BOOT(8) OpenBSD System Manager's Manual (i386) BOOT(8)NAME
boot, boot.conf - i386-specific second-stage bootstrap
DESCRIPTION
The main purpose of this program is to load the system kernel while
dealing with the downfalls of the PC BIOS architecture.
As described in boot_i386(8), this program is loaded by the biosboot(8)
primary bootstrap loader and provides a convenient way to load the
kernel. This program acts as an enhanced boot monitor for PC systems,
providing a common interface for the kernel to start from.
Basic operations include:
o Detecting and switching between multiple consoles.
o Loading kernels from any device supported by your system BIOS.
o Loading kernels compressed by gzip(1).
o Passing system parameters queried from the BIOS to the kernel.
o Providing an interactive command line.
The sequence of its operation is as follows: initialization, parsing the
configuration file, then an interactive command line. While at the
command line you have 5 seconds to type any commands, if needed. If time
expires, the kernel will be loaded according to the current variable
settings (see the set command). Each time a kernel load fails, the
timeout is increased by one second. The sequence of boot operations is
as follows:
1. Set up a protected mode environment which catches and reports
processor exceptions and provides a simple protected-mode BIOS
interface.
2. Probe for console devices, which includes the (default) PC
VGA+Keyboard console (pc0) and up to four serial consoles (com0
through com3) connected to the serial ports. Display messages to
the default console about the devices found.
3. Detect memory. Conventional memory is detected by querying the
BIOS. Extended memory is detected by probing page-by-page through
the address space, rather than asking the BIOS; many BIOS's cannot
report larger than 64M of memory. All memory found is reported to
the default console device.
4. Probe for APM support in the BIOS. Display a message if support is
present.
5. If the file /etc/boot.conf exists on the filesystem boot was loaded
from, open and parse it. This file may contain any commands boot
accepts at the interactive prompt. Though default settings usually
suffice, they can be changed here.
boot.conf processing can be skipped, and the automatic boot
cancelled, by holding down either Control key as boot starts.
6. The header line
>> OpenBSD/i386 BOOT [x.xx]
is displayed to the active console, where x.xx is the version number
of the boot program, followed by the
boot>
prompt, which means you are in interactive mode and may enter
commands. If you do not, boot will proceed to load the kernel with
the current parameters after the timeout period has expired.
By default, boot attempts to load the kernel executable /bsd. If it
fails to find the kernel and no alternative kernel image has been
specified, the system will be unable to boot.
COMMANDS
The following commands are accepted at the boot prompt:
boot [image [-acds]]
Boots the kernel image specified by image with any options
given. Image specification consists of a pair device:filename;
either or both can be omitted (`:' is not needed if both are
omitted), in which case values from boot variables will be used.
When selecting the device to boot from, boot makes no
distinction between SCSI and IDE type drives; they are detected
as `hd' devices. Therefore, to boot kernel /bsd from slice `a'
on the first hard drive (irrespective of device type), specify
``boot hd0a:/bsd''.
-a Causes the kernel to ask for the root device to use.
-c Causes the kernel to go into boot_config(8) before
performing autoconf(4) procedures.
-d Causes the kernel to drop into ddb(4) at the earliest
convenient point.
-s Causes the kernel to boot single-user.
echo [args]
Displays args on the console device.
help Prints a list of available commands and machine dependent
commands, if any.
machine [command]
Issues machine-dependent commands. These are defined for i386
architecture:
diskinfo Prints a list of hard disks installed on your system
including: BIOS device number, and the BIOS geometry.
memory If used without any arguments, this command will print
out the memory configuration as determined through
BIOS routines. Otherwise the arguments specify how to
modify the memory configuration. They take the form
of:
=<size>[KMG]
[+-]<size>@<address>
Meaning to add(+), exempt(-) or limit(=) the amount of
memory specified by <size> at the location specified
by <address>. Both size and base address can be
specified as octal, decimal, or hexadecimal numbers,
as accepted by the strtoul(3) routine.
The limit(=) option simply ignores any memory above
the given memory limit. This is useful for testing
kernels in an artificially constrained memory
situation. For example, the following limits the
kernel to using only memory below 64M:
machine mem =64M
Memory segments are not required to be adjacent to
each other; the only requirement is that there is real
physical memory under the range added. The following
example adds 32M of memory right after the first 16M:
machine mem +0x2000000@0x1000000
Another useful command is to withdraw a range of
memory from OS usage (it may have been wrongfully
reported as useful by the BIOS). This example
effectively excludes the 15-16M range from the map of
useful memory:
machine mem -0x100000@0xf00000
regs Prints contents of processor registers if compiled
with DEBUG.
ls [directory]
Prints contents of the specified directory in long format
including: attributes and file type, owner, group, size,
filename.
reboot Reboots the machine by initiating a warm boot procedure.
set [varname [value]]
If invoked without arguments, prints a list of variables and
their values. If only varname is specified, displays contents
of that variable. If varname and value are both specified, sets
that variable to the given value. Variables include:
addr Address at which to load the kernel.
debug Debug flag if boot was compiled with DEBUG defined.
device Boot device name (e.g., fd0a, hd0a).
howto Options to pass to the loaded kernel.
image File name containing the kernel image.
timeout Number of seconds boot will wait for human intervention
before booting the default kernel image.
tty Active console device name (e.g., com0, com1, pc0).
stty [device [speed]]
Displays or sets the speed for a console device. If changing
the baudrate for the currently active console, boot offers you
five seconds of grace time before committing the change to allow
you to change your terminal's speed to match. If changing speed
not for the active console, the baudrate is set for the next
time you switch to a serial console. The baudrate value is not
used for the pc0 console.
The default baudrate is 9600bps.
time Displays system time and date.
FILES
/usr/mdec/biosboot first stage bootstrap
/usr/mdec/pxeboot PXE bootstrap
/boot system bootstrap
/etc/boot.conf system bootstrap's startup file
/bsd kernel image
/bsd.sp kernel image for single processor machines
/bsd.mp kernel image for multiprocessor machines
/bsd.rd kernel image for installation/recovery
EXAMPLES
Boot the default kernel:
boot> boot
Remove the 5 second pause at boot-time permanently, causing boot to load
the kernel immediately without prompting:
# echo "boot" > /etc/boot.conf
Use serial console. A null modem cable should connect the specified
serial port to a terminal. Useful for debugging.
boot> set tty com0
Invoke the serial console at every boot:
# echo "set tty com0" > /etc/boot.conf
Boot the kernel named /bsd from the second hard disk in ``User Kernel
Configuration'' mode (see boot_config(8)). This mechanism allows for the
explicit enabling and disabling of devices during the current boot
sequence, as well as the modification of device parameters. Once booted,
such changes can be made permanent by using config(8)'s -e option.
boot> boot hd1a:/bsd -c
SEE ALSOgzip(1), autoconf(4), ddb(4), biosboot(8), boot_config(8), boot_i386(8),
fdisk(8), installboot(8), pxeboot(8), reboot(8)
RFC 1950 describes the zlib library interface.
The official home page for the version of zlib used in this operating
system is at http://www.gzip.org/zlib/.
HISTORY
This program was written by Michael Shalayeff for OpenBSD 2.1.
OpenBSD 4.9 August 10, 2010 OpenBSD 4.9
