Subject: First successful NetBSD install using sysinst
To: None <port-mac68k@netbsd.org>
From: William Duke <wduke@cogeco.ca>
List: port-mac68k
Date: 06/11/2006 20:02:39
I've just completed my first successful NetBSD install using the sysinst
utility on a Quadra 700.  I'm quite content with myself at the
moment. :-)   Thank you...  Thank you...  You're too kind.

Anyway, I was just checking the NetBSD site and discovered that someone
has taken the time to compile a whack of packages for the 3.0 release,
with HylaFAX being among them.   I'm currently using a PowerMac
9500/Debian-GNU/Linux box as a faxserver using HylaFAX.  I figure that
my little Quadra 700/NetBSD box would be a better choice for a server
that gets little use and remains powered on 24/7.  

However, my little Quadra 700 has only a paltry 400MB hard drive.  With
a Mac HFS partition gobbling up 64MB of that hard drive, and a swap
partition gobbling up another 64MB of drive space, that leaves less than
300MB for the NetBSD software, and very little space left over for
applications and data files.  Obviously, I'm going to need significantly
more disk space if I'm going to make any serious use of my little NetBSD
box.

I've been thinking about my options, and I've basically decided that I
really have two ways to go.  I could get a larger hard drive for my
Quadra, or had a second or third external drive, or I could explore NFS
fileshares with a little more depth.

I have a bunch of small SCSI drives laying around that I would like to
use, rather than throwing them in the trash, so I'm not inclined to
source some larger drives at additional expense.   I'd really like to
use the resources that I already have available.  Unfortunately, using
these smaller hard drives as external drives would also require
additional expense, as I'd have to purchase cables, cases, power
supplies, etcetera.  So these, clearly, are not my best options at the
moment.

Fortunately, I'm also running another Linux machine that is powered on
24/7 and has a significant amount of storage space available.   This
Linux box currently serves three functions:  1) it operates as a web
server, 2) it serves as an MP3 server for other computers on my local
network, and 3) it serves as an NFS fileshare for the other computers on
my network.  So it dawned on me that I could use a small drive in my
Quadra 700 to boot it, and use networked disk space for the bulk of my
Quadra's storage needs.

I'm thinking that I could create a directory on my Linux server and make
disk space available to the NetBSD machine by virtue of NFS.  I figure
that several of my NetBSD system directories and files can stored
remotely and accessed via an NFS fileshare.  Likely candidates for
remote directories include /usr /home and so on.

So my question to you is this:  Which directories would have to remain
local?  Obviously, certain files are necessary to boot the OS and mount
the remote fileshares, so these would have to remain local to the Quadra
700.  The rest, as the saying goes, is history...  Or, more accurately,
the rest can be stored remotely and mounted from an NFS server at
startup by adding a couple of lines to my fstab file.

Basically, I want to use my little SCSI drives to store a minimal NetBSD
OS -- just enough to boot the machine and mount the remote NFS
partitions.   Anybody done this?