BOOT_CATS(8)        OpenBSD System Manager's Manual (Cats)        BOOT_CATS(8)

NAME
     boot_cats - CATS system bootstrapping procedures

DESCRIPTION
   System startup
     When powered on, after a panic, or if the system is rebooted via
     reboot(8) or shutdown(8), the Cyclone or ABLE firmware will proceed to
     its initialization, and will try to boot an operating system if autoboot
     is enabled.  Cyclone firmware must be upgraded to ABLE before OpenBSD can
     be run.

   Boot process options
     The ABLE firmware will attempt to boot the commandline stored in the
     boot.cmd environment variable, such as ``(hd0)bsd -f''.  Autoboot is en-
     abled by setting the boot.auto environment variable to `true', and will
     start after boot.timeout seconds.

     The kernel can be passed arguments on the commandline.  The expected syn-
     tax for OpenBSD kernel parameters is one or more option letters from the
     following list, prefixed by a dash (-):

           a    Prompt for the root filesystem device after the devices have
                been configured.
           c    Enter the ``User Kernel Configuration'' mode upon startup
                (boot_config(8)).
           d    Enter the debugger, ddb(4), as soon as the kernel console has
                been initialized.
           f    Use the footbridge(4) serial port (fcom(4)) as the console.
           s    Boot the system single-user.
           v    Use the vga(4) graphics display as the console, if available.

   Abnormal system termination
     In case of system crashes, the kernel will usually enter the kernel de-
     bugger, ddb(4), unless it is not present in the kernel, or it is disabled
     via the ddb.panic sysctl.  Upon leaving ddb, or if ddb was not entered,
     the kernel will halt the system if it was still in device configuration
     phase, or attempt a dump to the configured dump device, if possible.  The
     crash dump will then be recovered by savecore(8) during the next multi-
     user boot cycle.  It is also possible to force other behaviours from ddb.

FILES
     /bsd     default system kernel
     /bsd.rd  standalone installation kernel, suitable for disaster recovery

SEE ALSO
     ddb(4), boot_config(8), halt(8), init(8), reboot(8), savecore(8),
     shutdown(8)

CAVEATS
     ABLE is not able to access or boot off OpenBSD FFS partitions on some
     disks.  This can be helped by forcing smaller disk access, by setting the
     ide.multi-limit nvram variable to a small integer value.  A value of 1
     ought to work in all cases.

OpenBSD 4.1                    February 13, 2004                             1
