BOOT(8) — Silicon Graphics
NAME
boot − startup procedures
DESCRIPTION
The IRIS Workstation UNIX is started with a two-stage process. The first stage is a primary bootstrap and the second stage loads the UNIX kernel. The primary bootstrap sets up memory management and starts the PROM Monitor. This is a simple command interpreter through which each IRIS Workstation boot environment may be accessed.
In the second stage, a device is specified to the PROM Monitor (see the table below) followed by an optional pathname. If no pathname is given, a file named defaultboot is searched for on the given device. The PROM Monitor finds the file on the given device, loads that file into the proper memory location, and then transfers control of the program. Normal line editing characters may be used.
Here is a complete list of PROM Monitor commands.
| h | Display a list of PROM Monitor commands. |
| t | Serial interface to host. |
| n [file] | Boot the IRIS Workstation over a network. |
| d [file] | Boot the IRIS Workstation from a disk. |
| d [pathname]/* | List the contents of directory pathname. |
| tb [file] | Boot the IRIS Workstation from a tape drive. The file must be in cpio format. |
| tb * | List the contents of a tape in cpio format. |
| r | Restart the PROM Monitor. |
For example, when the PROM Monitor prompt iris> is given, type
iris> d
After UNIX has been booted, it will be in single-user mode and display a “#” prompt. The file system should then be checked with fsck(1). Multi-user mode can be started with the multi command in response to the “#” prompt. This will mount the /usr file system and start certain daemons.
Device Specifications
A device specification has the following form:
device(unit,offset)
where device is the type of the device to be searched, unit is the unit number of the device, and offset is the block offset of the file system on the device.
For example, the specification
md(0,119)
indicates unit 0, and the file system found starting at block 119.
FILES
/defaultboot − system code
SEE ALSO
IRIS Workstation Guide
date(1), fsck(1M), multi(1M).
Version 2.1 — January 02, 1985