The ramdisk kernel may be loaded from the network, from CD-ROM, or other SCSI devices (such as Zip(tm) disk). This section primarily describes the setup required for a network boot, but does offer information pertaining to installation from other media. Note that loading from HPIB or SCSI cartridge tape is possible, but not currently supported. You will need information about your disk's geometry, based on 512-byte sectors. You must have this information before proceeding. The file `HP-IB.geometry' has geometry information for several HP-IB disks, but may be incomplete. Geometry may be calculated from an HP-UX `/etc/disktab' entry, but note that HP-UX geometry is based on 1024 byte sectors, while OpenBSD's is based on 512 byte sectors. QUICK NOTE ABOUT PARTITIONS: Since the target disk will become the boot disk for your new OpenBSD/hp300 installation, you will need to treat the `a' and `c' partitions in a special manner. Due to the size of the OpenBSD/hp300 boot program (it spills into the area after the disklabel), it is necessary to offset the `a' partition one cylinder from the beginning of the disk. Later, the `c' partition will be marked with the type `FS_BOOT' and may not be used for a filesystem. (For those unfamiliar with historic BSD partition conventions, the `c' partition is defined as `the entire disk', or the `raw partition'.) Ramdisk installation via network or CD-ROM ------------------------------------------ NOTE: BOOTING SYS_UBOOT VIA THE NETWORK IS ONLY POSSIBLE IF YOUR BOOTROM IS `REV. C' OR LATER. In order to complete this process, you will need the following from the `OSREV/hp300' directory of the distribution: SYS_UBOOT The unified boot block file. bsd.rd The gzipped RAMDISK kernel image. To boot SYS_UBOOT via the network, you will need a system capable of handling boot requests for an hp300. If you will use this method, see the special note below. To boot from SCSI CD-ROM, simply insert the CD that is hp300 bootable into the drive before power up, then during the client's self-test cycle, press the space bar. Shortly, you should see a menu of possible boot options appear. Select the option corresponding to SYS_CDROM. SYS_UBOOT will then load and prompt you for a kernel name. -- The following section is specific for loading SYS_UBOOT via the network. -- If you wish to load the SYS_UBOOT program via the network, you need to either have another OpenBSD system on the network, or something else capable of running the rbootd(8) program. Source code may be found under usr.sbin/rbootd in the OpenBSD source tree, but requires the Berkeley Packet Filter (bpf) in order to function. It may be possible to use HP-UX, but is not recommended (or documented here). For more information on diskless booting under OpenBSD, see the "diskless" manual page. First of all, configure your rbootd to handle boot requests from the client. NOTE: OpenBSD's `rbootd' is slightly different from HP-UX's. To configure OpenBSD's `rbootd', create a file called `/etc/rbootd.conf' and place in it an entry like the following: 08:00:09:04:AA:33 SYS_UBOOT # thunder-egg The first column is the ethernet address of the client's network interface. The second column is the program to send to the client, and anything after the `#' is a comment. Once you have rbootd running, copy the SYS_UBOOT program to the /usr/mdec/rbootd directory on your server. If this directory doesn't exist already, you will need to create it. Next, add the client to /etc/ethers on your server. For example: 08:00:09:04:AA:33 thunder-egg Then start `rarpd' on your server; `rarpd -a' should do the trick. Finally, you need to add an entry in /etc/bootparams. For example: thunder-egg root=myserver:/export/hp300 Where myserver is the name of your server machine and `/export/hp300' is the directory that holds the ramdisk kernel image (`bsd.rd'). Now run `rpc.bootparamd' and make sure that this directory is NFS exported to the client. See the manual pages on your server system if you need more information about exporting filesystems. If you run into problems you may wish to run `rpc.bootparamd' with the `-d' flag on your server to get extra debugging information. You are now ready to load SYS_UBOOT. During the client's self-test cycle, press the space bar. Shortly, you should see a menu of possible boot options appear. Select the option corresponding to SYS_UBOOT. SYS_UBOOT will then load and prompt you for a kernel name. NFS file names should not have a leading '/' prepended to them, simply use `bsd.rd'. ------------------ End of network boot-specific section ----------------------