INSTALLBOOT(8)

NAME
installboot - install and remove Alpha disk and CD-ROM bootstrap software

SYNOPSIS
/usr/mdec/installboot [-nv] disk bootstrap
/usr/mdec/installboot [-nv] -c disk

DESCRIPTION
The installboot utility installs and removes NetBSD/alpha disk and CD-ROM bootstrap software. Installing bootstrap software on a device allows the SRM console to boot from that device. As far as the console is concerned, booting from disk, CD-ROM, and other random-access block devices is the same; in the rest of this manual page, unless otherwise noted, the description applies equally to both disks and CD-ROMs.

NetBSD/alpha disk bootstrap software consists of two parts: a “primary” bootstrap program written into the disklabel area of the disk, and a “secondary” bootstrap program that resides in a file system on the disk. When booting, the primary bootstrap program is loaded and invoked by the console. After receiving control of the system it loads and runs the secondary bootstrap program, which in turn loads and runs the kernel.

To make a NetBSD/alpha disk bootable by the SRM console, use installboot to install a primary bootstrap program on the disk's raw (“c”) partition. Then copy the secondary bootstrap program /usr/mdec/boot to the root directory of the file system that starts at the beginning (block 0) of the disk. Note that the primary bootstrap program used must support the type of file system which contains the secondary bootstrap program, and that the secondary bootstrap program must be named “boot” in the root directory of the file system which contains it. (Unlike previous versions of installboot, it is no longer necessary to run installboot after changing the secondary bootstrap program.)

The options recognized by installboot are as follows:

-c  Instead of installing a primary bootstrap program, remove any existing primary bootstrap program.

-n  Do not actually write anything to the disk.

-v  Print information about what installboot is doing.

The arguments given to installboot are as follows:

disk
    The name of the disk on which to install the primary bootstrap program. Typically this will be the raw disk device belonging to the disk containing the file system which holds the secondary bootstrap program. In some cases this can be a file, e.g. if installboot is being used to install the primary bootstrap program into a file containing a ISO 9660 CD-ROM image.

bootstrap
    The primary bootstrap program to install. (This argument may not be specified if the -c flag is being used.)

The installboot utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

FILES
/usr/mdec/bootxx_cd9660
    primary bootstrap for “cd9660” (ISO 9660) file system
/usr/mdec/bootxx_ffs
    primary bootstrap for “ffs” file system (Berkeley Fast File System)
/usr/mdec/boot
    secondary bootstrap

EXAMPLES
    installboot /dev/rsd0c /usr/mdec/bootxx_ffs

Install the Berkeley Fast File System primary bootstrap on to disk sd0.

    installboot -c /dev/rsd1c

Remove the primary bootstrap from disk sd1.

    installboot /tmp/cd-image /usr/mdec/bootxx_cd9660

Install the ISO 9660 primary bootstrap in the file /tmp/cd-image.

SEE ALSO
boot(8), mkbootimage(8)

HISTORY
The current version of the NetBSD/alpha installboot command first appeared in NetBSD 1.4. A previous version which operated quite differently was introduced in NetBSD 1.2.

AUTHORS
The current version of the installboot utility was written by Chris Demetriou. The previous version of the NetBSD/alpha installboot utility was originally written by Paul Kranenburg for NetBSD/sparc and modified for use with NetBSD/alpha by Chris Demetriou, Jason Thorpe, Ross Harvey, and others.

BUGS
The NetBSD/alpha primary bootstrap program can only load the secondary bootstrap program from file systems starting at the beginning (block 0) of disks. Similarly, the secondary bootstrap program can only load kernels from file systems starting at the beginning of disks.

The size of primary bootstrap programs is restricted to 7.5KB, even though some file systems (e.g. ISO 9660) are able to accomodate larger ones.

There are not currently primary bootstraps to support all file systems types which are capable of being the root file system.