Sysinst, the NetBSD installation program usually installs the NetBSD boot manager on the hard disk. The boot manager can also be installed or reconfigured at a later time, if needed, with the fdisk command. For example:

# fdisk -B wd0

If NetBSD doesn't boot from the hard disk, you can boot it from the installation floppy and start the kernel on the hard disk. Insert the installation disk and, at the boot prompt, give the following command:

> boot wd0a:netbsd

This boots the kernel on the hard disk (use the correct device, for example sd0a for a SCSI disk).

Though this is not an operation that you need to perform frequently, it can be useful to know how to do it in case of need. Please be sure to know exactly what you are doing before performing this kind of operation. For example:

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rwd0c bs=8k count=1

The previous command deletes the disklabel (not the MBR partition table). To completely delete the disk, the whole device rwd0d must be used. For example:

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rwd0d bs=8k

The commands above will only work as expected on the i386 and amd64 ports of NetBSD. On other ports, the whole device will end in c, not d (e.g. rwd0c).

I found this tip on a mailing list (I don't remember the author). To output a sound from the speaker (for example at the end of a long script) the spkr driver can be used in the kernel config, which is mapped on /dev/speaker. For example:

echo 'BPBPBPBPBP' > /dev/speaker

If you forget root's password, not all is lost and you can still recover the system with the following steps: boot single user, mount / and change root's password. In detail:

If you get the error “Password file is busy”, please see the section below.

If you try to modify a password and you get the mysterious message “Password file is busy”, it probably means that the file /etc/ptmp has not been deleted from the system. This file is a temporary copy of the /etc/master.passwd file; check that you are not losing important information and then delete it:

 # rm /etc/ptmp 

root: password file may be incorrect - /etc/ptmp exists

This section describes how to add a new hard disk to an already working NetBSD system. In the following example a new SCSI controller and a new hard disk, connected to the controller, will be added. If you don't need to add a new controller, skip the relevant part and go to the hard disk configuration. The installation of an IDE hard disk is identical; only the device name will be different (wd# instead of sd#).

As always, before buying new hardware, consult the hardware compatibility list of NetBSD and make sure that the new device is supported by the system.

When the SCSI controller has been physically installed in the system and the new hard disk has been connected, it's time to restart the computer and check that the device is correctly detected, using the dmesg command. This is the sample output for an NCR-875 controller:

ncr0 at pci0 dev 15 function 0: ncr 53c875 fast20 wide scsi
ncr0: interrupting at irq 10
ncr0: minsync=12, maxsync=137, maxoffs=16, 128 dwords burst, large dma fifo
ncr0: single-ended, open drain IRQ driver, using on-chip SRAM
ncr0: restart (scsi reset).
scsibus0 at ncr0: 16 targets, 8 luns per target
sd0(ncr0:2:0): 20.0 MB/s (50 ns, offset 15)
sd0: 2063MB, 8188 cyl, 3 head, 172 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 4226725 sectors

If the device doesn't appear in the output, check that it is supported by the kernel that you are using; if necessary, compile a customized kernel (see Chapter 32, Compiling the kernel).

Now the partitions can be created using the fdisk command. First, check the current status of the disk:

# fdisk sd0
NetBSD disklabel disk geometry:
cylinders: 8188 heads: 3 sectors/track: 172 (516 sectors/cylinder)

BIOS disk geometry:
cylinders: 524 heads: 128 sectors/track: 63 (8064 sectors/cylinder)

Partition table:
0: sysid 6 (Primary 'big' DOS, 16-bit FAT (> 32MB))
    start 63, size 4225473 (2063 MB), flag 0x0
        beg: cylinder    0, head   1, sector  1
        end: cylinder  523, head 127, sector 63
1: <UNUSED>
2: <UNUSED>
3: <UNUSED>

In this example the hard disk already contains a DOS partition, which will be deleted and replaced with a native NetBSD partition. The command fdisk -u sd0 allows to modify interactively the partitions. The modified data will be written on the disk only before exiting and fdisk will request a confirmation before writing, so you can work relaxedly.

To create the BIOS partitions the command fdisk -u must be used; the result is the following:

Partition table:
0: sysid 169 (NetBSD)
    start 63, size 4225473 (2063 MB), flag 0x0
        beg: cylinder    0, head   1, sector  1
        end: cylinder  523, head 127, sector 63
1: <UNUSED>
2: <UNUSED>
3: <UNUSED>

Now it's time to create the disklabel for the NetBSD partition. The correct steps to do this are:

# disklabel sd0 > tempfile
# vi tempfile
# disklabel -R -r sd0 tempfile

# disklabel -e sd0

disklabel: ioctl DIOCWDINFO: No disk label on disk;
use "disklabel -I" to install initial label

Now we create some disklabel partitions, editing the tempfile as already explained. The result is:

#      size   offset   fstype [fsize bsize   cpg]
a:  2048004       63   4.2BSD   1024  8192    16 # (Cyl.  0*- 3969*)
c:  4226662       63   unused      0     0       # (Cyl.  0*- 8191*)
d:  4226725        0   unused      0     0       # (Cyl.  0 - 8191*)
e:  2178658  2048067   4.2BSD   1024  8192    16 # (Cyl.  3969*- 8191*)

The final operation is the creation of the file systems for the newly defined partitions (a and e).

# newfs /dev/rsd0a
# newfs /dev/rsd0e

The disk is now ready for usage, and the two partitions can be mounted. For example:

# mount /dev/sd0a /mnt

If this succeeds, you may want to put an entry for the partition into /etc/fstab.

First shutdown to single user, partitions still mounted “rw” (read-write); You can do that by just typing shutdown now while you are in multi user mode, or reboot with the -s option and make / and /dev read-writable by doing.

# mount -u /
# mount -u /dev

Then:

# mkdir /newdev
# cd /newdev
# cp /dev/MAKEDEV* .
# sh ./MAKEDEV all
# cd /
# mv dev olddev
# mv newdev dev
# rm -r olddev

Or if you fetched all the sources in /usr/src:

# mkdir /newdev
# cd /newdev
# cp /usr/src/etc/MAKEDEV.local .
# ( cd /usr/src/etc ; make MAKEDEV )
# cp /usr/src/etc/obj*/MAKEDEV .
# sh ./MAKEDEV all
# cd /
# mv dev olddev; mv newdev dev
# rm -r olddev

You can determine $arch by

# uname -m

or

# sysctl hw.machine_arch