Power fail and crash recovery
Normally, the system will reboot itself at power-up or after crashes.
An automatic consistency check of the file systems will be performed,
and unless this fails, the system will resume multi-user operations.
Cold starts
Most i386 PCs attempt to boot first from floppy disk drive 0 (sometimes
known as drive A:) and, failing that, from hard disk drive 0 (sometimes
known as drive C:, or as drive 0x80 to the BIOS).
Some BIOSes allow
you to change this default sequence, and may also include a CD-ROM
drive as a boot device.
By default, a three-stage bootstrap is employed, and control is
automatically passed from the boot blocks (bootstrap stages one and
two) to a separate third-stage bootstrap program,
loader(8).
This third stage provides more sophisticated control over the booting
process than it is possible to achieve in the boot blocks, which are
constrained by occupying limited fixed space on a given disk or slice.
However, it is possible to dispense with the third stage altogether,
either by specifying a kernel name in the boot block parameter
file,
/boot.config
or, unless option
-n
is set, by hitting a key during a brief pause (while one of the characters
-\|
or
/
is displayed) before
loader(8)
is invoked.
Booting will also be attempted at stage two, if the
third stage cannot be loaded.
The remainder of this subsection deals only with the boot blocks.
The
loader(8)
program is documented separately.
After the boot blocks have been loaded,
you should see a prompt similar to the following:
The automatic boot will attempt to load
/boot/loader
from partition
`a'
of either the floppy or the hard disk.
This boot may be aborted by typing any character on the keyboard
at the
`boot:'
prompt.
At this time, the following input will be accepted:
?
Give a short listing of the files in the root directory of the default
boot device, as a hint about available boot files.
(A
?
may also be specified as the last segment of a path, in which case
the listing will be of the relevant subdirectory.)
bios_drive : interface ( unit , [slice , part
]
filename
[-aCcDdghmnPprsv
]
[-S speed
]
Specify boot file and flags.
bios_drive
The drive number as recognized by the BIOS.
0 for the first drive, 1 for the second drive, etc.
interface
The type of controller to boot from.
Note that the controller is required
to have BIOS support since the BIOS services are used to load the
boot file image.
The supported interfaces are:
ad
ST506, IDE, ESDI, RLL disks on a WD100[2367] or lookalike
controller
fd
5 1/4" or 3 1/2" High density floppies
da
SCSI disk on any supported SCSI controller
unit
The unit number of the drive on the interface being used.
0 for the first drive, 1 for the second drive, etc.
[slice , part
]
The partition letter inside the
BSD portion of the disk.
See
bsdlabel(8).
By convention, only partition
`a'
contains a bootable image.
If sliced disks are used
(``fdisk partitions''
)
any
slice
(1 for the first slice, 2 for the second slice, etc.)
can be booted from, with the default (if not specified) being the active slice
or, otherwise, the first
Fx slice.
If
slice
is specified as 0, the first
Fx slice (also known as
``compatibility''
slice) is booted from.
filename
The pathname of the file to boot (relative to the root directory
on the specified partition).
Defaults to
/boot/kernel/kernel
Symbolic links are not supported (hard links are).
[-aCcDdghmnPpqrsv
]
[-S speed
]
Boot flags:
-a
during kernel initialization,
ask for the device to mount as the root file system.
-C
try to mount root file system from a CD-ROM.
-c
this flag is currently a no-op.
-D
boot with the dual console configuration.
In the single
configuration, the console will be either the internal display
or the serial port, depending on the state of the
-h
option below.
In the dual console configuration,
both the internal display and the serial port will become the console
at the same time, regardless of the state of the
-h
option.
-d
enter the DDB kernel debugger
(see
ddb(4))
as early as possible in kernel initialization.
-g
use the GDB remote debugging protocol.
-h
force the serial console.
For instance, if you boot from the internal console,
you can use the
-h
option to force the kernel to use the serial port as its
console device.
The serial port driver
sio(4)
has a flag (0x20) to override this option.
If that flag is set, the serial port will always be used as the console,
regardless of the
-h
option described here.
See the man page for
sio(4)
for more details.
-m
mute the console to suppress all console input and output during the
boot.
-n
ignore key press to interrupt boot before
loader(8)
is invoked.
-P
probe the keyboard.
If no keyboard is found, the
-D
and
-h
options are automatically set.
-p
pause after each attached device during the device probing phase.
-q
be quiet,
do not write anything to the console unless automatic boot fails or
is disabled.
This option only affects second-stage bootstrap,
to prevent next stages from writing to the console use in
combination with the
-m
option.
-r
use the statically configured default for the device containing the
root file system
(see
config(8)).
Normally, the root file system is on the device
that the kernel was loaded from.
-s
boot into single-user mode; if the console is marked as
``insecure''
(see
ttys(5)),
the root password must be entered.
-S speed
set the speed of the serial console to
speed
The default is 9600 unless it has been overridden by setting
BOOT_COMCONSOLE_SPEED
in
make.conf5
and recompiling and reinstalling the boot blocks.
-v
be verbose during device probing (and later).
Use the
/boot.config
file to set the default configuration options for the boot block code.
See
boot.config5
for more information about the
/boot.config
file.
FILES
/boot.config
parameters for the boot blocks (optional)
/boot/boot1
first stage bootstrap file
/boot/boot2
second stage bootstrap file
/boot/loader
third stage bootstrap
/boot/kernel/kernel
default kernel
/boot/kernel.old/kernel
typical non-default kernel (optional)
DIAGNOSTICS
When disk-related errors occur, these are reported by the second-stage
bootstrap using the same error codes returned by the BIOS, for example
``Disk error 0x1 (lba=0x12345678)''
Here is a partial list of these error codes:
0x1
Invalid argument
0x2
Address mark not found
0x4
Sector not found
0x8
DMA overrun
0x9
DMA attempt across 64K boundary
0xc
Invalid media
0x10
Uncorrectable CRC/ECC error
0x20
Controller failure
0x40
Seek failed
0x80
Timeout
NOTE
On older machines, or otherwise where EDD support (disk packet
interface support) is not available, all boot-related files and
structures (including the kernel) that need to be accessed during the
boot phase must reside on the disk at or below cylinder 1023 (as the
BIOS understands the geometry).
When a
``Disk error 0x1''
is reported by the second-stage bootstrap, it generally means that this
requirement has not been adhered to.
The
bsdlabel(5)
format used by this version of
BSD is quite
different from that of other architectures.
Due to space constraints, the keyboard probe initiated by the
-P
option is simply a test that the BIOS has detected an
``extended''
keyboard.
If an
``XT/AT''
keyboard (with no F11 and F12 keys, etc.) is attached, the probe will
fail.
