INSTALLBOOT(8)      OpenBSD System Manager's Manual (SPARC)     INSTALLBOOT(8)

NAME
     installboot - install a bootstrap on an FFS filesystem partition

SYNOPSIS
     installboot [-nvh] [-a karch] boot bootxx device

DESCRIPTION
     installboot prepares a FFS filesystem partition for boot-strapping from
     the PROM.  The sparc bootblocks are split into two parts: a small first-
     stage program that is written into the superblock area in a partition
     (and hence is limited in size to SBSIZE - DEV_BSIZE bytes), and a second-
     stage program that resides in the filesystem proper.  The first-stage
     program is loaded into memory by the PROM. After it receives control, it
     loads the second stage program from a set of filesystem block numbers
     that have been hard-coded into it by the installboot program. The second-
     stage boot program uses the device driver interface to the PROM and the
     stand-alone filesystem code in ``libsa.a'' to locate and load the kernel.
     The second-stage boot program and the prototype code for the first-stage
     bootprogram can be found in /usr/mdec/boot and /usr/mdec/bootxx respec-
     tively. The second-stage program commonly resides in the root directory
     as /boot. The utility /usr/mdec/binstall can be used to properly copy the
     second-stage bootprogram to its destination. This script takes care of
     post-processing that is required on non-Openboot machines.

     The options are as follows:

     -a karch
           Set the machine architecture. The argument karch can be one of
           ``sun4'', ``sun4c'' or ``sun4m''. Sun 4c models with Openboot PROMs
           need the header to be present, while Sun 4 systems with the ``old
           monitor'' interface require the header to be stripped off. This is
           normally taken care of by installboot automatically, but it's use-
           ful when preparing a bootable filesystem for another system.

     -h    Leave the a.out(5) header on the installed bootxx program. This op-
           tion has been superseded by the -a karch option.

     -n    Do not actually write anything on the disk.

     -v    Verbose mode.

     The arguments are:

     boot    the name of the second-stage boot program in the file system
             where the first-stage boot program is to be installed.

     bootxx  the name of the prototype file for the first stage boot program.

     device  the name of the raw device in which the first-stage boot program
             is to be installed.  This should correspond to the block device
             on which the file system containing boot is mounted.

EXAMPLES
     The following command will install the first-stage bootblocks in the root
     filesystem (assumed to be mounted on ``sd0a'') using the file /boot as
     the second-level boot program:

           installboot /boot /usr/mdec/bootxx /dev/rsd0a

BUGS
     installboot requires simultaneous access to the mounted file system and
     the raw device, but that is not allowed with the kernel securelevel vari-
     able set to a value greater than zero (the default), so installboot only
     works in single-user mode (or insecure mode - see init(8)).

SEE ALSO
     disklabel(8), init(8)

HISTORY
     The installboot first appeared in NetBSD 1.1.

OpenBSD 3.0                   September 29, 1995                             2
