Hi !

Ok, some comments to the installation problems, i often see here:

Disk boot is a nice idea, but most VAXens don't have disk drives as i
know. CD-Boot would also be nice, but who cas create a VAX-bootable
CD-ROM. I checked it out, it seems that the CD-BOOT on VAXen only work
with VMS-CDs. The file system must match and on an ISO9660 disc you only
get something like ?FILESTRUCT or so.
Netbooting is the way which seems to be the most easy way to get the
boxes running. It took me some time to get it working for the first
time, but since then it runs perfectly on my Linux box. (For the
interested: on http://www.camaronet.de/download/mop-survival-pack.tgz i
put together a little readme and the most important files for netbooting
from a Linux box. Maybe mopd is compiled for glibc, but if somebody uses
the old libc5, i could dig out my corrected sources and you can compile
it yourself.)

My way to get a box completely up and running:

Set up all necessary stuff for netbooting, this includes:
mopd listening on the ethernet
rarp compiled into the kernel, "rarp" installed.
an /etc/ethers with the correct entries
then "rarp -f" reads in those entries.
nfs server set up for the netbooting (/etc/exports)
bootparamd set up to tell the VAX about the important things.

No more details here, just look at my survival-pack

The untgz all binary packages into your netboot directory, put a usable
kernel in its root, if you don't want to use the one from the packages,
cd to dev in this dir and enter "./MAKEDEV std" to put in the most
important device files. Ignore any errors, most of them are due to other
group/user-id mapping on linux.
cd to etc in your netboot-root, edit rc.conf and maybe some other files
you find important (fstab is important, but it also works with trash in
it :-)

When you'r complete, fire up the VAX end hope it boots the kernel and
finds the nfs root. That's all. The first step to do with this booted
system:
cd /dev
./MAKEDEV all

Then all device files are correct.

This is not the most elegant way to get the system up, but it's the
fastest :-)

Good luck...

Michael (who is still looking for VS 4000 VLC info)


Anders Hogrelius SdU wrote:
> 
> On 5 Mar 1999, rdkeys@unity.ncsu.edu wrote:
> 
> > I went playing with the better of the two VAXstations (2 x RZ23 + 8M ram),
> > and managed to get the silly thing to boot off the floppy.
> >
> >    >>Netbsd vaxboot....blah, blah.
> >    :
> >
> > But, when I typed in a call to the edlabel, it came back with some
> > register dumps and a file or directory not found message.
> > At least it seemed to boot.
> > Anyone know if it is possible to boot further and actually get it
> > to label and install a miniroot for testing?
> 
> Eh,,, No!
> I tried to make a usable bootimage, and got as far as a kernel that
> should fit on a diskette, with all the stuff necessary for installation.
> Unfortunately i wasn't able to boot it from diskette, only netboot
> worked. Strangely no one seemed interested in helping me out with
> the diskette booting problems!
> If i was able to make it work it would be very easy to install NetBSD
> on a VAX, you could even boot it from CD-ROM. If Ragge reads this:
> 
> - Please try to compile the installkernel from Dec. with SCSI, CD and
>   support for CD9660.
> 
> IMHO.
> At least half of the installation problems on the VAXen could be avoided
> with a better installation tool, and many other, if the FAQ's and HOWTO's
> were updated. There are many FAQ's floating around on the net, that
> doesn't say anything about the problems with booting on SCSI, not even
> the FAQ's on netbsd.org says anything about the problems.
> The least one could be expected to do is putting in the undocumented
> "boot rom()" stuff in the FAQ's.
> Well, it seems that using SCSI doesn't have any priority, many seem to
> think that everyone can use a system that boots and runs with everything
> mounted over net.
> I haven't got the necessary skills to make SCSI work, but i could
> easily make a bootable installation CD if someone took care about the
> SCSI-drivers in the kernel.
> 
> I'm sorry if someone feels bad about this, but in my opinion the
> priorities have been a bit mixed up. At least booting over the net
> doesn't make me happy...
> 
> cheers,
> /Anders
> 
> --
> *******************************************************************
> * Anders Högrelius SdU   Phone : +46 21 381860
> * Tessingatan 12         E-mail: anders.hogrelius@usa.net
> * 72216 Västerås            or : elt96ahs@mds.mdh.se