NetBSD

chris2's gentle guide to installing NetBSD in a prgmr DomU (January 2009)

Installing NetBSD as DomU is easy, but not trivial.

Boot your preconfigured system, jot down its IP address:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet
          inet addr:64.62.205.XXX  Bcast:64.62.205.255  Mask:255.255.255.192

On stables, shutdown the instance.

On stables, create instance, in Grub, boot "Centos Rescue".

Wait for DHCP to time out.

Setup IP with

ifconfig eth0 up 64.62.205.XXX/26
route add -net 0.0.0.0 gw 64.62.205.193 eth0

Partition /dev/xvda, create a 32mb ext2 partition as partition 1, make a directory boot/, wget and extract there (stable versions should be similar):

ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-5.0/amd64/binary/kernel/netbsd-INSTALL_XEN3_DOMU.gz
ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-5.0/amd64/binary/kernel/netbsd-XEN3_DOMU.gz

(or newer)

Create a file boot/grub/menu.lst with this content:

timeout 5

title NetBSD run
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /boot/netbsd-XEN3_DOMU

title NetBSD install
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /boot/netbsd-INSTALL_XEN3_DOMU

Shutdown again.

Create instance. Boot first grub item, then pick "NetBSD install".

Install onto xbd0(!).

IMPORTANT: Change disklabel such that xbd0a starts after the end of the ext2 partition. Add a disklabel for the /boot partition, so you can update the kernels and adjust the menu.lst later. (You can find out its sectors by using fdisk /dev/xbd0). Here is an example disklabel setup for a 3072M disk with a 32M boot partition:

 We now have your BSD-disklabel partitions as:
 This is your last chance to change them.
    
    Start  MB   End  MB  Size  MB FS type    Newfs Mount Mount point
    --------- --------- --------- ---------- ----- ----- -----------
 a:        31      2912      2882 FFSv1      Yes   Yes   /
 b:      2913      3040       128 swap
 c:         0      3071      3072 NetBSD partition
 d:         0      3071      3072 Whole disk
 e:         0        30        31 Linux Ext2
 f:         0         0         0 unused
 g: Show all unused partitions
 h: Change input units (sectors/cylinders/MB)
>x: Partition sizes ok

Install by FTP, setup networking by the noted data. Adjust the FTP paths to the snapshot you use.

Reboot, now with "NetBSD run".

Congratulations!

19:30, 3 February 2009 (UTC)