NAME

installboot — install disk bootstrap software

SYNOPSIS

installboot

[-fnv] [-B s2bno] [-b s1bno] [-m machine] [-o options] [-t fstype] filesystem primary [secondary]

installboot

-c [-fnv] [-m machine] [-o options] [-t fstype] filesystem

installboot

-e [-fnv] [-m machine] [-o options] bootstrap

DESCRIPTION

The installboot utility installs and removes NetBSD disk bootstrap software into a file system. installboot can install primary into filesystem, or disable an existing bootstrap in filesystem.

On some architectures the options of an existing installed bootstrap, or those of a bootstrap file can be changed. Installing a new primary bootstrap will reset those options to default values.

Generally, NetBSD disk bootstrap software consists of two parts: a “primary” bootstrap program usually written into the disklabel area of the file system by installboot, and a “secondary” bootstrap program that usually resides as an ordinary file in the file system.

When booting, the primary bootstrap program is loaded and invoked by the machine's PROM or BIOS. After receiving control of the system it loads and runs the secondary bootstrap program, which in turn loads and runs the kernel. The secondary bootstrap may allow control over various boot parameters passed to the kernel.

Perform the following steps to make a file system bootable:

1. Copy the secondary bootstrap (usually /usr/mdec/boot.MACHINE or /usr/mdec/boot) to the root directory of the target file system.
2. Use installboot to install the primary bootstrap program (usually /usr/mdec/bootxx_FSTYPE) into filesystem.

   The following platforms do not require this step if the primary bootstrap already exists and the secondary bootstrap file is just being updated: alpha, amd64, amiga, i386, pmax, sparc64, and vax.

   The following platform does not require the first step since a single bootstrap file is used. The single bootstrap is installed like the primary bootstrap on other platforms: next68k.

The options and arguments recognized by installboot are as follows:

-B s2bno

When hard-coding the blocks of secondary into primary, start from block s2bno instead of trying to determine the block numbers occupied by secondary by examining filesystem. If this option is supplied, secondary should refer to an actual secondary bootstrap (rather than the file name of the one present in filesystem) so that its size can be determined.

-b s1bno

Install primary at block number s1bno instead of the default location for the machine and file system type. [alpha, i386/amd64 (bootxx_fat16 only), pmax, vax]

-c

Clear (remove) any existing bootstrap instead of installing one.

-e

Edit the options of an existing bootstrap. This can be use to change the options in bootxx_xxxfs files, raw disk partitions, and the pxeboot_ia32.bin file. With -v and without -o, show the current options. [amd64, i386]

-f

Forces installboot to ignore some errors.

-m machine

Use machine as the target machine type. The default machine is determined from uname(3) and then MACHINE. The following machines are currently supported by installboot:

alpha, amd64, amiga, ews4800mips, hp300, hppa, i386, landisk, macppc, news68k, newsmips, next68k, pmax, sparc, sparc64, sun2, sun3, vax, x68k

-n

Do not write to filesystem.

-o options

Machine specific installboot options, comma separated.

Supported options are (with the machines for they are valid in brackets):

alphasum

[alpha] Recalculate and restore the Alpha checksum. This is the default for NetBSD/alpha.

append

[alpha, pmax, vax] Append primary to the end of filesystem, which must be a regular file in this case.

bootconf

[amd64, i386] (Don't) read a “boot.cfg” file.

command=<boot command>

[amiga] Modify the default boot command line.

console=<console name>

[amd64, i386] Set the console device, <console name> must be one of: pc, com0, com1, com2, com3, com0kbd, com1kbd, com2kbd or com3kbd.

ioaddr=<ioaddr>

[amd64, i386] Set the IO address to be used for the console serial port. Defaults to the IO address used by the system BIOS for the specified port.

keymap=<keymap>

[amd64, i386] Set a boot time keyboard translation map. Each character in <keymap> will be replaced by the one following it. For example, an argument of “zyz” would swap the lowercase letters ‘y’ and ‘z’.

modules

[amd64, i386] (Don't) load kernel modules.

password=<password>

[amd64, i386] Set the password which must be entered before the boot menu can be accessed.

resetvideo

[amd64, i386] Reset the video before booting.

speed=<baud rate>

[amd64, i386] Set the baud rate for the serial console. If a value of zero is specified, then the current baud rate (set by the BIOS) will be used.

sunsum

[alpha, pmax, vax] Recalculate and restore the Sun and NetBSD/sparc compatible checksum. Note: The existing NetBSD/sparc disklabel should use no more than 4 partitions.

timeout=<seconds>

[amd64, i386] Set the timeout before the automatic boot begins to the given number of seconds.

-t fstype

Use fstype as the type of filesystem. The default operation is to attempt to auto-detect this setting. The following file system types are currently supported by installboot:

ffs

BSD Fast File System.

raid

Mirrored RAIDframe File System.

raw

‘Raw’ image. Note: if a platform needs to hard-code the block offset of the secondary bootstrap, it cannot be searched for on this file system type, and must be provided with -B s2bno.

-v

Verbose operation.

filesystem

The path name of the device or file system image that installboot is to operate on. It is not necessary for filesystem to be a currently mounted file system.

primary

The path name of the “primary” boot block to install. The path name must refer to a file in a file system that is currently mounted.

secondary

The path name of the “secondary” boot block, relative to the root of the file system in the device or image specified by the filesystem argument. Note that this may refer to a file in a file system that is not mounted. Most systems require secondary to be in the “root” directory of the file system, so the leading “/” is not necessary on secondary.

Only certain combinations of platform (-m machine) and file system type (-t fstype) require that the name of the secondary bootstrap is supplied as secondary, so that information such as the disk block numbers occupied by the secondary bootstrap can be stored in the primary bootstrap. These are:

Platform	File systems
macppc	ffs, raw
news68k	ffs, raw
newsmips	ffs, raw
sparc	ffs, raid, raw
sun2	ffs, raw
sun3	ffs, raw

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

ENVIRONMENT

installboot uses the following environment variables:

MACHINE

Default value for machine, overriding the result from uname(3).

FILES

Most NetBSD ports will contain variations of the following files:

/usr/mdec/bootxx_FSTYPE

Primary bootstrap for file system type FSTYPE. Installed into the bootstrap area of the file system by installboot.

/usr/mdec/bootxx_fat16

Primary bootstrap for MS-DOS FAT16 file systems. This differs from bootxx_msdos in that it doesn't require the filesystem to have been initialised with any ‘reserved sectors’. It also uses the information in the ‘Boot Parameter Block’ to get the media and filesytem properties. The ‘hidden sectors’ field of the BPB must be the offset of the partition in the disk. This can be set using the -b s1bno option.

/usr/mdec/bootxx_ffsv1

Primary bootstrap for FFSv1 file systems (the ‘traditional’ file system prior to NetBSD 6.0). Use dumpfs(8) to confirm the file system format is FFSv1.

/usr/mdec/bootxx_ffsv2

Primary bootstrap for FFSv2 file systems (the default file system for some platforms as of NetBSD 6.0). Use dumpfs(8) to confirm the file system format is FFSv2.

/usr/mdec/bootxx_lfsv1

Primary bootstrap for LFSv1 file systems.

/usr/mdec/bootxx_lfsv2

Primary bootstrap for LFSv2 file systems (the default LFS version).

/usr/mdec/bootxx_msdos

Primary bootstrap for MS-DOS FAT file systems.

/usr/mdec/bootxx_ustarfs

Primary bootstrap for TARFS boot images. This is used by various install media.

/usr/mdec/boot.MACHINE

Secondary bootstrap for machine type MACHINE. This should be installed into the file system before installboot is run.

/usr/mdec/boot

Synonym for /usr/mdec/boot.MACHINE

/boot.MACHINE

Installed copy of secondary bootstrap for machine type MACHINE.

/boot

Installed copy of secondary bootstrap. Searched for by the primary bootstrap if /boot.MACHINE is not found.

EXAMPLES

SEE ALSO

uname(3), boot(8), disklabel(8), dumpfs(8), fdisk(8), pxeboot(8)

HISTORY

This implementation of installboot appeared in NetBSD 1.6.

AUTHORS

The machine independent portion of this implementation of installboot was written by Luke Mewburn. The following people contributed to the various machine dependent back-ends: Simon Burge (pmax), Chris Demetriou (alpha), Matthew Fredette (sun2, sun3), Matthew Green (sparc64), Ross Harvey (alpha), Michael Hitch (amiga), Paul Kranenburg (sparc), David Laight (i386), Christian Limpach (next68k), Luke Mewburn (macppc), Matt Thomas (vax), Izumi Tsutsui (news68k, newsmips), and UCHIYAMA Yasushi (ews4800mips).

BUGS

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

If a disk has been converted from FFS to RAID without the contents of the disk erased, then the original FFS installation may be auto-detected instead of the RAID installation. In this case, the -t raid option must be provided.