Installation is supported from several media types, including:

	CD-ROM
	FFS partitions
	Tape
	Remote NFS partition
	FTP
	HTTP

dnl XXX uncomment when cd-rom distribution available
dnl If you have the OpenBSD CD-ROM distribution (and a CD-ROM drive), you
dnl may be able boot from it. If you can boot from the CD-ROM,
dnl you are home free and can proceed to the installation steps.  If not,
dnl you will need to do some setup work to prepare a bootable image, either
dnl a floppy, hard drive, or compatible net boot server.
dnl 
In addition to the bootable image, you also need to consider how to
access the binary distribution sets to actually install the system.
dnl XXX uncomment when cd-rom distribution available
dnl If you have the OpenBSD CD-ROM distribution you can either access the
dnl CD-ROM directly from the bootable image or remotely mounted on another
dnl system via NFS.
dnl
dnl Although you can access the distribution sets directly from the CD-ROM or
dnl from one of the FTP mirrors over the internet, you may wish to transfer
dnl the sets to a local FTP or NFS server, or copy them to a partition on
dnl the target system's disk.

OpenBSDXferFloppyFromDOS

OpenBSDXferFloppyFromUNIX

dnl XXX make sure to adapt text, especially examples, once miniroot
dnl is available as well.
Creating a bootable hard disk using SunOS, Solaris or other Un*x-like system:

dnl	If you don't have a floppy drive you can copy the floppy
dnl 	installation image "floppy{:--:}OSrev.fs" or the mini-root "miniroot{:--:}OSrev.fs"
dnl 	onto the hard disk you intend to boot on.  Traditionally, the
dnl 	way to do this is to use dd(1) to place the bootable filesystem
dnl 	image in the "swap" partition of the disk (while running in
dnl 	single user mode), and then booting from that partition.
	If you don't have a floppy drive you can copy the floppy
	installation image "floppy{:--:}OSrev.fs" onto the hard disk
	you intend to boot on.  Traditionally, the way to do this is
	to use dd(1) to place the bootable filesystem image in the
	"swap" partition of the disk (while running in single user
	mode), and then booting from that partition.

	Using the "b" partition allows you to boot without overwriting
	any useful parts of the disk, you can also use another partition,
	but don't used the "a" or "c" partition without understanding
	the disklabel issues described below under "incompatible systems".

	This requires that you be running SunOS, Solaris, OpenBSD or NetBSD
	which have a compatible view of SunOS disk labels and partitions.

	Use the dd(1) utility to copy the file to the hard drive.
	The command would likely be, under SunOS:
		dd if=floppy{:--:}OSrev.fs of=/dev/rsd0b bs=36b
dnl 				- or -
dnl 		dd if=miniroot{:--:}OSrev.fs of=/dev/rsd0b bs=36b
	and under Solaris:
		dd if=floppy{:--:}OSrev.fs of=/dev/c0t0d0s1 bs=36b
dnl 				- or -
dnl 		dd if=miniroot{:--:}OSrev.fs of=/dev/c0t0d0s1 bs=36b

	The blocksize is arbitrary as long as it's a multiple of 512-bytes
	and within the maximum supported by the driver, i.e. bs=126b may
	not work for all cases.  Again, device/partition names may vary,
	depending on the OS involved.

	If you are preparing the hard drive on an incompatible system or
	don't care about the hard disk contents, you can also install the
	bootable image starting at the beginning of the disk. This lets
	you prepare a bootable hard-drive even if don't have a working
	operating system on your machine, but it important to understand
	that the bootable image installed this way includes a "disk label"
	which can wipe out any pre-existing disklabels or partitioning for
	the drive.

	If you're starting with a virgin disk and trying to do this under
	SunOS, use format(8) and newfs(8) to set up the partitions and
	mark the intended partition as an normal partition type.  If you're
	using OpenBSD, perhaps on another architecture, OpenBSD will
	create a "fictitious label" that will let you access the whole
	disk.

	The floppy image is used only for booting, and can be placed in
	a partition that will be overwritten during the install process,
	since it actually runs off a ram-disk image in the kernel.
dnl XXX uncomment end of paragraph once miniroot available
dnl	since it actually runs off a ram-disk image in the kernel.  In
dnl	contrast the miniroot is a normal unix root filesystem and you
dnl	must place in a partition that will not be overwritten until you've
dnl	completed the installation process.

	To copy the floppy image to the hard disk, preserving SunOS,
	Solaris, NetBSD or OpenBSD labels:
	Under SunOS:
		dd if=floppy{:--:}OSrev.fs of=/dev/rsdXc bs=1b skip=1 seek=1
	and Solaris:
		dd if=floppy{:--:}OSrev.fs of=/dev/rdsk/c0tXd0s2 \
		    bs=1b skip=1 seek=1

	You need to be sure that your version of dd(1) supports the
	skip and seek operands, otherwise you can try a technique like:

		dd if=/dev/rsdXc of=/tmp/label bs=1b count=1
		dd if=floppy{:--:}OSrev.fs of=/dev/rsdXc bs=36b
		dd if=/tmp/label of=/dev/rsdXc bs=1b count=1

	In either case, you've created a situation where the disklabel
	and the filesystem information don't agree about the partition
	size and geometry, however the results will be usable.

Creating a network bootable setup using SunOS or other Un*x-like system:

	The details of setting up a network bootable environment vary
	considerably, depending on the network's host.  Extract the
	OpenBSD diskless(8) man page from the man{:--:}OSrev.tgz distribution
	set or see the copy on the OpenBSD web page.  You will also
	need to reference the relevant man pages or administrators guide
	for the host system.
	
	Basically, you will need to set up reverse-arp (rarpd) and boot
	parameter (bootpd) information and make the OpenBSD bootblock,
	kernel/miniroot partition, and a swap file available as required
	by the netboot setup.


OpenBSDXferPrelude


OpenBSDXferBareTape(xbase xfont xserv xshare)

OpenBSDXferNFS

OpenBSDXferFFS