This information is meant to accompany the NetBSD Diskless Howto.
There are no specific instructions on netbooting the IBM 7248 machine,
but there really doesn't need to be if you know a few things.

First boot the machine and hit F2 during the boot process (after the
beep tone thing). This should boot into a firmware configuration tool.

Set the network adapter as the 1st boot device.

No special configuration of the network adpater is needed. In fact, I
deleted all info from the ip configuration area. None of that is
needed.

Note the hardware address (MAC) in the adapter settings area, you need
this for later.

Next, set up bootp according to the NetBSD Diskless Howto. Here is the
/etc/bootptab file I used:

ibm7248:\
        ht=3Dether:\
        ha=3D08005AFC0000:\
        ip=3D192.168.1.4:\
        bf=3D/tftpboot/generic.fs:\
        bs=3Dauto:\
        rp=3D/home/ibm7248/netboot_root:\
        sa=3D192.168.1.1:

Where:

ha is the hardware ethernet address of the 7248
ip is the ip address you want to use for the 7248
bf is a special boot kernel in the tftp directory (this apparently
cannot be a regular kernel file)
rp is the nfs exported root, if you desire to do this (you don't need
this if all you want to do is watch the kernel boot)
sa is the ip address of the bootp server

You can use generic.fs or sysinst.fs from the 2.0.2 area, both will work.

Follow the directions on setting up tftp, which is mandatory to get a
kernel to the 7248, and optionally dhcpd if you want to boot an nfs
exported filesystem.

Sysinst does not work, however. I still have not had luck booting this
machine from the hard disk. I see some notes on setting up special
partitions and putting a kernel in there, but so far I have not been
able to make this work.

What I'd like to know: (I'm looking still)

1. What exactly is needed for the firmware to boot from the hard disk.
2. How to make a bootable kernel.

This is just for searching purposes, I had a little trouble finding this in=
fo.

Andy