INSTALLATION NOTES for OpenBSD/alpha 2.6 What is OpenBSD? ---------------- OpenBSD is a Berkeley Networking Release 2 (Net/2) and 4.4BSD-Lite -derived Operating System. It is a fully functional UN*X-like system which runs on many architectures and is being ported to more. Continuing the multi-platform tradition, OpenBSD has added ports to mvme68k, powerpc and arc machines. Kernel interfaces have continued to be refined, and now several subsystems and device drivers are shared among the different ports. You can look for this trend to continue. Security of the system as a whole has been significantly improved. Source code for all critical system components has been checked for remote-access, local-access, denial-of-service, data destruction, or information-gathering problems. Tools like ssh, ipf, ipnat, and nc have been added to the tree because security conscious people often need them. OpenBSD 2.6 has significantly enhanced the binary emulation subsystem (which includes iBCS2, Linux, OSF/1, SunOS, SVR4, Solaris and Ultrix compatibility) and several kernel subsystems have been generalized to support this more readily. The binary emulation strategy is aimed at making the emulation as accurate as possible. Cryptography components are part of OpenBSD. OpenBSD is from Canada, and export of these pieces (such as kerberosIV) to the world is not restricted. Note that it can not be re-exported from the US once it has entered the US. Because of this, take care NOT to get the distrib- ution from an FTP server in the US if you are outside of Canada and the US. Many new user programs have been added in OpenBSD 2.6, as well, bringing it closer to our goal of supplying a complete and modern UN*X-like environment. Tools like perl and ksh are standard, as are numerous other useful tools. OpenBSD 2.6 is the second formal release of OpenBSD for the alpha processor. The worlds briefest but still comprehensive introduction to the Alpha: The Alpha (aka AXP) processor family was DEC's path in moving away from the VAX and PMAX (MIPS RISC) architectures to a new RISC family that could run VMS without major architectural changes and also support Ultrix/OSF/Digital Unix. The first processors announced offered downright shocking processor clock rates and performance, though other workstations and now even Pentium based PC's have since surpassed the original performance figures. The Alpha processors basically fit into two families, the original 21064/21164 family and the low-end 21066/21068 family. The 21064 family has an uncommitted 128-bit data path to memory and cache. DEC has implemented quite a range of system designs using this family, with both PCI and Turbo-Channel expansion, and also multi-processor server systems. As CPU performance has moved along, DEC has enhanced the original design with higher clock speeds, on-board L2 cache and 4 vs. 2-issue superscalar processor core. The 21066 family is a lower end version intended mostly for use in personal workstations. In contrast to the 21064 it has only a 64-bit path to external memory and cache, with a built-in PCI bus interface. As a result of the narrower data path, performance is about 2/3 that of the 21064 at the same clock speed. DEC also hasn't done as much to enhance the speed or processor core and newer DEC systems are based on the 21064/21164 family with with PCI bus support chips, rather than the 21066. In the systems front, the 21064 based systems are common in the workplace and available though used workstation channels, but much of the recent interest in the Alpha family stems from the availability of the Multia/UDB systems and AXPpci33 motherboards in surplus channels at increasingly attractive prices. The Multia/UDB (same hardware, different software bundle) and AXPpci33 are based on the same 20164 reference design - the AXPpci33 is a "Baby AT" motherboard with PCI/ISA expansion slots, while the Multia/UDB is a very compact desktop system, with at most one PCI expansion slot, but with Video, Ethernet, PCMCIA slots and Audio built-in and also a SCSI hard drive and optional floppy drive. It is important to realize that, in today's terms, these systems are comparable in performance to mid-range Pentium based PC's - they benchmark better than many more expensive systems on the used workstation market, but don't expect miracles in comparison to Pentium-Pro 200 MHz systems. Both systems are available with 166 MHz and 233 Mhz Alpha chips, but the 166 Mhz systems are much more common and 233 Mhz ones command a substantial price premium. So far, no source of cheap 233+ Mhz Alpha chips has turned up for upgrades. Which system to select depends on your intended use. The AXPpci33 boards are cheaper and allow more peripheral expansion, but you must add case, power supply, cache chips, memory, SCSI drive, ethernet and a video card to get you near the working equivalent of the Multia/UDB systems. The Multia/UDB systems come in several models. While the box supports one PCI slot, in the systems that have an internal 3.5" hard drive the PCI card area is blocked by the hard drive. The SCSI controller is on a riser card that plugs into the PCI Bus on the mainboard and some versions of the riser don't make provision for an external SCSI bus connector or for the PCI expansion slot. Some systems come with 3.5" 2.88 MB floppy drives, but note that a low-profile note-book style drive with attached ribbon cable is used, rather than a standard PC style floppy drive. VX40 - These are the low-end systems, with a 166 MHz Alpha chip soldered in and 256 K-byte cache soldered in. The variants with no floppy, no PCI slot and no external SCSI connector seem to be the most common. VX41 - These are the mid-range systems, most with socketed 166 MHz Alpha chips and 256 K-byte of cache in a SIMM-socket. VX42 - These are the deluxe systems, essentially the same as as the VX41, but all models have 233 Mhz Alpha chips and 512 K-byte cache. VX51 - This is the Pentium based member of the Multia family, and not an alpha at all. Sources of OpenBSD: ------------------- This is a list of currently known ftp servers: Korea: ftp://ftp1.kr.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD == ftp://sunsite.kren.ne.kr/pub/OpenBSD Australia: ftp://ftp.aba.net.au/pub/OpenBSD == ftp://ftp.au.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD France: ftp://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/OpenBSD == ftp://ftp.fr.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD ftp://frp.univ-evry.fr/pub/OpenBSD Germany: ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/unix/OpenBSD == ftp://ftp.de.openbsd.org/pub/unix/openbsd/mirrors/OpenBSD Japan: ftp://ftp.tut.ac.jp/OpenBSD == ftp://ftp.jp.openbsd.org/OpenBSD ftp://ftp.dti.ad.jp/pub/OpenBSD Sweden: ftp://ftp.stacken.kth.se/pub/OpenBSD == ftp://ftp.se.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD ftp://ftp1.se.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD Switzerland: ftp://web.eunet.ch/pub/OpenBSD == ftp://ftp.eu.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD Thailand: ftp://ftp.ruibon.ac.th/pup/OpenBSD == ftp://ftp.th.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD Korea: ftp://sunsite.kren.ne.kr/pup/OpenBSD == ftp://ftp.kr.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD United Kingdom: ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/OpenBSD USA: ftp://freestuff.cs.colorado.edu/pub/OpenBSD == ftp://ftp3.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD ftp://openbsd.eecs.umich.edu/pub/OpenBSD == ftp://ftp1.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD ftp://ftp4.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD ftp://ftp.geek-girl.com/pub/OpenBSD == ftp://ftp.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD ftp://ftp6.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD ftp://ftp.op.net/pub/OpenBSD ftp://freon.republic.k12.mo.us/pub/OpenBSD frp://ftp.msoe.edu/pub/OpenBSD Canada: ftp://lager.ucs.ualberta.ca/pub/OpenBSD == ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD ftp://ftp.ca.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD ftp://ftp1.ca.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD ftp://obsd.compmore.net/pub/OpenBSD == ftp://ftp2.ca.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD ftp://ftp.styx.org/pub/OpenBSD As well, the file ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/2.6/ftplist contains a list which is continually updated. If you wish to become a distribution site for OpenBSD, contact deraadt@cvs.openbsd.org. OpenBSD 2.6 Release Contents: ----------------------------- The OpenBSD 2.6 release is organized in the following way. In the .../2.6 directory, for each of the architectures having an OpenBSD 2.6 binary distribution, there is a sub-directory. The alpha-specific portion of the OpenBSD 2.6 release is found in the "alpha" subdirectory of the distribution. That subdirectory is laid out as follows: .../2.6/alpha/ INSTALL.alpha Installation notes; this file. CKSUM Output of the cksum(1) and md5(1) programs MD5 usable for verification of the correctness of downloaded files. floppy26.fs The standard alpha boot and installation floppy; see below. *.tar.gz alpha binary distribution sets; see below. bsd A stock GENERIC alpha kernel which will be installed on your system during the install. bsd.rd A compressed RAMDISK kernel; the embedded filesystem contains the installation tools. Used for simple installation from a pre- existing system. In summary, there is one alpha floppy image called "floppy26.fs" (which you can copy to a floppy using rawrite.exe or `dd'; as described later in this document). This is a bootable install floppy which can be used both to install and to upgrade OpenBSD to the current version. It is also useful for maintenance and disaster recovery. Bootable installation/upgrade floppy: This disk contains a file system, is bootable, and has enough utilities on board to prepare your hard disk drive for OpenBSD and to install the OpenBSD distribution. It also holds the utilities needed in order to upgrade a system to the current version of OpenBSD. The OpenBSD/alpha binary distribution sets contain the binaries which comprise the OpenBSD 2.6 release for alpha systems. There are ten binary distribution sets. The binary distribution sets can be found in the "alpha" subdirectory of the OpenBSD 2.6 distribution tree, and are as follows: base26 The OpenBSD/alpha 2.6 base binary distribution. You MUST install this distribution set. It contains the base OpenBSD utilities that are necessary for the system to run and be minimally functional. It includes shared library support, and excludes everything described below. [ 49.9M gzipped, 133.6M uncompressed ] comp26 The OpenBSD/alpha Compiler tools. All of the tools relating to C, C++, and FORTRAN (yes, there are two!) are supported. This set includes the system include files (/usr/include), the linker, the compiler tool chain, and the various system libraries (except the shared libraries, which are included as part of the base set). This set also includes the manual pages for all of the utilities it contains, as well as the system call and library manual pages. [ 18.0M gzipped, 65.6M uncompressed ] etc26 This distribution set contains the system configuration files that reside in /etc and in several other places. This set MUST be installed if you are installing the system from scratch, but should NOT be used if you are upgrading. (If you are upgrading, it's recommended that you get a copy of this set and CAREFULLY upgrade your configuration files by hand.) [ 160.6K gzipped, 720.0K uncompressed ] game26 This set includes the games and their manual pages. [ 7.1M gzipped, 18.0M uncompressed ]) man26 This set includes all of the manual pages for the binaries and other software contained in the base set. Note that it does not include any of the manual pages that are included in the other sets. [ 3.4M gzipped, 13.1M uncompressed ] misc26 This set includes the system dictionaries (which are rather large), the typesettable document set, and man pages for other architectures which happen to be installed from the source tree by default. [ 1.6M gzipped, 5.4M uncompressed ] xbase26 This set includes the base X distribution. This includes programs, headers, libraries, configuration files. [ 44.1M gzipped, 114.1M uncompressed ] xshare26 This set includes all text files equivalent between all architectures. [ 1.4M gzipped, 8.3M uncompressed ] xfont26 This set includes all of the X fonts. [ 5.9M gzipped, 7.1M uncompressed ] xserv26 This set includes all of the X servers. [ 4.5M gzipped, 12.4M uncompressed ] OpenBSD System Requirements and Supported Devices: -------------------------------------------------- OpenBSD/alpha 2.6 is expected to run on the following hardware. If you have hardware that is listed here and are unable to run OpenBSD, or if you are able to run OpenBSD on hardware not listed here, please send mail to with as much information as possible. Supported hardware: DEC 3000/[3456789]00 series with the following peripherals: Supported hardware: Built-in serial ports. Built-in LANCE ethernet. Built-in SCSI chips (53c[f]94), though both may not work at the same time. Things that may work but haven't been tested: TurboChannel option slot LANCE (PMAD-A). Things are *not* supported at this time: Frame buffers of any type. Other TurboChannel option boards. The ISDN/Audio chip. AlphaStation {200,250,255,400,500} and AXPpci systems (including the Multia) using the following peripherals: Supported hardware: NCR 53c810 SCSI (built-in or PCI board). Built-in ns16550 serial ports. DC21040-based ethernet (built-in or PCI board). DC21140-based PCI ethernet boards. DC21050-based PCI-PCI bridges (though other types of PCI-PCI bridges should work). PCI VGA video boards. DEC ZLXp-E1 (DC21030-based, "TGA") video boards. PCI and ISA NE2000-compatible ethernet cards. SMC/WD 8003, 8013, and the SMC "Elite16" ISA boards. Integrated AXPpci33 and other ISA IDE controllers, and associated disks. [Note: With single ATAPI device IDE busses, the ATAPI device should be set to SLAVE.] 3COM 3c9xx (3c900, 3c905b, 3c905c) ethernet boards. RealTek 8129/8139 based ethernet boards. Lite-On PNIC (82c168,82c169) based ethernet boards. Keyboard. PS/2-style mice. Things that may work but haven't been tested: Built-in parallel ports. ISA ns16x50-family serial port boards. ISA ns16x50 multi-port serial boards. Other NCR 53c8xx SCSI boards. ST506/MFM/ESDI ISA controllers. Things that are *not* supported at this time: ISA VGA boards. Sound hardware (including Windows Sound System built-in on some machines). DEC ZLXp-E2 and ZLXp-E3 PCI video boards. The built-in scsi controller on the AlphaStation 600. PCI boards not listed above. The floppy drive. IDE controllers (including the built-in IDE controller on some machines). At this time none of the following systems are supported: DECpc AXP 150 systems (EISA-bus PC-like systems) Alpha "server" systems (other than perhaps the AlphaServer 400, which might be an AlphaStation 400 in disguise). Multiprocessor Alpha systems Console frame buffers and keyboards are only supported on systems explicately mentioned above. On other systems, including all TurboChannel-based machines, OpenBSD/Alpha *must* be used with a serial console. Setting an Alpha system to use a serial console is system-specific. The procedure for most common hardware is: DEC 3000/[4-9]00's: Flip the appropriate switch on the back of the machine. DEC 3000/300 family machines: Boot the machine with the keyboard/mouse connector unplugged. AlphaStations, AXPpci systems and most others: Get to the SRM console prompt. Enter "set console serial", then enter "init" or cycle power. See your owner's manual for more details on how to set your machine to use a serial console. Getting the OpenBSD System onto Useful Media: --------------------------------------------- Installation is supported from several media types, including: FFS partitions Tape Remote NFS partition CD-ROM FTP HTTP If you have the OpenBSD CD-ROM distribution (and a CD-ROM drive) you can boot from it. Otherwise, you will need to create a bootable disk. This may be a floppy or a hard disk (floppy is simplest). To boot from CD-ROM: At the SRM console enter "show device" to find the device ID of your CD-ROM drive (the device ID is in the second column and should start with DKA). If your drive shows up with a drive number with trailing zeros, you will want to ignore them (unless it is DKA0). For example, if your cdrom is listed as DKA600, you want to use dka6 (device ID's are case insensitive). Insert the OpenBSD/alpha CD and enter "boot -fi 2.6/alpha/bsd.rd DEVICE" where DEVICE is the dka device. Note that the argument order is important here. If this does not work, you'll have to create a boot floppy or bootable hard disk; follow the directions below. (A boot floppy image is included on the CD-ROM as 2.6/alpha/floppy26.fs.) If you have a floppy drive on your alpha: If you are using a UN*X-like system to write the floppy image to disk, you should use the "dd" command to copy the file system image (floppy26.fs) directly to the raw floppy disk. It is suggested that you read the dd(1) manual page or ask your system administrator to determine the correct set of arguments to use; it will be slightly different from system to system, and a comprehensive list of the possibilities is beyond the scope of this document. If you are using a DOS PC to write the floppy image to disk, you should use the "rawrite" utility, provided in the "2.6/tools" directory of the OpenBSD distribution. It will write the file system image (floppy26.fs) to a disk. You can boot it using "boot dva0". If you are using a NT to write the floppy image to disk, you should use the "ntrw" utility, provided in the "2.6/tools" directory of the OpenBSD distribution, instead. Note that, when installing, the floppy can be write-protected (i.e. read-only). If you don't have a floppy drive on your alpha: If you don't have a floppy drive you can copy the floppy image onto the hard disk you intend to install OpenBSD on. Doing so will overwrite the disk's old contents, however. You must use a UN*X-like system to write the floppy image to the hard disk you will be using for OpenBSD/alpha. You should use the "dd" command to copy the file system image (floppy26.fs) directly to the raw 'c' device (whole disk) of the target hard disk. It is suggested that you read the dd(1) manual page or ask your system administrator to determine the correct set of arguments to use; it will be slightly different from system to system, and a comprehensive list of the possibilities is beyond the scope of this document. Please note that this will put a floppy disklabel on your disk which will confuse the install script. To fix this you need to answer "n" to the first question when booting your disk and do "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rsd0c count=20" assuming your booted from sd0. After doing this you will not be able to boot that disk again unless you complete the install. You can now enter "install" and start the actual install process. The steps necessary to prepare the distribution sets for installation depend on which method of installation you choose. Some methods require a bit of setup first that is explained below. To install or upgrade OpenBSD using a tape, you need to do the following: To install OpenBSD from a tape, you need to make a tape that contains the distribution set files, in "tar" format. If you're making the tape on a UN*X-like system, the easiest way to do so is probably something like: tar cf where "" is the name of the tape device that describes the tape drive you're using (possibly /dev/rst0, or something similar, but it will vary from system to system. (If you can't figure it out, ask your system administrator.) In the above example, "" are the distribution sets' directories, for the distribution sets you wish to place on the tape. For instance, to put the "base26" and "etc26" distributions on tape (in order to do the absolute minimum installation to a new disk), you would do the following: cd .../2.6 # the top of the tree cd alpha/ tar cf base26 etc26 (Note that you still need to fill in "" in the example.) Once you have the files on the tape, you can proceed to the next step in the installation or upgrade process. If you're installing OpenBSD from scratch, go to the section on preparing your hard disk, below. If you're upgrading an existing installation, go directly to the section on upgrading. To install OpenBSD using a remote partition, mounted via NFS, you must do the following: NOTE: This method of installation is recommended only for those already familiar with using BSD network configuration and management commands. If you aren't, this documentation should help, but is not intended to be all-encompassing. Place the OpenBSD distribution sets you wish to install into a directory on an NFS server, and make that directory mountable by the machine on which you are installing or upgrading OpenBSD. This will probably require modifying the /etc/exports file on of the NFS server and resetting its mount daemon (mountd). (Both of these actions will probably require superuser privileges on the server.) You need to know the the numeric IP address of the NFS server, and, if the server is not on a network directly connected to the machine on which you're installing or upgrading OpenBSD, you need to know the numeric IP address of the router closest to the OpenBSD machine. Finally, you need to know the numeric IP address of the OpenBSD machine itself. Once the NFS server is set up properly and you have the information mentioned above, you can proceed to the next step in the installation or upgrade process. If you're installing OpenBSD from scratch, go to the section on preparing your hard disk, below. If you're upgrading an existing installation, go directly to the section on upgrading. If you are upgrading OpenBSD, you also have the option of installing OpenBSD by putting the new distribution sets somewhere in your existing file system, and using them from there. To do that, you must do the following: Place the distribution sets you wish to upgrade somewhere in your current file system tree. At a bare minimum, you must upgrade the "base" binary distribution, and so must put the "base26" set somewhere in your file system. If you wish, you can do the other sets, as well, but you should NOT upgrade the "etc" distribution; the "etc" distribution contains system configuration files that you should review and update by hand. Once you have done this, you can proceed to the next step in the upgrade process, actually upgrading your system. Preparing your System for OpenBSD Installation: ----------------------------------------------- OpenBSD/alpha requires the SRM console. Some alphas come with the ARC firmware instead (this is what Windows NT uses). It is fairly simple to replace the ARC firmware with the SRM version. You can get replacement firmware either from a firmware update CD or via ftp from ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/Alpha/firmware/. AXPPCI33 Motherboard notes: The 1994 version of the OEM guide has an incorrect pinout for the serial ports. The newer version from ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/Digital/axppci/design_guide.ps.Z has a corrected pinout (as well as more information than the 1994 edition). Note that there are two flavors of PC serial connectors. If you have the wrong kind, you won't get any output from the serial console. Acquiring and updating firmware: As of May, 1997, the latest firmware version available for ftp is version 3.9. To update an alpha with an axppci33 motherboard from ARC firmware to SRM one would ftp to ftp.digital.com and download /pub/DEC/Alpha/firmware/v3.9/decaxppci33/decaxppci33_v1_6.exe then copy it to a FAT-formatted (ie: DOS) floppy with the name FWUPDATE.EXE. Now that you have your new firmware on a floppy you just need to insert it into your machine's floppy drive and turn on the machine. To actually update the firmware you need to choose the "Supplementary menu" from the ARC console and then "Install new firmware". After fwupdate.exe is done loading from the floppy, enter "update srm" at the prompt and hit return. After the update is complete you may want to verify the update (if this was not done automatically) by entering "verify srm" at the prompt. Once this is done you can enter "exit" and cycle power on your machine. When it reboots you should be in the SRM console. Note that the procedure for updating SRM firmware from an existing version of the SRM console is different. Please see the README files that come with the firmware update for details. Using the SRM console: This is not intended to be an exhaustive guide on using the SRM firmware console. It should, however, give you enough information to boot OpenBSD/alpha. To see a list of devices connected to your alpha, you can use the "show device" command. For booting the devices you are interested in are "dva0" (the floppy drive) and "dka*" (the disk drives). You can set ROM variables by saying "set VARIABLE VALUE". Some variables you will want to set: auto_action Determines what happens when you turn power on, halt, or crash your machine. Valid values include "halt", "boot", and "restart". Most users will want to set this to "boot". bootdef_dev Default boot device (or list of devices). boot_file Name of the kernel to boot. If you don't set this "bsd" will be loaded. boot_osflags Flags to pass in to the kernel. For multiuser boot this needs to be set to "-a". booted_osflags Don't try to set this one directly. It will contain whatever flags the OS was last booted with. To set indirectly, boot with the -flags option, eg: "b dka0 -flags a" will boot into multi-user and set booted_osflags to "a". To see a list of all variables on your machine use the "show" command with no arguments. Alpha-related URL's: ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/Digital/Alpha/ Alpha related documents, software and firmware upgrades. http://www.digital.com/info/semiconductor/alpha.htm Alpha processor and support chip information. http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/computers/udb-man.ps.gz The Multia Service manual, in postscript form. http://www.azstarnet.com/~axplinux/ Alpha linux notes with a good introduction to Alpha chips/systems. http://www.redhat.com/support/mailing-lists/ The linux axp-list mailing list is probably the best source of alpha hardware related info, there's a searchable archive too. http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/alpha/ Pointers to documentation and supported systems. Installing the OpenBSD System: ------------------------------ Installing OpenBSD is a relatively complex process, but if you have this document in hand and are careful to read and remember the information which is presented to you by the install program, it shouldn't be too much trouble. Before you begin, you should know the geometry of your hard disk, i.e. the sector size (note that sector sizes other than 512 bytes are not currently supported), the number of sectors per track, the number of tracks per cylinder (also known as the number of heads), and the number of cylinders on the disk. The OpenBSD kernel will try to discover these parameters on its own, and if it can it will print them at boot time. If possible, you should use the parameters it prints. (You might not be able to because you're sharing your disk with another operating system, or because your disk is old enough that the kernel can't figure out its geometry.) You should now be ready to install OpenBSD. The following is a walk-through of the steps you will take while getting OpenBSD installed on your hard disk. If any question has a default answer, it will be displayed in brackets ("[]") after the question. If you wish to stop the installation, you may hit Control-C at any time, but if you do, you'll have to begin the installation process again from scratch. If you are using the floppy26.fs floppy, type "boot dva0" and hit return when presented with the SRM console prompt. You should see info about the primary and secondary boot and then the kernel should start to load. It will take a while to load the kernel from the floppy, most likely more than a minute. If some action doesn't eventually happen, or the spinning cursor has stopped and nothing further has happened, either your boot floppy is bad or you are having hardware problems. Either you have a bad boot floppy (in which case you should try another) or your alpha is not currently supported by OpenBSD. If you are booting from the CD-ROM, type "show device" and hit return when presented with the SRM console prompt. You should see a list of devices; the SCSI devices will start with "DKA". Find the SCSI device that is your CD-ROM and enter "boot dka4 -fi 2.6/alpha/bsd", assuming that your CD-ROM was listed as DKA4* (substitute the SCSI id of your CD-ROM for the "4"). You should see info about the primary and secondary boot and then the kernel should start to load. If the kernel fails to load or the spinning cursor has stopped and nothing further has happened, you either have a hardware problem or your alpha is not currently supported by OpenBSD; try booting from a floppy instead. Once the kernel has loaded, you will be presented with the OpenBSD kernel boot messages. You will want to read them to determine your disk's name and geometry. Its name will be something like "sd0" or "wd0" and the geometry will be printed on a line that begins with its name. As mentioned above, you will need your disk's geometry when creating OpenBSD partitions. You will also need to know the device name to tell the install tools what disk to install on. If you cannot read the messages as they scroll by, do not worry -- you can get at this information later inside the install program. While booting, you will probably see several warnings. You should be warned that the kernel can't figure out what device it booted from and that no swap space is present. Do not be alarmed, these are completely normal. The first warning occurs because while OpenBSD/alpha can boot from the floppy drive, the kernel itself lacks a floppy driver. When you reach the prompt asking you for a shell name, just hit return. You will next be asked for your terminal type. If you are installing from a non-serial console, the default of "sun" if correct. If you are installing from a serial console you should choose the terminal type from amongst those listed. (If your terminal type is xterm, just use vt100). After entering the terminal type you will be asked whether you wish to do an "install" or an "upgrade". Enter 'i' for a fresh install or 'u' to upgrade an existing installation. You will be presented with a welcome message and asked if you really wish to install (or upgrade). Assuming you answered yes, the install program will then tell you which disks of that type it can install on, and ask you which it should use. The name of the disk is typically "sd0" for SCSI drives or "wd0" for IDE drives. Reply with the name of your disk. Next the disk label which defines the layout of the OpenBSD file systems must be set up. The installation script will invoke an interactive editor allowing you to do this. Note that partition 'c' inside this disk label should ALWAYS reflect the entire disk, including any non-OpenBSD portions. If you are labeling a new disk, you will probably start out with an 'a' partition that spans the disk. In this case You should delete 'a' before adding new partitions. The root file system should be in partition 'a', and swap is usually in partition 'b'. It is recommended that you create separate partitions for /usr and /var, and if you have room for it, one for /home. For help in the disk label editor, enter '?' or 'M' to view the manual page (see the info on the ``-E'' flag). The swap partition (usually 'b') should have a type of "swap", all other native OpenBSD partitions should have a type of "4.2BSD". Block and fragment sizes are usually 8192 and 1024 bytes, but can also be 16384 and 2048 bytes. The install program will now label your disk and ask which file systems should be created on which partitions. It will auto- matically select the 'a' partition to be the root file system. Next it will ask for which disk and partition you want a file system created on. This will be the same as the disk name (eg. "sd0") with the letter identifying the partition (eg. "d") appended (eg. "sd0d"). Then it will ask where this partition is to be mounted, eg. /usr. This process will be repeated until you enter "done". At this point you will be asked to confirm that the file system information you have entered is correct, and given an opportunity to change the file system table. Next it will create the new file systems as specified, OVERWRITING ANY EXISTING DATA. This is the point of no return. After all your file systems have been created, the install program will give you an opportunity to configure the network. The network configuration you enter (if any) can then be used to do the install from another system using NFS, HTTP or FTP, and will also be the configuration used by the system after the installation is complete. If you select to configure the network, the install program will ask you for a name of your system and the DNS domain name to use. Note that the host name should be without the domain part, and that the domain name should NOT include the host name part. Next the system will give you a list of network interfaces you can configure. For each network interface you select to configure, it will ask for the IP address to use, the symbolic host name to use, the netmask to use and any interface-specific flags to set. The interface-specific flags are usually used to determine which media the network card is to use. The flags usually carry the following meaning: -link0 -link1 Use BNC (coaxial) port [default] link0 -link1 Use AUI port link0 link1 Use UTP (twisted pair) port After all network interfaces has been configured the install pro- gram will ask for a default route and IP address of the primary name server to use. You will also be presented with an opportunity to edit the host table. At this point you will be allowed to edit the file system table that will be used for the remainder of the installation and that will be used by the finished system, following which the new file systems will be mounted to complete the installation. After these preparatory steps has been completed, you will be able to extract the distribution sets onto your system. There are several install methods supported; FTP, HTTP, tape, CD-ROM, NFS or a local disk partition. To install from a tape, the distrib- ution sets must have been written to tape prior to running the installation program, either as tar images or as gzipped tar images. Note that installation from floppies is not currently supported. To install via FTP: To begin an FTP install you will need the following pieces of information. Don't be daunted by this list; the defaults are sufficient for most people. 1) Proxy server URL if you are using a URL-based ftp proxy (squid, CERN ftp, Apache 1.2 or higher). You need to define a proxy if you are behind a firewall that blocks outgoing ftp (assuming you have a proxy available to use). 2) Do you need to use active mode ftp? By default, ftp will attempt to use passive mode and fall back to an active connection if the server does not support passive mode. You only need to enable this option if you are connecting to a buggy ftp daemon that implements passive ftp incorrectly. Note that you will not be asked about active ftp if you are using a proxy. 3) The IP address (or hostname if you enabled DNS earlier in the install) of an ftp server carrying the OpenBSD 2.6 distribution. If you don't know, just hit return when asked if you want to see a list of such hosts. 4) The ftp directory holding the distribution sets. The default value of pub/OpenBSD/2.6/alpha is almost always correct. 5) The login and password for the ftp account. You will only be asked for a password for non-anonymous ftp. For instructions on how to complete the installation via ftp, see the section named "Common URL installations" below. To install via HTTP: To begin an HTTP install you will need the following pieces of information: 1) Proxy server URL if you are using a URL-based http proxy (squid, CERN ftp, Apache 1.2 or higher). You need to define a proxy if you are behind a firewall that blocks outgoing http connections (assuming you have a proxy available to use). 3) The IP address (or hostname if you enabled DNS earlier in the install) of an http server carrying the OpenBSD 2.6 distribution. If you don't know, just hit return when asked if you want to see a list of such hosts. 4) The directory holding the distribution sets. There is no standard location for this; You should use the directory specified along with the server in the list of official http mirror sites that you received in step 3. For instructions on how to complete the installation via http, see the section named "Common URL installations" below. To install from tape: In order to install from tape, the distribution sets to be installed must have been written to tape previously, either in tar format or gzip-compressed tar format. You will also have to identify the tape device where the distribution sets are to be extracted from. This will typically be "nrst0" (no-rewind, raw interface). Next you will have to provide the file number of the set that is to be extracted. Note that the file number starts at 1, which is the first file written to the tape. The install program will not automatically detect whether an image has been compressed, so it will ask for that information before starting the extraction. To install from CD-ROM: When installing from a CD-ROM, you will be asked which device holds the distribution sets. This will typically be either "cd0" or "acd0". Next you will be asked which partition on the CD-ROM the distribution is to be loaded from. This is normally partition "a". Next you will have to identify the file system type that has been used to create the distribution on the CD-ROM, this can be either FFS or ISO CD9660. The OpenBSD CD distribution uses the CD9660 format. You will also have to provide the relative path to the directory on the CD which holds the distribution, for the alpha this is "2.6/alpha". For instructions on how to complete the installation from the CD-ROM distribution, see the section named "Common file system installations" below. To install from a NFS mounted directory: When installing from a NFS-mounted directory, you must have completed network configuration above, and also set up the exported file system on the NFS server in advance. First you must identify the IP address of the NFS server to load the distribution from, and the file system the server expects you to mount. The install program will also ask whether or not TCP should be used for transport (the default is UDP). Note that TCP only works with newer NFS servers. You will also have to provide the relative path to the directory on the file system where the distribution sets are located. Note that this path should not be prefixed with a '/'. For instructions on how to complete the installation from the CD-ROM distribution, see the section named "Common file system installations" below. To install from a local disk partition: When installing from a local disk partition, you will first have to identify which disk holds the distribution sets. This is normally "wdN" or "sdN" where N is a number 0 through 9. Next you will have to identify the partition within that disk that holds the distribution, this is a single letter between 'a' and 'p'. You will also have to identify the type of file system residing in the partition identified. Currently, you can only install from partitions that has been formatted as the Berkeley fast file system (ffs). You will also have to provide the relative path to the directory on the file system where the distribution sets are located. Note that this path should not be prefixed with a '/'. For instructions on how to complete the installation from the a local disk partition, see the next section. Common file system installations: The following instructions are common to installations from local disk partitions, NFS mounted directories and CD-ROMs. A list of available distribution sets will be listed. You may individually select distribution sets to install or enter `all' to install all of the sets (which is what most users will want to do). You may also enter `list' to get a file list or `done' when you are done selecting distribution sets. You may also use wildcards in place of a file name, eg `*.tar.gz' or even `base*|comp*'. It is also possible to enter an arbitrary filename and have it treated as a file set. Once you have selected the file sets you want to install and entered `done' you will be prompted to verify that you really do want to extract file sets. Assuming you acquiesce, the files will begin to extract. If not, you will be given the option of installing sets via one of the other install methods. Common URL installations: Once you have entered the required information, the install program will fetch a file list and present a list of all the distribution sets that were found in the specified directory. (If no valid sets were found, you will be notified and given the option of unpacking any gzipped tar files found or getting a file list if none were found.) At this point you may individually select distribution sets to install or enter `all' to install all of the sets (which is what most users will want to do). You may also enter `list' to get a file list or `done' when you are done selecting distribution sets. You may also use wildcards in place of a file name, eg `*.tar.gz' or even `base*|comp*'. It is also possible to enter an arbitrary filename and have it treated as a file set. Once you have selected the file sets you want to install and entered `done' you will be prompted to verify that you really do want to download and install the files. Assuming you acquiesce, the files will begin to download and unpack. If not, you will be given the option of installing sets via one of the other install methods. When all the selected distribution sets has been extracted, you will be allowed to select which time zone your system will be using, all the device nodes needed by the installed system will be created for you and the file systems will be unmounted. For this to work properly, it is expected that you have installed at least the "base26", "etc26", and "bsd" distribution sets. Congratulations, you have successfully installed OpenBSD 2.6. When you reboot into OpenBSD, you should log in as "root" at the login prompt. You should create yourself an account and protect it and the "root" account with good passwords. You should have got a mail from the install program we recommend you to read, it contains answers to basic questions you might have about OpenBSD (like setting up your system, installing packages, getting more information about OpenBSD, sending in your dmesg output and more). This you can do by running mail and then just enter "1" to get the first message. You quit mail by entering "q". Some of the files in the OpenBSD 2.6 distribution might need to be tailored for your site. We recommend you run: man afterboot which will tell you about a bunch of the files needing to be reviewed. If you are unfamiliar with UN*X-like system administration, it's recommended that you buy a book that discusses it. Upgrading a previously-installed OpenBSD System: ------------------------------------------------ As this is the first formal release of OpenBSD/alpha there is no upgrade path. Getting source code for your OpenBSD System: -------------------------------------------- Now that your OpenBSD system is up and running, you probably want to get access to source code so that you can recompile pieces of the system. A few methods are provided. If you have an OpenBSD CD, the source code is provided. Otherwise, you can get the pieces over the Internet using ANONCVS, CTM or FTP. For more information, see http://www.openbsd.org/anoncvs.html http://www.openbsd.org/ctm.html http://www.openbsd.org/ftp.html Using online OpenBSD documentation: ----------------------------------- Documentation is available if you first install the manual distribution set. Traditionally, the UN*X "man pages" (documentation) are denoted by 'name(section)'. Some examples of this are intro(1), man(1), apropos(1), passwd(1), and passwd(5). The section numbers group the topics into several categories, but three are of primary interest: user commands are in section 1, file formats are in section 5, and administrative information is in section 8. The 'man' command is used to view the documentation on a topic, and is started by entering 'man [section] topic'. The brackets [] around the section should not be entered, but rather indicate that the section is optional. If you don't ask for a particular section, the topic with the least-numbered section name will be displayed. For instance, after logging in, enter man passwd to read the documentation for passwd(1). To view the documentation for passwd(5), enter man 5 passwd instead. If you are unsure of what man page you are looking for, enter apropos subject-word where "subject-word" is your topic of interest; a list of possibly related man pages will be displayed. Adding third party software; ``packages'' and ``ports'': ------------------------------------------------------- As complete as your OpenBSD system is, you may want to add any of several excellent third party software applications. There are several ways to do this. You can: 1) Obtain the source code and build the application based upon whatever installation procedures are provided with the application. 2) Use the OpenBSD ``ports'' collection to automatically get any needed source file, apply any required patches, create the application, and install it for you. 3) Use the OpenBSD ``package'' collection to grab a pre-compiled and tested version of the application for your hardware. If you purchased the OpenBSD CD-ROM you already have several popular ``packages'', the ``ports'' collection, and some of the ``ports'' source file releases. NOTE: Some important packages which are not permitted on the CD (due to patents) are available on our FTP servers. In particular, we provide the USA and international versions of both SSH and PGP. The filenames are: ssh-usa-1.2.27.tgz ssh-intl-1.2.27.tgz pgp-usa-2.6.3.tgz pgp-intl-2.6.3.tgz You are STRONGLY urged to install one of the above ssh packages and use ssh instead of telnet, rlogin, or rsh. See below for instructions on installing packages using ftp. Instructions for installing applications from the various sources using the different installation methods follow. If emacs is to be installed it should be installed first as it creates the ``info'' directory file that may be modified by other applications. Installing applications from the CD-ROM package collection: The OpenBSD CD-ROM ships with several applications pre-built for various hardware architectures. The number of applications vary according to available disk space. Check the directory 2.6/packages/alpha to see which packages are available for your hardware architecture. That directory will be on the same CD-ROM containing the OS installation files for your architecture. To install one or more of these packages you must 1) become the superuser (root) 2) mount the appropriage CD-ROM 3) use the ``pkg_add'' command to install the software Example (in which we use su(1) to get superuser privileges, thus you have to be in group "wheel", see the manual page for su(1)). $ su Password: # mkdir -p /cdrom # mount /dev/cd0a /cdrom # pkg_add /cdrom/2.6/packages/alpha/ # # umount /cdrom Package names are usually the application name and version with .tgz appended, e.g. emacs-20.3.tgz Installing applications from the ftp.openbsd.org package collection: All available packages for your architecture have been placed on ftp.openbsd.org in the directory pub/OpenBSD/2.6/packages/alpha/ You may want to peruse this to see what packages are available. The packages are also on the OpenBSD FTP mirror sites. See http://www.openbsd.org/ftp.html for a list of current ftp mirror sites. Installation of a package is very easy. 1) become the superuser (root) 2) use the ``pkg_add'' command to install the software ``pkg_add'' is smart enough to know how to download the software from the OpenBSD ftp server. Example: $ su Password: # pkg_add ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/2.6/packages/alpha/emacs-20.3.tgz Note: there are both USA and INTERNATIONAL versions of ssh and pgp on the ftp server. Be sure to grab the correct version. The USA versions, ssh-usa-1.2.26.tgz and pgp-usa-2.6.3.tgz, use RSAREF, a legal requirement for use within the United States due to patent issues. Packages available include (at least): ImageMagick-4.2.0.tgz m4-1.4.tgz Xaw3d-1.3.tgz mm-2.7.tgz aalib-1.2.tgz mpeg_lib-1.2.1.tgz afm-1.0.tgz mpeg_play-2.4.tgz autoconf-2.13.tgz netpbm-19940301.tgz bash-2.03.tgz netpipes-4.1.1-export.tgz bison-1.25.tgz nmh-1.0.tgz bzip2-0.9.0c.tgz pgp-2.6.3-intl.tgz compface-1.0.tgz pgp-2.6.3-usa.tgz cucipop-1.31.tgz pine-4.10.tgz dejagnu-1.3.tgz png-1.0.3.tgz egcs-1.1.2.tgz psutils-1.17-a4.tgz emacs-20.3.tgz psutils-1.17-letter.tgz enscript-1.6.1.tgz screen-3.7.6.tgz ethereal-0.5.1.tgz sharutils-4.2.tgz expect-5.28.tgz sniffit-0.3.5.tgz fetchmail-4.7.9.tgz ssh-1.2.27-intl.tgz freetype-1.2.tgz ssh-1.2.27-usa.tgz gettext-0.10.35.tgz tar-1.12.tgz ghostscript-5.10.tgz tcl-8.0.5.tgz gimp-1.1.4.tgz tcsh-6.08.00.tgz glib-1.2.1.tgz teTeX-0.4.tgz glimpse-4.1.tgz tiff-3.4.tgz gmake-3.77.tgz tk-8.0.5.tgz gnuplot-3.7.tgz transfig-3.2.1.tgz gtk+-1.2.1.tgz unzip-5.40.tgz gv-3.5.8.tgz viewfax-2.3.tgz id-utils-3.2.tgz wget-1.5.3.tgz idled-1.16.tgz xcolors-1.3.tgz iozone-2.01.tgz xfig-3.2.2.tgz ircii-2.8.2-epic3.004.tgz xntp3-5.93e-export.tgz ispell-3.1.20.tgz xpaint-2.5.5.tgz jove-4.16.tgz xpdf-0.80.tgz jpeg-6b.tgz xphoon-91.9.18.tgz lesstif-0.88.0.tgz xspread-2.1.tgz libslang-1.2.2.tgz xv-3.10a.tgz Note: these packages may not exist for all architectures; other packages may be added. Some packages are only available via ftp. Installing applications from the CD-ROM ports collection: The CD-ROM ``ports'' collection is a set of Makefiles, patches, and other files used to control the building and installation of an application from source files. The source files come from archives which are also, for the most part, on the OpenBSD CD-ROM. Creating an application from sources can require a lot of disk space, sometimes 50 megabytes or more. The first step is to determine which of your disks has enough room. Once you've made this determination read the file README.ports on CD-ROM 2 to see how to copy or mount the ports directory. To build an application you must: 1) become the superuser (root) 2) mount CD-ROM number 2 on the directory /cdrom. This is necessary to find the application source files. 3) cd to the ports directory containing the port you wish to build. To build samba, for example, where you'd previously copied the ports files into the /usr/ports directory: cd /usr/ports/net/samba 4) make FETCH_SYMLINK_DISTFILES=YES 5) make FETCH_SYMLINK_DISTFILES=YES install 6) make FETCH_SYMLINK_DISTFILES=YES clean The FETCH_SYMLINK_DISTFILES=YES parameter tells make not to copy the application's distribution sources from the cdrom to your hard disk, but instead create a symbolic link pointing to the CD-ROM. This is done to conserve disk space. Installing applications from the OpenBSD ports collection: See http://www.openbsd.org/ports.html for current instructions on obtaining and installing OpenBSD ports. Installing other applications: If an OpenBSD package or port does not exist for an application you're pretty much on your own. The first thing to do is ask ports@openbsd.org if anyone is working on a port -- there may be one in progress. If no luck there you may try the FreeBSD ports or NetBSD package collection. If you are on an i386 based machine it is quite possible that the FreeBSD port, if one exists, will work for you. If you can't find an existing port try to make your own and feed it back to OpenBSD. That's how our ports collection grows. Some details can be found at http://www.openbsd.org/porting.html with more help coming from the mailing list, ports@openbsd.org. Administrivia: -------------- There are various mailing lists available via the mailing list server at . To get help on using the mailing list server, send mail to that address with an empty body, and it will reply with instructions. There are also two OpenBSD Usenet newsgroups, comp.unix.bsd.openbsd.announce for important announcements and comp.unix.bsd.openbsd.misc for general OpenBSD discussion. To report bugs, use the 'sendbug' command shipped with OpenBSD, and fill in as much information about the problem as you can. Good bug reports include lots of details. Additionally, bug reports can be sent by mail to: bugs@OpenBSD.ORG Use of 'sendbug' is encouraged, however, because bugs reported with it are entered into the OpenBSD bugs database, and thus can't slip through the cracks. As a favor, please avoid mailing huge documents or files to the mailing lists. Instead, put the material you would have sent up for FTP somewhere, then mail the appropriate list about it, or, if you'd rather not do that, mail the list saying you'll send the data to those who want it.