About this Document What is NetBSD? Dedication Changes Between The NetBSD 8 and 9 Releases Installation and Partitioning Changes Features to be removed in a later release The NetBSD Foundation Sources of NetBSD NetBSD 9.1 Release Contents NetBSD/evbarm subdirectory structure Binary distribution sets NetBSD/evbarm System Requirements and Supported Devices 32-bit SoCs supported by GENERIC kernels (ARMv7-A) 64-bit SoCs supported by GENERIC64 kernels Getting the NetBSD System on to Useful Media Preparing your System for NetBSD installation Installing the NetBSD System Installation for ARMv7 and AArch64 devices with U-Boot Installing NetBSD/evbarm to a SATA hard disk Post installation steps Upgrading a previously-installed NetBSD System Compatibility Issues With Previous NetBSD Releases Using online NetBSD documentation Administrivia Thanks go to Legal Mumbo-Jumbo The End
This document describes the installation procedure for
NetBSD
9.1 on the
evbarm
platform.
It is available in four different formats titled
INSTALL.ext,
where
.ext
is one of
.ps, .html, .more,
or .txt:
.ps.html.moremore(1)
and
less(1)
pager utility programs.
This is the format in which the on-line
man
pages are generally presented.
.txtYou are reading the HTML version.
The NetBSD Operating System is a fully functional Open Source UNIX-like operating system derived from the University of California, Berkeley Networking Release 2 (Net/2), 4.4BSD-Lite, and 4.4BSD-Lite2 sources. NetBSD runs on many different different system architectures (ports) across a variety of distinct CPU families, and is being ported to more. The NetBSD 9.1 release contains complete binary releases for most of these system architectures, with preliminary support for the others included in source form. Please see the NetBSD website for information on them.
NetBSD is a completely integrated system. In addition to its highly portable, high performance kernel, NetBSD features a complete set of user utilities, compilers for several languages, the X Window System, firewall software and numerous other tools, all accompanied by full source code.
NetBSD is a creation of the members of the Internet community. Without the unique cooperation and coordination the net makes possible, NetBSD would not exist.
NetBSD 9.0 is dedicated to the memory of Matthias Drochner, who passed away in August 2018 and Eric Schnoebelen, who passed away in March 2019.
Matthias' technical contributions are too many to list here in full. He was a long term contributor and commited more than 3000 changes all over the NetBSD source tree and lately was especially active in keeping some of our most weired ancient VME architectures in shape.
Eric was a long term pkgsrc developer and well known community member.
Beyond their technical contributions, Eric and Matthias were always helpful and friendly. Their example encouraged users to contribute to the project and share their work with the community.
The NetBSD 9.1 release provides many significant changes, including support for many new devices, hundreds of bug fixes, new and updated kernel subsystems, and numerous userland enhancements. The result of these improvements is a stable operating system fit for production use that rivals most commercially available systems.
It is impossible to completely summarize the massive development that
went into the
NetBSD
9.1 release.
The complete list of changes can be found in the following files:
CHANGES
CHANGES-9.1
files in the top level directory of the NetBSD 9.1 release tree.
It now supports arbitrary big disks and offers GPT partitions as alternative to MBR/fdisk partitions on a lot architectures.
Unfortunately it has not been tested on all hardware supported by NetBSD. If you have problems partitioning the target disk or installing the system, please report bugs with as much details as possible. See the Administrivia section below on how to report bugs or contact other users and ask for support.
groff(1).
Man pages are now handled with
mandoc(1),
and
groff(1)
can still be found in pkgsrc as
textproc/groff.
The
NetBSD
Foundation is a tax exempt, not-for-profit 501(c)(3) corporation
that devotes itself to the traditional goals and Spirit of the
NetBSD
Project and owns the trademark of the word
``NetBSD''.
It supports the design, development, and adoption of
NetBSD
worldwide.
More information on the
NetBSD
Foundation, its composition, aims, and work can be found at:
https://www.NetBSD.org/foundation/
Refer to
mirrors
The root directory of the NetBSD 9.1 release is organized as follows:
.../NetBSD-9.1/
CHANGESCHANGES-9.0CHANGES-9.1CHANGES.prevLAST_MINUTEREADME.filesimages/source/In addition to the files and directories listed above, there is one directory per architecture, for each of the architectures for which NetBSD 9.1 has a binary distribution.
The source distribution sets can be found in subdirectories of the
source
subdirectory of the distribution tree.
They contain the complete sources to the system.
The source distribution sets are as follows:
config(1)
utility.
All the above source sets are located in the
source/sets
subdirectory of the distribution tree.
The source sets are distributed as compressed tar files.
Except for the
pkgsrc
set, which is traditionally unpacked into
/usr/pkgsrc,
all sets may be unpacked into
/usr/src
with the command:
# cd / ; tar -zxpf set_name.tgz
In each of the source distribution set directories, there are files which contain the checksums of the files in the directory:
MD5SHA512The SHA512 digest is safer, but MD5 checksums are provided so that a wider range of operating systems can check the integrity of the release files.
evbarm
subdirectory of the distribution:
.../NetBSD-9.1/evbarm/.
It contains the following files and directories:
INSTALL.htmlINSTALL.psINSTALL.txtINSTALL.more.more
file contains underlined text using the
more(1)
conventions for indicating italic and bold display.
binary/gzimg/armv7.img.gzarm64.img.gzrpi.img.gzkernel/netbsd-GENERIC.gznetbsd-GENERIC64.gznetbsd-RPI.gznetbsd-RPI2.gz*.dtb.gzsets/installation/miniroot/misc/bootaa64.efievbarm/binary/sets
subdirectory
of the
NetBSD
9.1
distribution tree:
/usr/include)
and the various system libraries (except the shared
libraries, which are included as part of the
base
set).
This set also includes the manual pages for
all of the utilities it contains, as well as the
system call and library manual pages.
/etc
and in several other places.
This set
must
be installed if you are installing the system from scratch, but should
not
be used if you are upgrading.
GENERIC
kernel, named
/netbsd.
You
must
install this distribution set.
/usr/share.
/rescue.
groff(1),
all related programs, and their manual pages.
NetBSD maintains its own set of sources for the X Window System in order to assure tight integration and compatibility. These sources are based on X.Org. Binary sets for the X Window System are distributed with NetBSD. The sets are:
The evbarm binary distribution sets are distributed as gzipped tar files
named with the extension
.tgz
(e.g., base.tgz).
The instructions given for extracting the source sets work equally
well for the binary sets, but it is worth noting that if you use that
method, the filenames stored in the sets are relative and therefore
the files are extracted
below the current directory.
Therefore, if you want to extract the binaries into your system, i.e.,
replace the system binaries with them, you have to run the
tar -xzpf
command from the root directory (
/
) of your system.
QEMU is also supported.
Devices conforming to the Server Base System Architecture specification, and QEMU are also supported.
Generally, NetBSD is installed on ARM devices by writing a live image (armv7.img, or arm64.img for 64-bit devices) to a SD card or USB device. For ARMv6 Raspberry Pi 1s, this image is rpi.img.gz. The storage device should be at least 2GB.
If you're on Windows rather than a Unix variant, you can use
rawrite32
instead of
dd(1)
to write images, and
7-Zip
to decompress .gz files.
ARM devices generally also ship with a vendor-specific U-Boot
bootloader, which may be replaced with a board-specific "mainline"
U-Boot image from pkgsrc for an optimal NetBSD experience.
The images available from
armbsd.org
come pre-prepared with a board-specific U-Boot image if one is
available, and otherwise a generic image can be used.
After writing an SD card image, there are generally no specific preparation steps needed for ARM.
Once the system is booted, the init system will resize the root partition
to take up the entire disk.
Afterwards, the system can be configured to your liking.
gunzip(1)
on Unix.
# dd if=armv7.img of=/dev/rld0d bs=1m conv=sync
sysutils/u-boot-*
packages in
pkgsrc.
If you're using pkgsrc on an UNIX-like operating system that isn't NetBSD,
you must bootstrap first (see the
README
file in the root directory of pkgsrc).
You can also extract the U-Boot image from u-boot-*.tgz archive in an existing NetBSD binary package set.
Install the board-specific U-Boot to the SD card,
e.g. for Allwiner devices (PINE H64 in this case):
# dd if=/usr/pkg/share/u-boot/pine-h64/u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin of=/dev/rld0d bs=1k seek=8 conv=sync
Or a Rockchip device (e.g. RockPro64):
# dd if=/usr/pkg/share/u-boot/rockpro64/rksd_loader.img of=/dev/rld0d seek=64 conv=sync
If you do not want to prepare a SD card image manually, NetBSD developer Jared McNeill provides pre-prepared images on his website armbsd.org.
sysinst(8)
from within NetBSD.
There are instructions for using
sysinst on ARM
on the NetBSD wiki.
The main difference from installing on other ports is that a FAT32
partition is required for /boot.
Once you've got the operating system running, there are a few things you need to do in order to bring the system into a properly configured state. The most important steps are described below.
postinstall(8).
/etc/rc.conf
If you or the installation software haven't done any configuration of
/etc/rc.conf
(sysinst
normally will),
the system will drop you into single user mode on first reboot with the
message
/etc/rc.conf is not configured. Multiuser boot aborted.
and with the root file system
(/)
mounted read-only.
When the system asks you to choose a shell, simply press
RETURN
to get to a
/bin/sh
prompt.
If you are asked for a terminal type, respond with
vt220
(or whatever is appropriate for your terminal type)
and press
RETURN.
You may need to type one of the following commands to get your delete key
to work properly, depending on your keyboard:
# stty erase '^h'
# stty erase '^?'
At this point, you need to configure at least
one file in the
/etc
directory.
You will need to mount your root file system read/write with:
# /sbin/mount -u -w /
Change to the
/etc
directory and take a look at the
/etc/rc.conf
file.
Modify it to your tastes, making sure that you set
rc_configured=YES
so that your changes will be enabled and a multi-user boot can
proceed.
Default values for the various programs can be found in
/etc/defaults/rc.conf,
where some in-line documentation may be found.
More complete documentation can be found in
rc.conf(5).
When you have finished editing
/etc/rc.conf,
type
exit
at the prompt to
leave the single-user shell and continue with the multi-user boot.
Other values that may need to be set in
/etc/rc.conf
for a networked environment are
hostname
and possibly
defaultroute.
You may also need to add an
ifconfig_int
for your
<int>
network interface,
along the lines of
ifconfig_fxp0="inet 192.0.2.123 netmask 255.255.255.0"
or, if you have
myname.my.dom
in
/etc/hosts:
ifconfig_fxp0="inet myname.my.dom netmask 255.255.255.0"
To enable proper hostname resolution, you will also want to add an
/etc/resolv.conf
file or (if you are feeling a little more adventurous) run
named(8).
See
resolv.conf(5)
or
named(8)
for more information.
Instead of manually configuring networking,
DHCP can be used by setting
dhcpcd=YES
in
/etc/rc.conf.
After reboot, you can log in as
root
at the login prompt.
If you didn't set a password in
sysinst,
there
is no initial password.
You should create an account for yourself (see below) and protect it and the
``root''
account with good passwords.
By default, root login from the network is disabled (even via
ssh(1)).
One way to become root over the network is to log in as a different
user that belongs to group
``wheel''
(see
group(5))
and use
su(1)
to become root.
Use the
useradd(8)
command to add accounts to your system.
Do not
edit
/etc/passwd
directly! See
vipw(8)
and
pwd_mkdb(8)
if you want to edit the password database.
If you installed the X Window System, you may want to read the chapter about X in the NetBSD Guide:
If you wish to install any of the software freely available for UNIX-like systems you are strongly advised to first check the NetBSD package system, pkgsrc. pkgsrc automatically handles any changes necessary to make the software run on NetBSD. This includes the retrieval and installation of any other packages the software may depend upon.
evbarm/9.1/All
subdir.
If you installed
pkgin(1)
in the
sysinst
post-installation configuration menu, you can use it to automatically install
binary packages over the network.
Assuming that
/usr/pkg/etc/pkgin/repositories.conf
is correctly configured, you can install them with the following commands:
# pkgin install tcsh # pkgin install bash # pkgin install perl # pkgin install apache # pkgin install kde # pkgin install firefox ...
/pub/pkgsrc
directory.
The above commands will install the Tenex-csh and Bourne Again shells, the Perl programming language, Apache web server, KDE desktop environment and the Firefox web browser as well as all the packages they depend on.
pkgsrc(7)
framework for compiling packages can be obtained by
retrieving the file
/usr/pkgsrc
(though other locations work fine) with the commands:
# cd /usr
# tar -zxpf pkgsrc.tar.gz
After extracting, see the
doc/pkgsrc.txt
file in the extraction directory (e.g.,
/usr/pkgsrc/doc/pkgsrc.txt)
for more information.
/etc/mail/aliases
to forward root mail to the right place.
Don't forget to run
newaliases(1)
afterwards.
/etc/rc.local
to run any local daemons you use.
/etc
files are documented in section 5 of the manual; so just invoking
# man 5 filename
is likely to give you more information on these files.
The easiest way to upgrade to NetBSD evbarm 9.1 is by using the sysutils/sysupgrade package from pkgsrc.
First, edit
/usr/pkg/etc/sysupgrade.conf.
Make sure RELEASEDIR and ARCHIVE_EXTENSION are correct:
# Replace evbarm-aarch64 with evbarm-earmv7hf on a 32-bit system, evbarm-earmv6hf on the original RPI
RELEASEDIR="https://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-9.1/evbarm-aarch64/"
ARCHIVE_EXTENSION=tar.xz
Make sure
/boot
is mounted, and copy the new board-specific
*.dts
device tree file into place.
Note that the device tree files are sorted into SoC-type subdirectories in
/boot/dtb,
e.g. allwinner, amlogic, broadcom, freescale, nvidia, rockchip.
For example, for the Allwinner-based PINE A64 LTS:
Also copy
$ ftp https://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-9.1/evbarm-aarch64/binary/kernel/sun50i-a64-pine64-lts.dtb.gz
$ gunzip sun50i-a64-pine64-lts.dtb.gz
# cp sun50i-a64-pine64-lts.dtb /boot/dtb/allwinner/
bootaa64.efi
if applicable:
$ ftp https://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-9.1/evbarm-aarch64/installation/misc/bootaa64.efi
# cp bootaa64.efi /boot/EFI/BOOT/bootaa64.efi
Finally:
# sysupgrade fetch
# sysupgrade kernel
# sysupgrade modules
# reboot
# sysupgrade sets
# sysupgrade etcupdate
# sysupgrade postinstall
# reboot
This is the most careful possible path with sysupgrade that makes sure
the kernel and userland are always fully compatible, by making sure the
kernel and boot files are newer than the userland.
It is also possible to:
# sysupgrade auto
# reboot
Users upgrading from previous versions of NetBSD may wish to bear the following problems and compatibility issues in mind when upgrading to NetBSD 9.1.
Note that sysinst will automatically invoke
postinstall fix
A number of things have been removed from the NetBSD 9.1 release. See the ``Components removed from NetBSD'' section near the beginning of this document for a list.
Documentation is available if you installed the manual
distribution set.
Traditionally, the
``man pages''
(documentation) are denoted by
`name(section)'.
Some examples of this are
intro(1),
man(1),
apropos(1),
passwd(1),
and
passwd(5).
The section numbers group the topics into several categories, but three are of primary interest: user commands are in section 1, file formats are in section 5, and administrative information is in section 8.
The man command is used to view the documentation on a topic, and is started by entering man [section] topic. The brackets [] around the section should not be entered, but rather indicate that the section is optional. If you don't ask for a particular section, the topic with the lowest numbered section name will be displayed. For instance, after logging in, enter
# man passwd
to read the documentation for
passwd(1).
To view the documentation for
passwd(5),
enter
# man 5 passwd
instead.
If you are unsure of what man page you are looking for, enter
# apropos subject-word
where subject-word is your topic of interest; a list of possibly related man pages will be displayed.
If you've got something to say, do so!
We'd like your input.
There are various mailing lists available via the mailing list
server at
majordomo@NetBSD.org.
See
https://www.NetBSD.org/mailinglists/
for details.
There are various mailing lists set up to deal with comments and questions about this release. Please send comments to: netbsd-comments@NetBSD.org.
To report bugs, use the
send-pr(1)
command shipped with
NetBSD,
and fill in as much information about the problem as you can.
Good bug reports include lots of details.
Bugs also can be submitted and queried with the web interface at
https://www.NetBSD.org/support/send-pr.html
There are also port-specific mailing lists, to discuss aspects of
each port of
NetBSD.
Use majordomo to find their addresses, or visit
https://www.NetBSD.org/mailinglists/
If you're interested in doing a serious amount of work on a specific port, you probably should contact the `owner' of that port (listed below).
If you'd like to help with NetBSD, and have an idea as to how you could be useful, send us mail or subscribe to: netbsd-users@NetBSD.org.
As a favor, please avoid mailing huge documents or files to these mailing lists. Instead, put the material you would have sent up for FTP or WWW somewhere, then mail the appropriate list about it. If you'd rather not do that, mail the list saying you'll send the data to those who want it.
Keith Bostic Ralph Campbell Mike Karels Marshall Kirk McKusick
for their work on BSD systems, support, and encouragement.
All product names mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
The following notices are required to satisfy the license terms of the software that we have mentioned in this document:
NetBSD is a registered trademark of The NetBSD Foundation, Inc.
In the following statement, the phrase ``this text'' refers to portions
of the system documentation.
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form in
NetBSD, from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2004 Edition, Standard for
Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX),
The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2004 by the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group.
In the event of any discrepancy between these versions and the original
IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group
Standard is the referee document.
The original Standard can be obtained online at
http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html.
This notice shall appear on any product containing this material.
In the following statement, "This software" refers to the parallel port driver:
Some files have the following copyright:
Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this software and its
documentation is hereby granted, provided that both the copyright
notice and this permission notice appear in all copies of the
software, derivative works or modified versions, and any portions
thereof, and that both notices appear in supporting documentation.
CARNEGIE MELLON ALLOWS FREE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE IN ITS
CONDITION. CARNEGIE MELLON DISCLAIMS ANY LIABILITY OF ANY KIND FOR
ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
Carnegie Mellon requests users of this software to return to
any improvements or extensions that they make and grant Carnegie the
rights to redistribute these changes.
Some files have the following copyright:
Author: Chris G. Demetriou
Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this software and
its documentation is hereby granted, provided that both the copyright
notice and this permission notice appear in all copies of the
software, derivative works or modified versions, and any portions
thereof, and that both notices appear in supporting documentation.
Carnegie Mellon requests users of this software to return to
any improvements or extensions that they make and grant Carnegie the
rights to redistribute these changes.
Some files have the following copyright:
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this
software and its documentation for any purpose and without
fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright
notice appear in all copies. Stanford University
makes no representations about the suitability of this
software for any purpose. It is provided "as is"
without express or implied warranty.
Copyright (c) 1991,1990,1989 Carnegie Mellon University
All Rights Reserved.
Software Distribution Coordinator or Software.Distribution@CS.CMU.EDU
School of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh PA 15213-3890
All rights reserved.
CARNEGIE MELLON ALLOWS FREE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE IN ITS "AS IS"
CONDITION. CARNEGIE MELLON DISCLAIMS ANY LIABILITY OF ANY KIND
FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
Software Distribution Coordinator or Software.Distribution@CS.CMU.EDU
School of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh PA 15213-3890