Choosing a Boot Method

This section describes how to start (or boot) the installation program. Once the installation program is running, you will be able to choose from several installation methods. You can choose from the following installation methods: CD-ROM, hard disk, NFS, FTP and HTTP. (Note that if the installation program is booted directly from CD-ROM, the installation will automatically proceed from that CD-ROM.)

There are three different ways a Red Hat Linux/SPARC installation can be started:

Boot From Diskette -- The installation program is read from a diskette.
Boot From CD-ROM -- The installation program is read directly from the Red Hat Linux/SPARC CD-ROM.
Boot From the Network -- The installation program is read from a TFTP server.

Booting From Diskette

If your SPARC system has a diskette drive, you can boot the Red Hat Linux/SPARC installation program from a diskette. (Note that if your machine is an Ultra5 or Ultra10, you can't boot from diskette and you'll need to choose another boot method.) The boot diskette image (known as boot32.img for sun4c and sun4m; and bootimg64.img for UltraSparc) is located in the images/ directory on your Red Hat Linux/SPARC CD-ROM. A RAM disk diskette image (known as ramdisk.img) is also available. You'll need to write one or more of these files to diskette(s).

To start, you'll need a blank, formatted, high-density (1.44 MB), 3.5-inch diskette. You'll need access to a computer with a 3.5-inch diskette drive and the capability of running a DOS program or the dd utility program found on most Linux-like operating systems.

Making a Diskette Under MS-DOS

To make a diskette under MS-DOS, use the rawrite utility included on the Red Hat Linux CD in the dosutils directory. First, label a blank, formatted 3.5-inch diskette appropriately (eg. "Boot Diskette," "Supplemental Diskette," etc). Insert it into the diskette drive. Then, use the following commands (assuming your CD is drive d:):

C:\> d:
D:\> cd \dosutils
D:\dosutils> rawrite
Enter disk image source file name:
	      ..\images\boot.img
Enter target diskette drive: a:
Please insert a formatted diskette into drive A: and
	press --ENTER-- : Enter
D:\dosutils>

rawrite first asks you for the filename of a diskette image; enter the directory and name of the image you wish to write (for example, ..\images\boot32.img). Then rawrite asks for a diskette drive to write the image to; enter a:. Finally, rawrite asks for confirmation that a formatted diskette is in the drive you've selected. After pressing Enter to confirm, rawrite copies the image file onto the diskette. If you need to make another diskette, label another diskette, and run rawrite again, specifying the appropriate image file.

Making a Diskette Under a UNIX-like OS

To make a diskette under Linux (or any other UNIX-like operating system), you must have permission to write to the device representing a 3.5-inch diskette drive (known as /dev/fd0 under Linux). First, label a blank, formatted diskette appropriately (eg. "Boot Diskette," "Supplemental Diskette," etc.). Insert it into the diskette drive (but don't issue a mount command). After mounting the Red Hat Linux CD, cd to the directory containing the desired image file, and use the following command (changing the name of the image file and diskette device as appropriate):

# dd if=boot32.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=1440k

If you need to make another diskette, label another diskette, and run dd again, specifying the appropriate image file.

As a final note, make sure you label the boot and RAM disk diskettes appropriately.

Diskette Boot Commands

For SPARC systems with a PROM version of 2.0 or greater, the proper boot command (when in new command mode) is:

boot floppy

On the other hand, SPARC systems with PROM versions less than 2.0 should use the following command at the \symgt prompt:

b fd()

Please Note: There have been reports that some systems with pre-2.0 PROMs cannot boot the Red Hat Linux/SPARC installation program from diskette. Also, PCI-based UltraSPARC machines cannot boot from diskette. If this is the case with your SPARC system, you will need to use another boot method.

Booting From CD-ROM

If your SPARC system has a fully Sun-supported CD-ROM drive, you can boot directly from the Red Hat Linux/SPARC CD-ROM. For SPARC systems with a PROM version of 2.0 or better, use the following command when in new command mode:

boot cdrom

SPARC systems with PROM versions less than 2.0 may not be able to boot from a CD-ROM at all, although we've received reports that at least some PROM 1.3 systems have been able to boot from CD-ROM. If your SPARC system has a CD-ROM at SCSI id 6, the following command should boot the Red Hat Linux/SPARC installation program:

b sd(0,6,0)

Note that using an NFS-mounted root after booting from CD-ROM is not supported, as the filesystem on the Red Hat Linux/SPARC CD-ROM performs the same function as an NFS-mounted root. Therefore, no additional boot command arguments should be given for CD-ROM boots.

Booting From the Network

Two types of network boots are supported by the Red Hat Linux/SPARC installation program:

Network boot with NFS-mounted root. This method is required for SPARC systems with less than 16 MB of RAM.
Network boot with network-loaded RAM disk. This method can be used by systems with at least 16 MB of RAM.

While booting your SPARC system from the network is fairly straightforward, there are several requirements:

Your SPARC system must have a network connection.
Your network must be able to give your SPARC system its IP address via a rarp.
You must have a TFTP server that can download the Red Hat Linux/SPARC kernel and installation program to your SPARC system.
If you are going to use an NFS-mounted root, an NFS server capable of exporting the Red Hat Linux/SPARC CD-ROM (or equivalent files).

Setting up RARP

If you are going to use rarp, please refer to the section called Preparing to Use an NFS-Mounted Root.

TFTP Server Setup

If you are going to set up a TFTP server on a Red Hat Linux system, simply install the latest tftp package using RPM, and make sure the line in inetd.conf that will run tftp is uncommented. Don't forget to kill -HUP inetd if you needed to make any changes to inetd.conf.

Next, you'll need to make a symlink describing the SPARC system to be booted, and pointing to the file from which it should boot. The name of the symlink contains either one or two items:

The IP address of the system to be booted, in hexadecimal.
A string describing the architecture of the system to be booted (only sun4c and sun4m machines need this part).

To convert the more common "dotted decimal" IP address into its hex equivalent, convert each of the address' four groups of numbers into hex. If the resulting hex number is only one digit, add a leading zero to it. Then append all four hex numbers together. For example, take the IP address 10.0.2.254. Convert each set of four numbers into hex, and add a leading zero where necessary:

 10 = A  or 0A
  0 = 0  or 00
  2 = 2  or 02
254 = FE or FE

Therefore, the IP address 10.0.2.254 in hex is: 0A0002FE.

If you have perl available on a system, you can use the following command (modified to include your system's IP address, of course) to have your IP address converted for you:

# perl -e 'printf "%02x"x4 ."\n",10,0,2,254;'
0a0002fe
#

In this example, perl converted 10.0.2.254.

The second part of the symlink name is the SPARC system's architecture. For our example, we'll use sun4m. The IP address and architecture are separated by a dot, resulting in this symlink name:

0A0002FE.SUN4M

The last step is figuring out what this symlink should point to. There are two choices. If you want to use an NFS-mounted root, use the file:

/kernels/vmlinux32 -- for sun4c and sun4m
/kernels/vmlinux64 -- for UltraSparc

If you would rather use a RAM disk, use one of these files:

/images/tftp32.img -- for sun4c and sun4m		
/images/tftp64.img -- for UltraSparc

Place the appropriate file in the TFTP server's directory, and create the symlink. In this example, we're using the image that includes a RAM disk:

ln -s tftp32.img 0A0002FE.SUN4M or
ln -s tftp64.img 0A0002FE.SUN4U

Network Boot Commands

You're now ready to boot. If you're going to boot tftp32.img or tftp64.img, simply use the following command (in new command mode):

boot net

On the other hand, if you're going boot from vmlinux32 or vmlinux64 and use an NFS-mounted root, use this command:

boot net linux nfsroot=nfs.server.IP.address:/path/to/RH/image

Replace nfs.server.ip.address with the NFS server's IP address, and /path/to/RH/image with the path to the exported directory containing the appropriate Red Hat Linux/SPARC files.

SPARC systems with PROM versions less than 2.0 should use this boot command, appending the usual NFS root argument if required:

b le()