1 DRAGONFLY CDROM README FILE
3 This CDROM boots DragonFly BSD. Basically what you get is a full base
4 system on CD with certain critical directories, such as /tmp, remounted
5 read-write using MFS. Your existing hard drive is not effected by
8 NOTE!!! DRAGONFLY IS UNDERGOING DEVELOPMENT AND IS CONSIDERED
9 EXPERIMENTAL! BSD RELATED EXPERIENCE IS RECOMMENDED WHEN USING
12 If you just want to play with DragonFly and not mess with your hard disk,
13 this CDROM boots into a fully operational console-based system, though
14 without swap it should be noted that you are limited by available memory.
15 It is a good idea to test your hardware for compatibility from a CD boot
16 before spending time installing the dist on your hard disk.
19 AUTOMATIC INSTALLATION
21 We are currently developing automatic installation tools. This cd
22 contains 'rconfig', which is a client/server protocol and examples in
23 /usr/share/examples/rconfig. If you have multiple machines you can setup
24 an installation script and run rconfig on a server and then install the
25 clients from CD boot with network connectivity (e.g. dhclient <blah>)
26 and, typically, 'rconfig -a'.
28 You can also just boot from the CD, copy the sample script to /tmp, edit,
29 and run it directly (assuming that blowing away your existing disk is ok).
34 The second stage boot (boot2) and third stage boot (loader) default
35 to dual serial & video console I/O. You can direct the boot output
36 to just the serial port by creating the file /boot.config with the
37 line '-h', or to just the screen using '-V'. If you wish to leave
38 boot2 in dual I/O mode but want the third stage to use just one or the
39 other, you can set the 'console' environment variable in /boot/loader.conf
40 to either 'console=vidconsole' or 'console=comconsole'.
42 The dual serial port operation might have to be disabled if you use
43 the serial port for things like UPSs. Also note that by default
44 the CD will run a login prompt on the serial port after booting is
45 complete. This can be disabled by editing the 'ttyd0' line in /etc/ttys
46 after installation is complete.
48 Note that the kernel itself currently only supports one console or the
49 other. If both are enabled, the kernel will use the video console or
50 the last one for which input was received.
54 Manual installation of DragonFly onto an HD involves the following sequence
55 of commands. You must be familiar with BSD style UNIX systems to do
56 installations manually. The primary IDE hard drive is typically 'ad0'
57 and DragonFly is typically installed onto the first free slice
58 (ad0s1 if disk is empty, ad0s2 if your first slice contains
59 another OS, etc). Be careful to substitute the correct partition name
62 # OPTIONAL STEP: If your disk is already partitioned and you
63 # have a spare primary partition on which you want to install
64 # Dragonfly, skip this step. However, sometimes old boot
65 # blocks or cruft in the boot area can interfere with the
66 # initialization process. A cure is to zero out the start of
67 # the disk before running fdisk.
69 # WARNING: This COMPLETELY WIPES and repartitions your hard drive.
71 dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ad0 bs=32k count=16
75 # If you didn't zero the disk as above, but have a spare slice
76 # whose partition type you want to change to UFS, use fdisk(8)
79 # This installs boot blocks onto the HD and verifies their
80 # installation. See note just above the 'reboot' below for
81 # things to try if it does not boot from your HD. If you
82 # already have a multi-OS bootloader installed you can skip
88 # This creates an initial label on the chosen slice of the HD. If
89 # you have problems booting you could try wiping the first 32 blocks
90 # of the slice with dd and then reinstalling the label. Replace
91 # 'ad0s1' with the chosen slice.
93 # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ad0s1 bs=32k count=16
94 disklabel -B -r -w ad0s1 auto
96 # Edit the label. Create various standard partitions. The typical
99 # ad0s1a 256m This will be your /
100 # ad0s1b 1024m This will be your swap
101 # ad0s1c (leave alone)
102 # ad0s1d 256m This will be your /var
103 # ad0s1e 256m This will be your /tmp
104 # ad0s1f 8192m This will be your /usr (min 4096m)
105 # ad0s1g * All remaining space to your /home
107 # An example disklabel can be found in /etc/disklabel.ad0s1
111 # If you are not using ad0s1 as in the previous commands, you will
112 # need to create the device nodes for that slice. Change the
113 # slice number (ad0s2a) to match the disk slice you are using.
115 # The device nodes are automatically created for ad0s1, so you can
116 # safely skip this step if you are using that disk slice.
118 cd /dev && MAKEDEV ad0s2a
120 # Newfs (format) the various filesystems. Softupdates is not
121 # normally enabled on the root filesystem because large kernel or
122 # world installs/upgrades can run it out of space due to softupdate's
123 # delayed bitmap freeing code.
131 # Mount the filesystems
133 mount /dev/ad0s1a /mnt
138 mount /dev/ad0s1d /mnt/var
139 mount /dev/ad0s1e /mnt/tmp
140 mount /dev/ad0s1f /mnt/usr
141 mount /dev/ad0s1g /mnt/home
143 # Copy the CDRom onto the target. cpdup won't cross mount boundaries
144 # on the source (e.g. the MFS remounts) so it takes a few commands.
151 # Cleanup. Also, with /tmp a partition it is usually reasonable
152 # to make /var/tmp a softlink to /tmp
156 ln -s /tmp /mnt/var/tmp
158 # Edit /mnt/etc/fstab to reflect the new mounts. An example fstab
159 # file based on the above parameters exists as /mnt/etc/fstab.example
160 # which you can rename to /mnt/etc/fstab.
162 mv /mnt/etc/fstab.example /mnt/etc/fstab
165 # save out your disklabel just in case. It's a good idea to save
166 # it to /etc so you can get at it from your backups. You do intend
167 # to backup your system, yah? :-) (this isn't critical but it's a
170 disklabel ad0s1 > /mnt/etc/disklabel.ad0s1
173 MISC CLEANUPS BEFORE REBOOTING
175 Once you've duplicated the CD onto your HD you have to make some edits
176 so the system boots properly from your HD. Primarily you must remove
177 or edit /mnt/boot/loader.conf, which exists on the CD to tell the kernel
178 to mount the CD's root partition.
180 # Remove or edit /mnt/boot/loader.conf so the kernel does not try
181 # to obtain the root filesystem from the CD, and remove the other
182 # cruft that was sitting on the CD that you don't need on the HD.
184 rm /mnt/boot/loader.conf
189 At this point it should be possible to reboot. The CD may be locked
190 since it is currently mounted. To remove the CD, type 'halt' instead
191 of 'reboot', wait for the machine to halt, then the CD door should be
192 unlocked. Remove the CD and hit any key to reboot.
194 Be careful of the CD drawer closing on you if you try to remove the CD
195 while the machine is undergoing a reboot or reset.
197 WARNING do not just hit reset, the kernel may not have written out
198 all the pending data to your HD. Either unmount the HD partitions
199 or type halt or reboot.
202 (let the machine halt)
203 (remove CD when convenient, be careful of the CD drawer closing on you)
204 (hit any key to reboot)
209 You will notice in the boot menu that you can choose to boot with or
210 without ACPI. ACPI is an infrastructure designed to allow an operating
211 to configure hardware devices associated with the system. Unfortunately,
212 as usual, PC BIOS makers have royally screwed up the standard and ACPI
213 is as likely to hurt as it is to help. Worse, some PCs cannot be booted
214 without it, so there is no good 'default' choice.
216 The system will use ACPI by default. You can disable it in the default
217 boot by adding the line 'hint.acpi.0.disabled=1' in /boot/loader.conf.
218 If you boot without hitting any menu options the system will boot without
219 ACPI. To boot without ACPI no matter what, place 'unset acpi_load' in
220 our /boot/loader.conf instead. This is not recommended.
223 IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS BOOTING FROM HD
225 There are a couple of things to try. If you can select CHS or LBA mode
226 in your BIOS, try changing the mode to LBA. If that doesn't work boot
227 from the CD again and use boot0cfg to turn on packet mode (boot0cfg -o
228 packet ad0). Also try booting with and without ACPI (option 1 or 2 in
231 Once you have a working HD based system you can clean up /etc/rc.conf
232 to enable things like cron, sendmail, setup your networking, and so
233 forth. If 'ifconfig' does not show your networking device you could
234 try to kldload it from /modules. With a recognized network device
235 you can ifconfig its IP address or, if you have a DHCP server on your
236 network, use 'dhclient <interfacename>' to obtain an IP address from
239 USING CVSUP TO OBTAIN A CVS TREE, PORTS, AND DOING BUILDWORLDS
241 cvsup can be used to obtain the DragonFly cvs repository, the FreeBSD
242 ports tree, and so on and so forth. 'man cvsup' for more information on
243 its capabilities. cvsup is a port (not part of the base system), but
244 it IS included on the CD. The cvsup example files are in
245 /usr/share/examples/cvsup. You will primarily be interested in the
246 DragonFly CVS repository, DragonFly-supfile, and the FreeBSD ports,
247 FreeBSD-ports-supfile. Once you have done the initial cvsup of the
248 blocks of data that you want you may wish to create a cron job to
249 keep it all up to date. However, please do not run an unattended cvsup
250 more then once a day.
252 # get the CVS pository (it is placed in /home/dcvs)
253 cvsup /usr/share/examples/cvsup/DragonFly-supfile
254 # install the source from the CVS hierarchy
256 cvs -R -d /home/dcvs checkout src
257 cvs -R -d /home/dcvs checkout dfports
259 # get the FreeBSD ports tree (it is directly broken out into /usr/ports)
260 cvsup -h cvsup.freebsd.org /usr/share/examples/cvsup/FreeBSD-ports-supfile
262 # buildworld and installworld examples
268 # buildkernel and installkernel examples. Create your own custom kernel
269 # config in /usr/src/sys/i386/conf/<YOURKERNEL> and you can build and
270 # install custom kernels.
272 # WARNING! Always keep a fully working backup kernel in / in case
273 # you blow it. Remember that /kernel.old is overwritten when you
274 # make installkernel. It is usually a good idea to maintain an emergency
275 # kernel as /kernel.GENERIC or /kernel.bak. If all else fails you can
276 # still fall back to booting the CD.
279 make buildkernel KERNCONF=GENERIC
280 make installkernel KERNCONF=GENERIC
282 EMERGENCY RECOVERY FROM THE CD
284 Lets say you blew up your kernel or something else in / and you need to
285 boot the CD to fix it. Remember that you have a fully operational
286 system when booting the CD, but that you have to fsck and mount your
287 hard drive (typically onto /mnt) to get at the contents of your HD.
289 Your HD is typically an IDE hard drive, so the device is typically
290 /dev/ad0. DragonFly is typically on the first slice, which is
291 /dev/ad0s1, and the root partition is always in partition 'a',
292 which is /dev/ad0s1a.
294 # fsck root before trying to mount it.
296 # mount root read-write onto /mnt
297 mount /dev/ad0s1a /mnt
298 # copy files from the CD as appropriate to make it possible to boot
299 # from your HD again. Note that /mnt/kernel may be flags-protected.
300 chflags noschg /mnt/kernel
301 cp /kernel /mnt/kernel
302 cp /modules/* /mnt/modules/
304 If you want to mount other partitions from your HD but have forgotten
305 what they are, simply cat /mnt/etc/fstab after mounting the root
308 $DragonFly: src/nrelease/root/README,v 1.14 2004/06/28 04:18:55 dillon Exp $