plan9fox/sys/man/8/9boot

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.TH 9BOOT 8
.SH NAME
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9bootfat, 9bootiso, 9bootpxe \- PC bootloader for FAT, ISO and PXE network booting
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.SH SYNOPSIS
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Started by PC BIOS or chainloaded by partition bootsector
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.SH DESCRIPTION
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9boot is the bootloader used on PCs to start the Plan 9 kernel.
Its task is to read and parse the
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.IR plan9.ini (8)
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configuration file, gather some basic system information like
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the amount of usable system memory, do some basic system
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initialization and load the kernel from the boot media into memory.
After reading the configuration, the loader will automatically
attempt to boot the kernel that was specified by the
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.B bootfile=
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parameter. If there is no such parameter, a key
gets pressed on the keyboard or the kernel file was not
found then the loader enters the interactive
boot console.
The syntax of the boot console is the same as in the
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.IR plan9.ini (8)
file with
.IB key = value
pairs setting boot parameters. In addition a few command
words are recognized that are intended for interactive use:
.TP
.BI clear [prefix]
can be used to remove parameters from the configuration.
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If a
.IR prefix
is specified, the first parameter that matches the prefix
is removed. If the
.IR prefix
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argument is omitted, the whole configuration will be reset.
.TP
.B show
displays the current configuration in memory.
.TP
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.B wait
will return to the console prompt after processing the
configuration file preventing automatic boot.
.TP
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.B boot
will end the console and attempt booting the kernel.
.SS
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There are many ways to boot a PC so
.IR 9boot
was split into a number of distinct programs one for each boot
method.
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.SH FAT BOOTING
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When booting Plan 9 from a harddisk or USB pen drive, a
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FAT16/32 partition
.IR (9fat)
is used to store the kernel and
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.IR plan9.ini (8)
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configuration. Due to size limitations, instead of loading
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the kernel directly, the bootsector
.IR (pbs)
of the FAT partition loads
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a 2nd stage bootloader
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.IR (9bootfat)
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from the root directory of the filesystem.
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.SH CD-ROM BOOTING
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Booting from CD-ROM requires only the
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.IR 9bootiso
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bootloader to be included in the ISO-9660 image under
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.B 386/9bootiso,
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set as a non-emulation bootblock (see
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.IR mk9660 (8)).
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Boot parameters are read from
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.B cfg/plan9.ini.
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.SH NETWORK BOOTING
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With a PXE capable BIOS and network card one can download
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.IR 9bootpxe
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and boot the kernel from a TFTP server (see
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.IR dhcpd (8)
and
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.IR ndb (6)
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for details). Once started,
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.IR 9bootpxe
will read the file
.B /cfg/pxe/$ether
or, if this file is not present,
.B /cfg/pxe/default
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from the tftp server, where
.B $ether
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is the MAC address of the client's network card
in lower case hex, and uses this as its
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.IR plan9.ini (8)
file.
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.SH FILES
.B /386/pbs
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.br
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.B /386/9bootfat
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.br
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.B /386/9bootiso
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.br
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.B /386/9bootpxe
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.SH SOURCE
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.BR /sys/src/boot/pc
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.SH "SEE ALSO"
.IR plan9.ini (8)