FreeBSD/ia64 5.2.1-RELEASE Installation Instructions
The FreeBSD Project
Copyright (c) 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 The FreeBSD Documentation Project
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This article gives some brief instructions on installing FreeBSD/ia64
5.2.1-RELEASE, with particular emphasis given to obtaining a FreeBSD
distribution. Some notes on troubleshooting and frequently-asked
questions are also given.
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1 Installing FreeBSD
This section documents the process of installing a new distribution of
FreeBSD. These instructions pay particular emphasis to the process of
obtaining the FreeBSD 5.2.1-RELEASE distribution and to beginning the
installation procedure. The ``Installing FreeBSD'' chapter of the FreeBSD
Handbook provides more in-depth information about the installation program
itself, including a guided walkthrough with screenshots.
If you are upgrading from a previous release of FreeBSD, please see
Section 3 for instructions on upgrading.
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1.1 Getting Started
Probably the most important pre-installation step that can be taken is
that of reading the various instruction documents provided with FreeBSD. A
roadmap of documents pertaining to this release of FreeBSD can be found in
README.TXT, which can usually be found in the same location as this file;
most of these documents, such as the release notes and the hardware
compatibility list, are also accessible in the Documentation menu of the
installer.
Note that on-line versions of the FreeBSD FAQ and Handbook are also
available from the FreeBSD Project Web site, if you have an Internet
connection.
This collection of documents may seem daunting, but the time spent reading
them will likely be saved many times over. Being familiar with what
resources are available can also be helpful in the event of problems
during installation.
The best laid plans sometimes go awry, so if you run into trouble take a
look at Section 4, which contains valuable troubleshooting information.
You should also read an updated copy of ERRATA.TXT before installing,
since this will alert you to any problems which have reported in the
interim for your particular release.
Important: While FreeBSD does its best to safeguard against accidental
loss of data, it's still more than possible to wipe out your entire disk
with this installation if you make a mistake. Please do not proceed to
the final FreeBSD installation menu unless you've adequately backed up
any important data first.
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1.2 Hardware Requirements
If you are not familiar with configuring hardware for FreeBSD, you should
be sure to read the HARDWARE.TXT file; it contains important information
on what hardware is supported by FreeBSD.
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1.3 Floppy Disk Image Instructions
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1.4 Installing FreeBSD from CDROM or the Internet
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1.5 Detail on various installation types
Once you've gotten yourself to the initial installation screen somehow,
you should be able to follow the various menu prompts and go from there.
If you've never used the FreeBSD installation before, you are also
encouraged to read some of the documentation in the Documentation submenu
as well as the general ``Usage'' instructions on the first menu.
Note: If you get stuck at a screen, press the F1 key for online
documentation relevant to that specific section.
If you've never installed FreeBSD before, or even if you have, the
``Standard'' installation mode is the most recommended since it makes sure
that you'll visit all the various important checklist items along the way.
If you're much more comfortable with the FreeBSD installation process and
know exactly what you want to do, use the ``Express'' or ``Custom''
installation options. If you're upgrading an existing system, use the
``Upgrade'' option.
The FreeBSD installer supports the direct use of floppy, DOS, tape, CDROM,
FTP, NFS and UFS partitions as installation media; further tips on
installing from each type of media are listed below.
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1.5.1 Installing from a Network CDROM
If you simply wish to install from a local CDROM drive then see Section
1.4. If you don't have a CDROM drive on your system and wish to use a
FreeBSD distribution CD in the CDROM drive of another system to which you
have network connectivity, there are also several ways of going about it:
* If you would be able to FTP install FreeBSD directly from the CDROM
drive in some FreeBSD machine, it's quite easy: You simply add the
following line to the password file (using the vipw(8) command):
ftp:*:99:99::0:0:FTP:/cdrom:/sbin/nologin
On the machine on which you are running the install, go to the Options
menu and set Release Name to any. You may then choose a Media type of
FTP and type in ftp://machine after picking ``URL'' in the ftp sites
menu.
Warning: This may allow anyone on the local network (or Internet) to
make ``anonymous FTP'' connections to this machine, which may not be
desirable.
* If you would rather use NFS to export the CDROM directly to the
machine(s) you'll be installing from, you need to first add an entry
to the /etc/exports file (on the machine with the CDROM drive). The
example below allows the machine ziggy.foo.com to mount the CDROM
directly via NFS during installation:
/cdrom -ro ziggy.foo.com
The machine with the CDROM must also be configured as an NFS server,
of course, and if you're not sure how to do that then an NFS
installation is probably not the best choice for you unless you're
willing to read up on rc.conf(5) and configure things appropriately.
Assuming that this part goes smoothly, you should be able to enter:
cdrom-host:/cdrom as the path for an NFS installation when the target
machine is installed, e.g. wiggy:/cdrom.
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1.5.2 Installing from Floppies
If you must install from floppy disks, either due to unsupported hardware
or just because you enjoy doing things the hard way, you must first
prepare some floppies for the install.
First, make your boot floppies as described in Section 1.3.
Second, peruse Section 2 and pay special attention to the ``Distribution
Format'' section since it describes which files you're going to need to
put onto floppy and which you can safely skip.
Next you will need, at minimum, as many 1.44MB floppies as it takes to
hold all files in the bin (binary distribution) directory. If you're
preparing these floppies under DOS, then these floppies must be formatted
using the MS-DOS FORMAT command. If you're using Windows, use the Windows
File Manager format command.
Important: Frequently, floppy disks come ``factory preformatted''. While
convenient, many problems reported by users in the past have resulted
from the use of improperly formatted media. Re-format them yourself,
just to make sure.
If you're creating the floppies from another FreeBSD machine, a format is
still not a bad idea though you don't need to put a DOS filesystem on each
floppy. You can use the disklabel(8) and newfs(8) commands to put a UFS
filesystem on a floppy, as the following sequence of commands illustrates:
# fdformat -f 1440 fd0.1440
# disklabel -w -r fd0.1440 floppy3
# newfs -t 2 -u 18 -l 1 -i 65536 /dev/fd0
After you've formatted the floppies for DOS or UFS, you'll need to copy
the files onto them. The distribution files are split into chunks
conveniently sized so that 5 of them will fit on a conventional 1.44MB
floppy. Go through all your floppies, packing as many files as will fit on
each one, until you've got all the distributions you want packed up in
this fashion. Each distribution should go into its own subdirectory on the
floppy, e.g.: a:\bin\bin.inf, a:\bin\bin.aa, a:\bin\bin.ab, ...
Important: The bin.inf file also needs to go on the first floppy of the
bin set since it is read by the installation program in order to figure
out how many additional pieces to look for when fetching and
concatenating the distribution. When putting distributions onto
floppies, the distname.inf file must occupy the first floppy of each
distribution set. This is also covered in README.TXT.
Once you come to the Media screen of the install, select ``Floppy'' and
you'll be prompted for the rest.
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1.5.4 Installing from QIC/SCSI Tape
When installing from tape, the installation program expects the files to
be simply tar'ed onto it, so after fetching all of the files for the
distributions you're interested in, simply use tar(1) to get them onto the
tape with a command something like this:
# cd /where/you/have/your/dists
# tar cvf /dev/rsa0 dist1 .. dist2
When you go to do the installation, you should also make sure that you
leave enough room in some temporary directory (which you'll be allowed to
choose) to accommodate the full contents of the tape you've created. Due
to the non-random access nature of tapes, this method of installation
requires quite a bit of temporary storage. You should expect to require as
much temporary storage as you have stuff written on tape.
Note: When going to do the installation, the tape must be in the drive
before booting from the boot floppies. The installation ``probe'' may
otherwise fail to find it.
Now create a boot floppy as described in Section 1.3 and proceed with the
installation.
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1.5.5 Installing over a Network using FTP or NFS
After making the boot floppies as described in the first section, you can
load the rest of the installation over a network using one of 3 types of
connections: serial port, parallel port, or Ethernet.
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1.5.5.1 Serial Port
SLIP support is rather primitive, and is limited primarily to hard-wired
links, such as a serial cable running between two computers. The link must
be hard-wired because the SLIP installation doesn't currently offer a
dialing capability. If you need to dial out with a modem or otherwise
dialog with the link before connecting to it, then I recommend that the
PPP utility be used instead.
If you're using PPP, make sure that you have your Internet Service
Provider's IP address and DNS information handy as you'll need to know it
fairly early in the installation process. You may also need to know your
own IP address, though PPP supports dynamic address negotiation and may be
able to pick up this information directly from your ISP if they support
it.
You will also need to know how to use the various ``AT commands'' for
dialing out with your particular brand of modem as the PPP dialer provides
only a very simple terminal emulator.
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1.5.5.2 Parallel Port
If a hard-wired connection to another FreeBSD or Linux machine is
available, you might also consider installing over a ``laplink'' style
parallel port cable. The data rate over the parallel port is much higher
than what is typically possible over a serial line (up to 50k/sec), thus
resulting in a quicker installation. It's not typically necessary to use
``real'' IP addresses when using a point-to-point parallel cable in this
way and you can generally just use RFC 1918 style addresses for the ends
of the link (e.g. 10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2, etc).
Important: If you use a Linux machine rather than a FreeBSD machine as
your PLIP peer, you will also have to specify link0 in the TCP/IP setup
screen's ``extra options for ifconfig'' field in order to be compatible
with Linux's slightly different PLIP protocol.
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1.5.5.3 Ethernet
FreeBSD supports many common Ethernet cards; a table of supported cards is
provided as part of the FreeBSD Hardware Notes (see HARDWARE.TXT in the
Documentation menu on the boot floppy or the top level directory of the
CDROM). If you are using one of the supported PCMCIA Ethernet cards, also
be sure that it's plugged in before the laptop is powered on. FreeBSD does
not, unfortunately, currently support ``hot insertion'' of PCMCIA cards
during installation.
You will also need to know your IP address on the network, the netmask
value for your subnet and the name of your machine. Your system
administrator can tell you which values are appropriate to your particular
network setup. If you will be referring to other hosts by name rather than
IP address, you'll also need a name server and possibly the address of a
gateway (if you're using PPP, it's your provider's IP address) to use in
talking to it. If you want to install by FTP via an HTTP proxy (see
below), you will also need the proxy's address.
If you do not know the answers to these questions then you should really
probably talk to your system administrator first before trying this type
of installation. Using a randomly chosen IP address or netmask on a live
network is almost guaranteed not to work, and will probably result in a
lecture from said system administrator.
Once you have a network connection of some sort working, the installation
can continue over NFS or FTP.
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1.5.5.4 NFS installation tips
NFS installation is fairly straight-forward: Simply copy the FreeBSD
distribution files you want onto a server somewhere and then point the NFS
media selection at it.
If this server supports only ``privileged port'' access (this is generally
the default for Sun and Linux workstations), you will need to set this
option in the Options menu before installation can proceed.
If you have a poor quality Ethernet card which suffers from very slow
transfer rates, you may also wish to toggle the appropriate Options flag.
In order for NFS installation to work, the server must also support
``subdir mounts'', e.g. if your FreeBSD distribution directory lives on
wiggy:/usr/archive/stuff/FreeBSD, then wiggy will have to allow the direct
mounting of /usr/archive/stuff/FreeBSD, not just /usr or
/usr/archive/stuff.
In FreeBSD's /etc/exports file this is controlled by the -alldirs option.
Other NFS servers may have different conventions. If you are getting
Permission Denied messages from the server then it's likely that you don't
have this properly enabled.
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1.5.5.5 FTP Installation tips
FTP installation may be done from any mirror site containing a reasonably
up-to-date version of FreeBSD. A full menu of reasonable choices for
almost any location in the world is provided in the FTP site menu during
installation.
If you are installing from some other FTP site not listed in this menu, or
you are having troubles getting your name server configured properly, you
can also specify your own URL by selecting the ``URL'' choice in that
menu. A URL can contain a hostname or an IP address, so something like the
following would work in the absence of a name server:
ftp://216.66.64.162/pub/FreeBSD/releases/ia64/4.2-RELEASE
There are three FTP installation modes you can use:
* FTP: This method uses the standard ``Active'' mode for transfers, in
which the server initiates a connection to the client. This will not
work through most firewalls but will often work best with older FTP
servers that do not support passive mode. If your connection hangs
with passive mode, try this one.
* FTP Passive: This sets the FTP "Passive" mode which prevents the
server from opening connections to the client. This option is best for
users to pass through firewalls that do not allow incoming connections
on random port addresses.
* FTP via an HTTP proxy: This option instructs FreeBSD to use HTTP to
connect to a proxy for all FTP operations. The proxy will translate
the requests and send them to the FTP server. This allows the user to
pass through firewalls that do not allow FTP at all, but offer an HTTP
proxy. You must specify the hostname of the proxy in addition to the
FTP server.
In the rare case that you have an FTP proxy that does not go through
HTTP, you can specify the URL as something like:
ftp://foo.bar.com:port/pub/FreeBSD
In the URL above, port is the port number of the proxy FTP server.
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1.6 Question and Answer Section for IA-64 Architecture Users
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2 Distribution Format
A typical FreeBSD distribution directory looks something like this (exact
details may vary depending on version, architecture, and other factors):
ERRATA.HTM README.TXT compat1x dict kernel
ERRATA.TXT RELNOTES.HTM compat20 doc manpages
HARDWARE.HTM RELNOTES.TXT compat21 docbook.css packages
HARDWARE.TXT base compat22 filename.txt ports
INSTALL.HTM boot compat3x floppies proflibs
INSTALL.TXT catpages compat4x games src
README.HTM cdrom.inf crypto info tools
If you want to do a CDROM, FTP or NFS installation from this distribution
directory, all you need to do is make the 1.44MB boot floppies from the
floppies directory (see Section 1.3 for instructions on how to do this),
boot them and follow the instructions. The rest of the data needed during
the installation will be obtained automatically based on your selections.
If you've never installed FreeBSD before, you also want to read the
entirety of this document (the installation instructions) file.
If you're trying to do some other type of installation or are merely
curious about how a distribution is organized, what follows is a more
thorough description of some of these items in more detail:
1. The *.TXT and *.HTM files contain documentation (for example, this
document is contained in both INSTALL.TXT and INSTALL.HTM) and should
be read before starting an installation. The *.TXT files are plain
text, while the *.HTM files are HTML files that can be read by almost
any Web browser. Some distributions may contain documentation in other
formats as well, such as PDF or PostScript.
2. docbook.css is a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) file used by some Web
browsers for formatting the HTML documentation.
3. The base, catpages, crypto, dict, doc, games, info, manpages,
proflibs, and src directories contain the primary distribution
components of FreeBSD itself and are split into smaller files for easy
packing onto floppies (should that be necessary).
4. The compat1x, compat20, compat21, compat22, compat3x, and compat4x
directories contain distributions for compatibility with older
releases and are distributed as single gzip'd tar files - they can be
installed during release time or later by running their install.sh
scripts.
5. The floppies/ subdirectory contains the floppy installation images;
further information on using them can be found in Section 1.3.
6. The packages and ports directories contain the FreeBSD Packages and
Ports Collections. Packages may be installed from the packages
directory by running the command:
#/stand/sysinstall configPackages
Packages can also be installed by feeding individual filenames in
packages/ to the pkg_add(1) command.
The Ports Collection may be installed like any other distribution and
requires about 100MB unpacked. More information on the ports
collection may be obtained from http://www.FreeBSD.org/ports/ or
locally from /usr/share/doc/handbook if you've installed the doc
distribution.
7. Last of all, the tools directory contains various DOS tools for
discovering disk geometries, installing boot managers and the like. It
is purely optional and provided only for user convenience.
A typical distribution directory (for example, the info distribution)
looks like this internally:
CHECKSUM.MD5 info.ab info.ad info.inf install.sh
info.aa info.ac info.ae info.mtree
The CHECKSUM.MD5 file contains MD5 signatures for each file, should data
corruption be suspected, and is purely for reference. It is not used by
the actual installation and does not need to be copied with the rest of
the distribution files. The info.a* files are split, gzip'd tar files, the
contents of which can be viewed by doing:
# cat info.a* | tar tvzf -
During installation, they are automatically concatenated and extracted by
the installation procedure.
The info.inf file is also necessary since it is read by the installation
program in order to figure out how many pieces to look for when fetching
and concatenating the distribution. When putting distributions onto
floppies, the .inf file must occupy the first floppy of each distribution
set!
The info.mtree file is another non-essential file which is provided for
user reference. It contains the MD5 signatures of the unpacked
distribution files and can be later used with the mtree(8) program to
verify the installation permissions and checksums against any possible
modifications to the file. When used with the base distribution, this can
be an excellent way of detecting trojan horse attacks on your system.
Finally, the install.sh file is for use by those who want to install the
distribution after installation time. To install the info distribution
from CDROM after a system was installed, for example, you'd do:
# cd /cdrom/info
# sh install.sh
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3 Upgrading FreeBSD
These instructions describe a procedure for doing a binary upgrade from an
older version of FreeBSD.
Warning: While the FreeBSD upgrade procedure does its best to safeguard
against accidental loss of data, it is still more than possible to wipe
out your entire disk with this installation! Please do not accept the
final confirmation request unless you have adequately backed up any
important data files.
Important: These notes assume that you are using the version of
sysinstall(8) supplied with the version of FreeBSD to which you intend
to upgrade. Using a mismatched version of sysinstall(8) is almost
guaranteed to cause problems and has been known to leave systems in an
unusable state. The most commonly made mistake in this regard is the use
of an old copy of sysinstall(8) from an existing installation to upgrade
to a newer version of FreeBSD. This is not recommended.
Warning: Binary upgrades to FreeBSD 5.2.1-RELEASE from FreeBSD 4-STABLE
are not supported at this time. There are some files present in a
FreeBSD 4-STABLE whose presence can be disruptive, but are not removed
by a binary upgrade. One notable example is that an old /usr/include/g++
directory will cause C++ programs to compile incorrectly (or not at
all).
These upgrade instructions are provided for the use of users upgrading
from relatively recent FreeBSD 5-CURRENT snapshots.
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3.1 Introduction
The upgrade procedure replaces distributions selected by the user with
those corresponding to the new FreeBSD release. It preserves standard
system configuration data, as well as user data, installed packages and
other software.
Administrators contemplating an upgrade are encouraged to study this
section in its entirety before commencing an upgrade. Failure to do so may
result in a failed upgrade or loss of data.
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3.1.1 Upgrade Overview
Upgrading of a distribution is performed by extracting the new version of
the component over the top of the previous version. Files belonging to the
old distribution are not deleted.
System configuration is preserved by retaining and restoring the previous
version of the following files:
Xaccel.ini, XF86Config, adduser.conf, aliases, aliases.db, amd.map,
crontab, csh.cshrc, csh.login, csh.logout, cvsupfile, dhclient.conf,
disktab, dm.conf, dumpdates, exports, fbtab, fstab, ftpusers, gettytab,
gnats, group, hosts, hosts.allow, hosts.equiv, hosts.lpd, inetd.conf,
localtime, login.access, login.conf, mail, mail.rc, make.conf,
manpath.config, master.passwd, motd, namedb, networks, newsyslog.conf,
nsmb.conf, nsswitch.conf, pam.conf, passwd, periodic, ppp, printcap,
profile, pwd.db, rc.conf, rc.conf.local, rc.firewall, rc.local, remote,
resolv.conf, rmt, sendmail.cf, sendmail.cw, services, shells, skeykeys,
spwd.db, ssh, syslog.conf, ttys, uucp
The versions of these files which correspond to the new version are moved
to /etc/upgrade/. The system administrator may peruse these new versions
and merge components as desired. Note that many of these files are
interdependent, and the best merge procedure is to copy all site-specific
data from the current files into the new.
During the upgrade procedure, the administrator is prompted for a location
into which all files from /etc/ are saved. In the event that local
modifications have been made to other files, they may be subsequently
retrieved from this location.
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3.2 Procedure
This section details the upgrade procedure. Particular attention is given
to items which substantially differ from a normal installation.
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3.2.1 Backup
User data and system configuration should be backed up before upgrading.
While the upgrade procedure does its best to prevent accidental mistakes,
it is possible to partially or completely destroy data and configuration
information.
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3.2.2 Mount Filesystems
The disklabel editor is entered with the nominated disk's filesystem
devices listed. Prior to commencing the upgrade, the administrator should
make a note of the device names and corresponding mountpoints. These
mountpoints should be entered here. Do not set the ``newfs flag'' for any
filesystems, as this will cause data loss.
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3.2.3 Select Distributions
When selecting distributions, there are no constraints on which must be
selected. As a general rule, the base distribution should be selected for
an update, and the man distribution if manpages are already installed.
Other distributions may be selected beyond those originally installed if
the administrator wishes to add additional functionality.
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3.2.4 After Installation
Once the installation procedure has completed, the administrator is
prompted to examine the new configuration files. At this point, checks
should be made to ensure that the system configuration is valid. In
particular, the /etc/rc.conf and /etc/fstab files should be checked.
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3.3 Upgrading from Source Code
Those interested in an upgrade method that allows more flexibility and
sophistication should take a look at The Cutting Edge in the FreeBSD
Handbook. This procedure involves rebuilding all of FreeBSD from source
code. It requires reliable network connectivity, extra disk space, and
time, but has advantages for networks and other more complex
installations. This is roughly the same procedure as is used for track the
-STABLE or -CURRENT development branches.
/usr/src/UPDATING contains important information on updating a FreeBSD
system from source code. It lists various issues resulting from changes in
FreeBSD that may affect an upgrade.
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4 Troubleshooting
4.1 Repairing an Existing FreeBSD Installation
FreeBSD features a ``Fixit'' option in the top menu of the boot floppy. To
use it, you will also need either a fixit.flp image floppy, generated in
the same fashion as the boot floppy, or the ``live filesystem'' CDROM;
typically the second CDROM in a multi-disc FreeBSD distribution.
To invoke fixit, simply boot the kern.flp floppy, choose the ``Fixit''
item and insert the fixit floppy or CDROM when asked. You will then be
placed into a shell with a wide variety of commands available (in the
/stand and /mnt2/stand directories) for checking, repairing and examining
filesystems and their contents. Some UNIX administration experience is
required to use the fixit option.
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4.2 Common Installation Problems for IA-64 Architecture Users
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This file, and other release-related documents, can be downloaded from
ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/.
For questions about FreeBSD, read the documentation before contacting
<questions@FreeBSD.org>.
For questions about this documentation, e-mail <doc@FreeBSD.org>.