Installation is supported from several media types, including: AmigaDOS Fast file system partitions Berkeley FFS partitions Tape Remote NFS partition FTP HTTP The installation program is run under a minimal OpenBSD environment provided by one of two means: a ramdisk or a miniroot filesystem. We recommend using the ramdisk if your machine is big enough (at least 6MB of fastmem is required), otherwise a miniroot filesystem needs to be transferred to the OpenBSD swap partition. This can be done from AmigaDOS in the case of a new install or upgrade, or from OpenBSD when doing an upgrade. See the "Preparing your System for OpenBSD Installation" section for details. The steps necessary to prepare the distribution sets for installation depend on which method of installation you choose. The various methods are explained below. However, for all methods you need to transfer a OpenBSD kernel binary to your AmigaDOS partition, optionally you must also get the miniroot image there for later transfer to your swap partition as explained elsewhere. For ramdisk installs you need to get both the bsd and bsd.rd kernel images, and for miniroot installs you need bsd and the miniroot{:--:}OSrev.fs image. To prepare for installing via an AmigaDOS partition: To install OpenBSD from an AmigaDOS partition, you need to get the OpenBSD distribution sets you wish to install on your system on to an AmigaDOS fast file system partition. All of the set_name.tar.gz pieces can be placed in a single directory instead of separate ones for each distribution set. This will also simplify the installation work later on. Note where you place the files, you will need this later. Also, it might be a good idea to type down the AmigaDOS partition structure of the disk you put these files on. In the context of the install program you will only be able to identify the partition by starting sector (block) number and/or size. The partition names are *not* available. Once you have done this, you can proceed to the next step in the installation process, preparing your hard disk. To prepare for installing via a tape: To install OpenBSD from a tape, you need to somehow get the OpenBSD filesets you wish to install on your system on to the appropriate kind of tape, in tar format. If you're making the tape on a UN*X system, the easiest way to do so is: tar cvf where "" is the name of the tape device that describes the tape drive you're using (possibly something like /dev/nrst0, but we make no guarantees 8-). If you can't figure it out, ask your system administrator. "" are the names of the "set_name.tar.gz" files which you want to be placed on the tape. Once you have done this, you can proceed to the next step in the installation process, preparing your hard disk. To prepare for installing via NFS: Place the OpenBSD software you wish to install into a directory on an NFS server, and make that directory mountable by the machine which you will be installing OpenBSD on. This will probably require modifying the /etc/exports file of the NFS server and resetting mountd, acts which will require superuser privileges. Note the numeric IP address of the NFS server and of the router closest to the the new OpenBSD machine, if the NFS server is not on a network which is directly attached to the OpenBSD machine. Once you have done this, you can proceed to the next step in the installation process, preparing your hard disk. To prepare for installing via FTP/HTTP: The preparations for this method of installation are easy: all you have to do is make sure that there's some FTP- or website from which you can retrieve the OpenBSD installation when it's time to do the install. You should know the numeric IP address of that site, and the numeric IP address of your nearest router if one is necessary Once you have done this, you can proceed to the next step in the installation process, preparing your hard disk. If you are upgrading OpenBSD, you also have the option of installing OpenBSD by putting the new distribution sets somewhere in your existing file system, and using them from there. To do that, you must do the following: Place the distribution sets you wish to upgrade somewhere in your current file system tree. At a bare minimum, you must upgrade the "base" binary distribution, and so must put the "base{:--:}OSrev.tar.gz" set somewhere in your file system. If you wish, you can do the other sets, as well, but you should NOT upgrade the "etc" distribution; the "etc" distribution contains system configuration files that you should review and update by hand. Once you have done this, you can proceed to the next step in the upgrade process, actually upgrading your system.