third-party packages

    If you wish to install any of the software freely available for UNIX-like systems you are strongly advised to first check the NetBSD package system, pkgsrc. pkgsrc automatically handles any changes necessary to make the software run on NetBSD. This includes the retrieval and installation of any other packages the software may depend upon.

  7. Misc

Upgrading a previously-installed NetBSD System

The easiest way to upgrade to NetBSD 10.1 is with binaries, and that is the method documented here.

To do the upgrade, you must boot the install kernel using one of the methods described above. You must also have at least the base and kern binary distribution sets available. Finally, you must have sufficient disk space available to install the new binaries. Since files already installed on the system are overwritten in place, you only need additional free space for files which weren't previously installed or to account for growth of the sets between releases.

Since upgrading involves replacing the kernel, boot blocks, and most of the system binaries, it has the potential to cause data loss. You are strongly advised to back up any important data on the NetBSD partition or on another operating system's partition on your disk before beginning the upgrade process. Since installation of the bootloader will prevent Mac OS from using the disk and will prevent Open Firmware 3 machines from booting, there is an option to bypass this step. Make sure you know whether or not to install the bootloader.

The upgrade procedure is similar to an installation, but without the hard disk partitioning.

Fetching the binary sets is done in the same manner as the installation procedure; refer to the installation part of the document for help. File systems are checked before unpacking the sets.

After a new kernel has been copied to your hard disk, your machine is a complete NetBSD 10.1 system. However, that doesn't mean that you're finished with the upgrade process. You will probably want to update the set of device nodes you have in /dev. If you've changed the contents of /dev by hand, you will need to be careful about this, but if not, you can just cd into /dev, and run the command:

       # sh MAKEDEV all

sysinst will attempt to merge the settings stored in your /etc directory with the new version of NetBSD using the postinstall(8) utility. However, postinstall(8) is only able to deal with changes that are easily automated. It is recommended that you use the etcupdate(8) tool to merge any remaining configuration changes.

Compatibility Issues With Previous NetBSD Releases

Users upgrading from previous versions of NetBSD may wish to bear the following problems and compatibility issues in mind when upgrading to NetBSD 10.1.

Note that sysinst will automatically invoke 

postinstall fix
and thus all issues that are fixed by postinstall by default will be handled.

In NetBSD9 and earlier, filesystems listed in /etc/fstab would be mounted before non-legacy zfs filesystems. Starting from NetBSD10 this order has been reversed.

If you have ever run a version of NetBSD-current between April 18, 2020 and September 23, 2022 (the version numbers used in the affected time range are between 9.99.56 and 9.99.106) your FFS file systems might have broken extended attributes stored.

You should follow this guide before booting the updated system multi-user for the first time.

Note that you do not need to do anything special if you never did run any affected kernel, especially if you have never run NetBSD-current.

The display drivers used for modern GPUs and the whole subsystem supporting it (DRM/KMS) have been updated to a newer version. Unfortunately not all issues with this have been resolved before the NetBSD10.0 release. You can find a list of issues in the Open issues with new DRM/KMS section of the release engineering wiki page.

A number of things have been removed from the NetBSD 10.1 release. See the ``Components removed from NetBSD'' section near the beginning of this document for a list.

Using online NetBSD documentation

Documentation is available if you installed the manual distribution set. Traditionally, the ``man pages'' (documentation) are denoted by `name(section)'. Some examples of this are

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 lowest 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

If you've got something to say, do so! We'd like your input. There are various mailing lists available via the mailing list server at majordomo@NetBSD.org. See
       https://www.NetBSD.org/mailinglists/
for details.

There are various mailing lists set up to deal with comments and questions about this release. Please send comments to: netbsd-comments@NetBSD.org.

To report bugs, use the send-pr(1) command shipped with NetBSD, and fill in as much information about the problem as you can. Good bug reports include lots of details.

Bugs also can be submitted and queried with the web interface at
       https://www.NetBSD.org/support/send-pr.html

There are also port-specific mailing lists, to discuss aspects of each port of NetBSD. Use majordomo to find their addresses, or visit
       https://www.NetBSD.org/mailinglists/

If you're interested in doing a serious amount of work on a specific port, you probably should contact the `owner' of that port (listed below).

If you'd like to help with NetBSD, and have an idea as to how you could be useful, send us mail or subscribe to: netbsd-users@NetBSD.org.

As a favor, please avoid mailing huge documents or files to these mailing lists. Instead, put the material you would have sent up for FTP or WWW somewhere, then mail the appropriate list about it. If you'd rather not do that, mail the list saying you'll send the data to those who want it.

Thanks go to

All product names mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

The following notices are required to satisfy the license terms of the software that we have mentioned in this document:

NetBSD is a registered trademark of The NetBSD Foundation, Inc.

This product includes software developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its contributors.
This product includes software developed by the NetBSD Foundation.
This product includes software developed by The NetBSD Foundation, Inc. and its contributors.
This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project. See https://www.NetBSD.org/ for information about NetBSD.
This product includes cryptographic software written by Eric Young (eay@cryptsoft.com)
This product includes cryptographic software written by Eric Young (eay@mincom.oz.au)
This product includes software designed by William Allen Simpson.
This product includes software developed at Ludd, University of Luleå.
This product includes software developed at Ludd, University of Luleå, Sweden and its contributors.
This product includes software developed at the Information Technology Division, US Naval Research Laboratory.
This product includes software developed by Aaron Brown and Harvard University.
This product includes software developed by Adam Ciarcinski for the NetBSD project.
This product includes software developed by Adam Glass.
This product includes software developed by Adam Glass and Charles M. Hannum.
This product includes software developed by Alex Zepeda.
This product includes software developed by Alex Zepeda, and Colin Wood for the NetBSD Project.
This product includes software developed by Allen Briggs.
This product includes software developed by Amancio Hasty and Roger Hardiman
This product includes software developed by Ben Gray.
This product includes software developed by Berkeley Software Design, Inc.
This product includes software developed by Bill Paul.
This product includes software developed by Bodo Möller.
This product includes software developed by Boris Popov.
This product includes software developed by Brini.
This product includes software developed by Bruce M. Simpson.
This product includes software developed by Causality Limited.
This product includes software developed by Charles Hannum.
This product includes software developed by Charles M. Hannum.
This product includes software developed by Charles M. Hannum, by the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College and Garrett A. Wollman, by William F. Jolitz, and by the University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, and its contributors.
This product includes software developed by Christian E. Hopps.
This product includes software developed by Christian E. Hopps, Ezra Story, Kari Mettinen, Markus Wild, Lutz Vieweg and Michael Teske.
This product includes software developed by Christopher G. Demetriou.
This product includes software developed by Christopher G. Demetriou for the NetBSD Project.
This product includes software developed by Chuck Silvers.
This product includes software developed by Cisco Systems, Inc.
This product includes software developed by Colin Wood.
This product includes software developed by Colin Wood for the NetBSD Project.
This product includes software developed by Computing Services at Carnegie Mellon University (http://www.cmu.edu/computing/).
This product includes software developed by Daan Vreeken.
This product includes software developed by Daishi Kato
This product includes software developed by Daniel Widenfalk and Michael L. Hitch.
This product includes software developed by Daniel Widenfalk for the NetBSD Project.
This product includes software developed by David Jones and Gordon Ross
This product includes software developed by David Miller.
This product includes software developed by Dean Huxley.
This product includes software developed by Emmanuel Dreyfus
This product includes software developed by Eric S. Hvozda.
This product includes software developed by Eric S. Raymond
This product includes software developed by Eric Young (eay@cryptsoft.com)
This product includes software developed by Eric Young (eay@mincom.oz.au)
This product includes software developed by Ezra Story.
This product includes software developed by Ezra Story and by Kari Mettinen.
This product includes software developed by Ezra Story, by Kari Mettinen and by Bernd Ernesti.
This product includes software developed by Ezra Story, by Kari Mettinen, and Michael Teske.
This product includes software developed by Ezra Story, by Kari Mettinen, Michael Teske and by Bernd Ernesti.
This product includes software developed by Frank van der Linden for the NetBSD Project.
This product includes software developed by Gardner Buchanan.
This product includes software developed by Garrett D'Amore.
This product includes software developed by Gary Thomas.
This product includes software developed by Gordon Ross
This product includes software developed by Harvard University.
This product includes software developed by Harvard University and its contributors.
This product includes software developed by Hellmuth Michaelis and Joerg Wunsch
This product includes software developed by Henrik Vestergaard Draboel.
This product includes software developed by Herb Peyerl.
This product includes software developed by Hidetoshi Shimokawa.
This product includes software developed by Hubert Feyrer for the NetBSD Project.
This product includes software developed by Ian W. Dall.
This product includes software developed by Intel Corporation and its contributors.
This product includes software developed by Internet Initiative Japan Inc.
This product includes software developed by Internet Research Institute, Inc.
This product includes software developed by James R. Maynard III.
This product includes software developed by Jared D. McNeill.
This product includes software developed by Jason L. Wright
This product includes software developed by Jason R. Thorpe for And Communications, http://www.and.com/
This product includes software developed by Joachim Koenig-Baltes.
This product includes software developed by Jochen Pohl for The NetBSD Project.
This product includes software developed by Joerg Wunsch
This product includes software developed by John Birrell.
This product includes software developed by John P. Wittkoski.
This product includes software developed by John Polstra.
This product includes software developed by Jonathan R. Stone for the NetBSD Project.
This product includes software developed by Jonathan Stone.
This product includes software developed by Jonathan Stone and Jason R. Thorpe for the NetBSD Project.
This product includes software developed by Jonathan Stone for the NetBSD Project.
This product includes software developed by Julian Highfield.
This product includes software developed by K. Kobayashi
This product includes software developed by K. Kobayashi and H. Shimokawa
This product includes software developed by Kazuhisa Shimizu.
This product includes software developed by Kazuki Sakamoto.
This product includes software developed by Kenneth Stailey.
This product includes software developed by Kiyoshi Ikehara.
This product includes software developed by Klaus Burkert,by Bernd Ernesti, by Michael van Elst, and by the University of California, Berkeley and its contributors.
This product includes software developed by Kyma Systems.
This product includes software developed by Leo Weppelman and Waldi Ravens.
This product includes software developed by Lloyd Parkes.
This product includes software developed by Lutz Vieweg.
This product includes software developed by Marc Horowitz.
This product includes software developed by Marcus Comstedt.
This product includes software developed by Mark Brinicombe.
This product includes software developed by Mark Brinicombe for the NetBSD Project.
This product includes software developed by Mark Tinguely and Jim Lowe
This product includes software developed by Markus Wild.
This product includes software developed by Marshall M. Midden.
This product includes software developed by Masanobu Saitoh.
This product includes software developed by Masaru Oki.
This product includes software developed by Matt DeBergalis
This product includes software developed by Matthew Fredette.
This product includes software developed by Michael Smith.
This product includes software developed by Microsoft
This product includes software developed by Mika Kortelainen
This product includes software developed by Mike Pritchard.
This product includes software developed by Mike Pritchard and contributors.
This product includes software developed by Minoura Makoto.
This product includes software developed by MINOURA Makoto, Takuya Harakawa.
This product includes software developed by Niels Provos.
This product includes software developed by Niklas Hallqvist.
This product includes software developed by Niklas Hallqvist, Brandon Creighton and Job de Haas.
This product includes software developed by Paolo Abeni.
This product includes software developed by Paul Kranenburg.
This product includes software developed by Paul Mackerras.
This product includes software developed by Paul Mackerras .
This product includes software developed by Pedro Roque Marques
This product includes software developed by Per Fogelstrom.
This product includes software developed by Peter Galbavy.
This product includes software developed by Phase One, Inc.
This product includes software developed by Philip A. Nelson.
This product includes software developed by QUALCOMM Incorporated.
This product includes software developed by Ravikanth.
This product includes software developed by RiscBSD.
This product includes software developed by Roar Thronæs.
This product includes software developed by Rodney W. Grimes.
This product includes software developed by Roger Hardiman
This product includes software developed by Rolf Grossmann.
This product includes software developed by Ross Harvey.
This product includes software developed by Ross Harvey for the NetBSD Project.
This product includes software developed by Scott Bartram.
This product includes software developed by Scott Stevens.
This product includes software developed by Shingo WATANABE.
This product includes software developed by Softweyr LLC, the University of California, Berkeley, and its contributors.
This product includes software developed by Stephan Thesing.
This product includes software developed by Steven M. Bellovin
This product includes software developed by Takashi Hamada.
This product includes software developed by Takumi Nakamura.
This product includes software developed by Tatoku Ogaito for the NetBSD Project.
This product includes software developed by Tommi Komulainen .
This product includes software developed by TooLs GmbH.
This product includes software developed by Trimble Navigation, Ltd.
This product includes software developed by Waldi Ravens.
This product includes software developed by WIDE Project and its contributors.
This product includes software developed by Winning Strategies, Inc.
This product includes software developed by Yen Yen Lim and North Dakota State University
This product includes software developed by Zembu Labs, Inc.
This product includes software developed by the Alice Group.
This product includes software developed by the Computer Systems Engineering Group at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.
This product includes software developed by the Computer Systems Laboratory at the University of Utah.
This product includes software developed by the Harvard University and its contributors.
This product includes software developed by the Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan and its contributors.
This product includes software developed by the Network Research Group at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.
This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL Project for use in the OpenSSL Toolkit. (http://www.OpenSSL.org/)
This product includes software developed by the PocketBSD project and its contributors.
This product includes software developed by the RiscBSD kernel team
This product includes software developed by the RiscBSD team.
This product includes software developed by the SMCC Technology Development Group at Sun Microsystems, Inc.
This product includes software developed by the University of California, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories.
This product includes software developed by the University of California, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.
This product includes software developed by the University of California, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and its contributors.
This product includes software developed by the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College and Garrett A. Wollman.
This product includes software developed by the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College and Garrett A. Wollman, by William F. Jolitz, and by the University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, and its contributors.
This product includes software developed by the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center.
This product includes software developed for the FreeBSD project
This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by Allegro Networks, Inc., and Wasabi Systems, Inc.
This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by Bernd Ernesti.
This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by Christopher G. Demetriou.
This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by Eiji Kawauchi.
This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by Frank van der Linden
This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by Genetec Corporation.
This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by Jason R. Thorpe.
This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by John M. Vinopal.
This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by Jonathan Stone.
This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by Kyma Systems LLC.
This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by Matthias Drochner.
This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by Perry E. Metzger.
This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by Piermont Information Systems Inc.
This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by Shigeyuki Fukushima.
This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by SUNET, Swedish University Computer Network.
This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by Wasabi Systems, Inc.
This product includes software developed or owned by Caldera International, Inc.
This product includes software developed under OpenBSD by Per Fogelstrom.
This product includes software developed under OpenBSD by Per Fogelstrom Opsycon AB for RTMX Inc, North Carolina, USA.
This software was developed by Holger Veit and Brian Moore for use with "386BSD" and similar operating systems. "Similar operating systems" includes mainly non-profit oriented systems for research and education, including but not restricted to "NetBSD", "FreeBSD", "Mach" (by CMU).
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and The Open Group, have given us permission to reprint portions of their documentation.

In the following statement, the phrase ``this text'' refers to portions of the system documentation.

Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form in NetBSD, from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2004 Edition, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2004 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between these versions and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document.

The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html.

This notice shall appear on any product containing this material.

In the following statement, "This software" refers to the parallel port driver:

This software is a component of "386BSD" developed by William F. Jolitz, TeleMuse.

Some files have the following copyright:

Mach Operating System
Copyright (c) 1991,1990,1989 Carnegie Mellon University
All Rights Reserved.

Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this software and its documentation is hereby granted, provided that both the copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies of the software, derivative works or modified versions, and any portions thereof, and that both notices appear in supporting documentation.

CARNEGIE MELLON ALLOWS FREE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE IN ITS CONDITION. CARNEGIE MELLON DISCLAIMS ANY LIABILITY OF ANY KIND FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

Carnegie Mellon requests users of this software to return to
Software Distribution Coordinator or Software.Distribution@CS.CMU.EDU
School of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh PA 15213-3890

any improvements or extensions that they make and grant Carnegie the rights to redistribute these changes.

Some files have the following copyright:

Copyright (c) 1994, 1995 Carnegie-Mellon University.
All rights reserved.

Author: Chris G. Demetriou

Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this software and its documentation is hereby granted, provided that both the copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies of the software, derivative works or modified versions, and any portions thereof, and that both notices appear in supporting documentation.
CARNEGIE MELLON ALLOWS FREE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE IN ITS "AS IS" CONDITION. CARNEGIE MELLON DISCLAIMS ANY LIABILITY OF ANY KIND FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

Carnegie Mellon requests users of this software to return to
Software Distribution Coordinator or Software.Distribution@CS.CMU.EDU
School of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh PA 15213-3890

any improvements or extensions that they make and grant Carnegie the rights to redistribute these changes.

Some files have the following copyright:

Copyright 1996 The Board of Trustees of The Leland Stanford Junior University. All Rights Reserved.

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies. Stanford University makes no representations about the suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.

The End