.TH BOOTING 8
.SH NAME
booting \- bootstrapping procedures
.SH SYNOPSIS
none
.SH DESCRIPTION
This manual page collects the incantations required to bootstrap Plan 9 and Plan B
machines.
Some of the information here is specific to the installation at URJC;
some is generic.
.PP
If a CPU server is up, PXE using BOOTP/DHCP and TFTP is the preferred method
for booting.;
if not, using a floppy to keep the kernel and minimum configuration may be of help.
.PP
Be sure to read
.IR boot (8)
to understand what happens after the kernel is loaded.
.SS Plan 9 terminals
To bootstrap a diskless terminal or a CPU server, a file server must be running.
PCs can boot from PXE, a floppy disk, or any FAT16 partition.
On all the terminals, typing two control-T's followed by a lower-case
.B r
reboots the machine;
other methods of rebooting are mentioned for some machines.
.SS Plan B terminals
To bootstrap a Plan B, proceed like on a Plan 9 terminal, but specify
.B init=/386/bin/bns
in
.B plan9.ini
to use
.IR bns (8)
as the init program. You may need to specify
.B rootspec=main/active
(or whatever) and
.B usrspec=main/active
(or something else). It is customary to set
.B sysname
in this file as well, and to set
.B planb=yes
as a safety measure.
.SS PCs
To boot a PC, it is necessary to get
.B /386/9load
loaded into memory.
There are many ways to do this.  PXE can load
.B /386/9pxeload
into memory and proceed. A Plan 9 boot floppy prepared by
.B format
(see
.IR prep (8))
will load
.B 9load
when the PC is reset or powered on.
Other methods are described in 
.IR 9load (8).
.B 9load
then locates and loads a Plan 9 kernel, using configuration information
from the file
.B plan9.ini
stored in the
.B 9fat
configuration partition or on a DOS file system.
See 
.IR 9load (8)
for details.
.PP
Once the kernel is booted, it behaves like the others.
See
.IR boot (8)
for details.
.SS CPU Servers
The Plan 9 CPU servers are multi-user, so they do not request a user name
when booting.
On the CPU servers, typing a control-P on the console reboots the machine.
.SS PC CPU Server
Proceed as for the PC terminal, but load
.B /386/9pccpu
or
.BR /386/9pccpudisk .
.SS File servers
.I Fossil
is the primary file server. It runs on CPU servers. However, the old venerable
file server kernel is still available. What follows refers to these distinct systems.
.PP
The file servers accept only the commands described in
.IR fs (8)
on their consoles.
.SS PC File Server
Boot the PC file server like a regular PC, loading the appropriate file system kernel.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.IR 9load (8),
.IR boot (8),
.IR fs (8),
.IR init (8),
.IR plan9.ini (8)
.SH SOURCE
Sources for the various boot programs are under
.BR /sys/src/boot .
.SH BUGS
Too much configuration. Too many different types of machines.