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From: Ivan Ngeow <s_koyin@eduserv.its.unimelb.EDU.AU>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: howto creat a boot floppy w/ network support
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 10:40:21 +1000
Organization: The University of Melbourne
Lines: 48
Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.91.960830103858.18021H-100000@eduserv.its.unimelb.EDU.AU>
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hi,
easy steps:
1. disklabel your floppy, include the bootstrap code. ("-B")
2. newfs your floppy, make sure fd0a exists! you can only boot kernel
from the `a' partition.
3. once done, mount the floppy under, say, /mnt. ("mount /dev/fd0a /mnt")
4. assuming you have already compiled your kernel (it will NOT be on the
floppy yet! it still lies in your /usr/src/compile/NAME/ directory), you
can copy "kernel" over to /mnt.
TIP: if you do not need to use the kernel namelist,
compress the kernel using "kzip". see the manpage.
5. you need a few other files:
6. make directories on /mnt: /bin, /sbin, /dev, /etc
7. copy /sbin/init over to /mnt/sbin/init
8. cd /mnt/dev, and copy /dev/MAKEDEV here. then run MAKEDEV console
9. copy /bin/sh over to /mnt/bin
10. maybe create a blank /mnt/etc/spwd.db to please init
11. depending on how much space you have, you might like to throw in
other utilities like fsck, mount, umount, ls, etc. copy them over to /mnt/bin
if you have exec gzipped a.out compiled into your kernel, you can "gzip
-c /sbin/mount > /mnt/sbin/mount" to save space. a crunched binary is
stil best if you need many vital utilities like tar, gzip, ifconfig, etc.
12. cd /; umount /mnt
13. the floppy should be ready to boot! i think you need to specify "-s"
as the boot flag.
On Thu, 29 Aug 1996, Ulf Schmidt wrote:
> Hi there,
> I still don't quite get it. Joerg has mailed me and suggested to take a look
> at the newfs manuals. I've done that, but I still don't see a way to get a set
> of boot floppies in order to have network connectivity. So here are more
> questions:
> - If I setup a new kernel config file and use fd0 as the boot device, the
> kernel still install on my harddrive if I type make install. I think this is
> strange.
> - How could I manually install the kernel on a floppy?
> - What commands are necessary to create a boot- and a root floppy?
>
> I think there should be a FAQ or howto for this, or doesn't anyone else need
> an emergency backup routine?
>
> Thanks for all the help so far.
>
> Regards, Ulf
>