This document explains how to install the 4.4BSD Berkeley version of UNIX on your system. The filesystem format is compatible with 4.3BSD and it will only be necessary for you to do a full bootstrap procedure if you are installing the release on a new machine. The object file formats are completely different from the System V release, so the most straightforward procedure for upgrading a System V system is to do a full bootstrap.
The full bootstrap procedure is outlined in section 2; the process starts with copying a filesystem image onto a new disk. This filesystem is then booted and used to extract the remainder of the system binaries and sources from the archives on the tape(s).
The technique for upgrading a 4.3BSD system is described in section 3 of this document. The upgrade procedure involves extracting system binaries onto new root and /usr filesystems and merging local configuration files into the new system. User filesystems may be upgraded in place. Most 4.3BSD binaries may be used with 4.4BSD in the course of the conversion. It is desirable to recompile local sources after the conversion, as the new compiler (GCC) provides superior code optimization. Consult section 3.5 for a description of some of the differences between 4.3BSD and 4.4BSD.
The distribution comes in two formats:
(3) 6250bpi 2400' 9-track magnetic tapes, or (1) 8mm Exabyte tape
If you have the facilities, we strongly recommend copying the magnetic tape(s) in the distribution kit to guard against disaster. The tapes contain 10240-byte records. There are interspersed tape marks; end-of-tape is signaled by a double end-of-file. The first file on the tape is architecture dependent. Additional files on the tape(s) contain tape archive images of the system binaries and sources (see tar(1)[note 2] ). See the tape label for a description of the contents and format of each individual tape.
Device names have a different syntax depending on whether you are talking to the standalone system or a running UNIX kernel. The standalone system syntax is currently architecture dependent and is described in the various architecture specific sections as applicable. When not running standalone, devices are available via files in the /dev/ directory. The file name typically encodes the device type, its logical unit and a partition within that unit. For example, /dev/sd2b refers to the second partition (``b'') of SCSI (``sd'') drive number ``2'', while /dev/rmt0 refers to the raw (``r'') interface of 9-track tape (``mt'') unit ``0''.
The mapping of physical addressing information (e.g. controller, target) to a logical unit number is dependent on the system configuration. In all simple cases, where only a single controller is present, a drive with physical unit number 0 (e.g., as determined by its unit specification, either unit plug or other selection mechanism) will be called unit 0 in its UNIX file name. This is not, however, strictly necessary, since the system has a level of indirection in this naming. If there are multiple controllers, the disk unit numbers will normally be counted sequentially across controllers. This can be taken advantage of to make the system less dependent on the interconnect topology, and to make reconfiguration after hardware failure easier.
Each UNIX physical disk is divided into at most 8 logical disk partitions, each of which may occupy any consecutive cylinder range on the physical device. The cylinders occupied by the 8 partitions for each drive type are specified initially in the disk description file /etc/disktab (c.f. disktab(5)). The partition information and description of the drive geometry are written in one of the first sectors of each disk with the disklabel(8) program. Each partition may be used for either a raw data area such as a paging area or to store a UNIX filesystem. It is conventional for the first partition on a disk to be used to store a root filesystem, from which UNIX may be bootstrapped. The second partition is traditionally used as a paging area, and the rest of the disk is divided into spaces for additional ``mounted filesystems'' by use of one or more additional partitions.
UNIX makes a distinction between ``block'' and ``raw'' (character) devices. Each disk has a block device interface where the system makes the device byte addressable and you can write a single byte in the middle of the disk. The system will read out the data from the disk sector, insert the byte you gave it and put the modified data back. The disks with the names /dev/xx0[a-h], etc., are block devices. There are also raw devices available. These have names like /dev/rxx0[a-h], the ``r'' here standing for ``raw''. Raw devices bypass the buffer cache and use DMA directly to/from the program's I/O buffers; they are normally restricted to full-sector transfers. In the bootstrap procedures we will often suggest using the raw devices, because these tend to work faster. Raw devices are used when making new filesystems, when checking unmounted filesystems, or for copying quiescent filesystems. The block devices are used to mount filesystems.
You should be aware that it is sometimes important whether to use the character device (for efficiency) or not (because it would not work, e.g. to write a single byte in the middle of a sector). Do not change the instructions by using the wrong type of device indiscriminately.