On Mon, 25 Dec 1995, Mauricio Tavares wrote:

> While shopping for shruberries, Tom Samplonius pondered:
> > 
> > On Wed, 20 Dec 1995, Mauricio Tavares wrote:
> > 
> > > 	About netbooting, wouldn't that require, as far as I could gather 
> > > from the guide, that I will need to start the 3/50 from a tape anyway.  
> > > If that is true, shouldn't I simply use the tape to install netbsd in the 
> > > first place?  I am confused.
> [...]
> > 
> >   No, Sun's boot rom can tftp a kernel from a server.  It can be tricky 
> > to configure the boot server correctly though.  Sun's can run completely 
> > diskless, with even swap mounted via NFS.  You probably just want to 
> > netboot the netbsd-rd kernel once for the install, and once everything is 
> > setup boot from your hard drive.
> > 
> 	How would I go about booting the machine diskless and then using tftp 
> to get the kernel?  From the 1.1 docs, I understood that you would first 
> have to have access to either a tape drive or NFS server.

  tftp is in ROM, so you'd boot from ethernet (something like "b ie" on 
monitor prompt).  You need to setup rarpd and a tftpd server somewhere to 
provide an IP address and a kernel to boot.  Read manpages on rarpd and 
ftpd on your server.

> About using a NFS server, could I use a DEC box (Alpha or ideally (as far 
> as I am concerned) Ultrix box) as the server for the 3/50?  If so, how 
> would I go about that (I never set up a NFS server)?

  RTFM -> nfsd, and /etc/exports

  or, just (t)ftp the rest of the stuff over, and not use NFS at all.

> >   Remember:  your hard drive needs to have SCSI parity disabled for you 
> > to boot from it.  Non-boot drives don't matter.
> > 
> 	Thanks for the info!
> 
> > > > > 	o I do not remember seeing much stuff in the install documentation 
> > > > > 	  regarding partitioning a drive before installing NetBSD.  Is it 
> > > > > 	  assumed we are using the default configuration, whatever it 
> > > > > 	  might be?
> > > > 
> > > >   The installation guide is a little thin in this area.  You do need to 
> > > > partition the disk into slices for root, swap and /usr.
> > > > 
> > > 	That I understand.  However, if I am not mistaken the a partition 
> > > defaults to 32MB, the b also is 32MB, and so on.  I know that I can 
> > > change that *once* I have a live machine to play with, but how to go 
> > > about doing that *before* having a fully operation netbsd box?
> > 
> >   No.  You can only set this *before* installing.  Once you boot the 
> > installer, you get access to a disk partition tool.  Once the disk is 
> > partitioned, you can copy the miniroot to the disk, and boot from it, and 
> > finish installing the rest of the system binaries.
> > 
> 	Given the 1GB drive I will eventually put on the machine 
> (whenever it arrives, that is), what would be the recommended partition 
> sizes to run NetBSD in the 3/50?  I myself though on having one partition 
> big enough for the basic root stuff (32-50MB is big enough?), another 
> 30-40MB for swap since I do not have that much RAM, and the rest for /usr.

  Sure.

Tom