Installing 4.3 BSD Quasijarus on SIMH

This is the procedure that I have used to install 4.3 BSD onto SIMH's MicroVAX II emulator. Please note that this is the Quasijarus release of 4.3 BSD.

Obtaining an install tape

You have two choices now, either you can create your own, or you can download a pre-made tape on sourceforge. If you want to build your own tape image, then follow the next section.

Building your own tape image

I will describe what is needed, and how to create your own Quasijarus tape image, that is suitable for installing with SIMH.

Requirements

You will need the following materials to put together a 4.3 BSD Quasijarus installation:

• A working perl interpeter to make the tape images.
  
• A copy of gzip.
  
• A working C compiler.
  
• A compiled binary of vax from SIMH, along with the ka655x.bin again from SIMH.

You will need the following files from any 4 BSD archive from the Quasijarus0c directory. I have used the files from Sourceforge. You you will have to use a web browser to download them, to deal with the sourceforge download system. But that's the price of free hosting.

stand.Z
miniroot.Z
rootdump.Z
usr.tar.Z
srcsys.tar.Z
src.tar.Z

gzcompat

Next it's easier on a host machine to convert the downloaded Quasijarus files into gzip, then uncompress them using gzip. For this you will need the gzcompat program. The sourcecode and a patch for windows compatibility on the link, as it's getting hard to find. Simply compile gzcompat.c. It should be straightforward. The original location for gzcompat is [here] and a known good copy is [here].

On most instances with gcc simply run:

gcc gzcompat.c -o gzcompat

And that should be it.

Preparing for installation

With the files downloaded you will need to uncompress them all and then create the tape file. With the different compression this will be somewhat involved.

The following command will decompress the tape files, on a UNIX install.

cat miniroot.Z | gzcompat | gzip -dc > miniroot
cat rootdump.Z | gzcompat | gzip -dc > rootdump
cat src.tar.Z | gzcompat | gzip -dc > src.tar
cat srcsys.tar.Z | gzcompat | gzip -dc > srcsys.tar
cat stand.Z | gzcompat | gzip -dc > stand
cat usr.tar.Z | gzcompat | gzip -dc > usr.tar

The tape needs to be created with the mkdisttap.pl program. Simply run the program and redirect it into a file called quas.tap. You may need to make a few small edits and use TYPE instead of cat when running on Windows. Hints in the link.

% ./mkdisttap.pl  > quas.tap
% ls -l quas.tap
-rw-r--r--  1 Neozeed  None_ploc  84450876 Feb  6 17:10 quas.tap
%

An empty RA82 can be created with:

% dd if=/dev/zero of=quas.dsk bs=512 count=1216665

Now we have our tape and disk, so we are ready to proceed with the install. For those wondering, unlike the 11/780 emulator, the MicrovaxII can run it's microcode in a logical fashion and we are able to boot from tape in this release.

Boot 1.

I disable as many of the devices as possible to get a 'clean' install. So this is the install.ini that I'm going to use.

install.ini

set cr dis
set lpt dis
set rl dis
set ry dis
set ts dis
set xq dis
set rq0 ra82
att rq0 quas.dsk
set rq1 dis
set rq2 dis
set rq3 dis
att tq0 quas.tap
set tti 7b
set tto 7b
boot cpu

Booting the emulator

You then simply run the emulator and pass it the config file.

C:\Quasijarus0c\work>vax.exe install.ini

VAX simulator V3.8-0
RQ: creating new file
Loading boot code from ka655x.bin

←[c
KA655-B V5.3, VMB 2.7
Performing normal system tests.
40..39..38..37..36..35..34..33..32..31..30..29..28..27..26..25..
24..23..22..21..20..19..18..17..16..15..14..13..12..11..10..09..
08..07..06..05..04..03..
Tests completed.
>>>boot mua0:
(BOOT/R5:0 MUA0



  2..
-MUA0
  1..0..

=

Once the BIOS has done it's POST, it will prompt what device to boot off of at the >>> prompt. The first tape device is mua0:. Once the tape has done the first boot you'll be greeted with the = prompt. From here we are going to load the copy program. Simply type in the following:

copy
tms(0,1)
ra(0,1)

This will copy the second file onto tape, onto the second file position on our hard disk. The output should be the following:

=copy
cpu: uVAX 3000
From: tms(0,1)
To: ra(0,1)
ra0: unlabeled
Copy completed: 308 records copied
=

Next we run the boot program. Simply type in the following:

boot
ra(0,1)vmunix

The resulting output should be the following. The kernel will then prompt for the root partition.

=boot
cpu: uVAX 3000

Boot
: ra(0,1)vmunix
ra0: unlabeled
326312+104440+130352 start 0x23b8
4.3 BSD Quasijarus UNIX #3: Sat Feb 14 20:31:03 PST 2004
    root@luthien.Harhan.ORG:/nbsd/usr/src/sys/GENERIC
real mem  = 16744448
SYSPTSIZE limits number of buffers to 112
avail mem = 14920704
using 112 buffers containing 917504 bytes of memory
MicroVAX 3000, ucode rev 6
tmscp0 at uba0 csr 174500 vec 774, ipl 15
tms0 at tmscp0 slave 0
tms1 at tmscp0 slave 1
uda0 at uba0 csr 172150 vec 770, ipl 15
uda0: version 3 model 3
uda0: DMA burst size set to 4
ra0 at uda0 slave 0: no disk label: ra81, size = 891072 sectors
dz0 at uba0 csr 160100 vec 300, ipl 15
dz1 at uba0 csr 160110 vec 310, ipl 15
dz2 at uba0 csr 160120 vec 320, ipl 15
dz3 at uba0 csr 160130 vec 330, ipl 15
root device?

We will answer with the first ra disk, in a special format, because we have not put a disklabel onto the disk yet.

ra0*

Once the disk has been mounted we will be dumped to the root prompt. The next step will be creating the default disk label.

Creating the disk label

Using the disklabel command we will setup the slices automatically (it's done from a file disktab) then install the boot programs. This way we can boot from disk.

Simply type in:

disklabel -rw ra0 ra82 "Quasijarus" /usr/mdec/rdboot /usr/mdec/bootra

And the disk will now be labled, and bootable from the firmware.

Restoring the rootdump

From here we are now running from the miniroot. The next step is to run the xtr program to restore the root, and then shutdown the emulator. Enter in the command:

disk=ra0 type=ra82 tape=tms xtr

And the following will happen:

# disk=ra0 type=ra82 tape=tms xtr
Build root file system
Warning: 361 sector(s) in last cylinder unallocated
/dev/rra0a:     15884 sectors in 19 cylinders of 15 tracks, 57 sectors
        8.1MB in 2 cyl groups (16 c/g, 7.00MB/g, 3200 i/g)
super-block backups (for fsck -b #) at:
 32, 13776,
Check the file system
** /dev/rra0a
** Last Mounted on
** Phase 1 - Check Blocks and Sizes
** Phase 2 - Check Pathnames
** Phase 3 - Check Connectivity
** Phase 4 - Check Reference Counts
** Phase 5 - Check Cyl groups
1 files, 1 used, 7092 free (20 frags, 884 blocks, 0.3% fragmentation)
Rewind tape
Restore the dump image of the root
** /dev/rra0a
** Last Mounted on /a
** Phase 1 - Check Blocks and Sizes
** Phase 2 - Check Pathnames
** Phase 3 - Check Connectivity
** Phase 4 - Check Reference Counts
** Phase 5 - Check Cyl groups
426 files, 5195 used, 1898 free (18 frags, 235 blocks, 0.3% fragmentation)
Root filesystem extracted

If this is an 8650 or 8600, update the console rl02
If this is a 780 or 785, update the floppy
If this is a 730, update the cassette
#

After this stage, I just sync the disk a few times, then halt the emulator (CONTROL+E) and exit out. Now we are ready for stage two.

If this is a 730, update the cassette
# sync
# sync
# sync

Simulation stopped, PC: 800029AF (BNEQ 800029C6)
sim> q
Goodbye

C:\Quasijarus0c\work>

Boot 2.

Now that the install disk is prepared, we need to use a different config file to reflect the emulator being able to autoboot to the disk. The new configuration is as follows:

boot.ini

set cr dis
set lpt dis
set rl dis
set ry dis
set ts dis
set xq dis
set rq0 ra82
att rq0 quas.dsk
set rq1 dis
set rq2 dis
set rq3 dis
att tq0 quas.tap
set tti 7b
set tto 7b
att nvr nvram.dat
dep bdr 1
boot cpu

Booting the emulator

Now boot up the emulator with the boot.ini The first time we boot up in this configuration the emulator will prompt for what device will be the default device. If you typo this, you will have to delete the nvram.dat file, and try again. The default device will be dua0: which is the primary rq disk.

C:\Quasijarus0c\work>vax.exe boot.ini

VAX simulator V3.8-0
NVR: creating new file
NVR: buffering file in memory
Loading boot code from ka655x.bin

←[c
KA655-B V5.3, VMB 2.7
Performing normal system tests.
40..39..38..37..36..35..34..33..32..31..30..29..28..27..26..25..
24..23..22..21..20..19..18..17..16..15..14..13..12..11..10..09..
08..07..06..05..04..03..
Tests completed.
Loading system software.
No default boot device has been specified.

Available devices.
-DUA0 (RA 82)
-MUA0 (TK 50)
-MUA1 (TK 50)
-MUA2 (TK 50)
-MUA3 (TK 50)

Device? [XQA0]: dua0:

(BOOT/R5:0 DUA0



  2..
-DUA0
  1..0..

loading boot

Boot
: /vmunix
326312+104440+130352 start 0x23b8
4.3 BSD Quasijarus UNIX #3: Sat Feb 14 20:31:03 PST 2004
    root@luthien.Harhan.ORG:/nbsd/usr/src/sys/GENERIC
real mem  = 16744448
SYSPTSIZE limits number of buffers to 112
avail mem = 14920704
using 112 buffers containing 917504 bytes of memory
MicroVAX 3000, ucode rev 6
tmscp0 at uba0 csr 174500 vec 774, ipl 15
tms0 at tmscp0 slave 0
tms1 at tmscp0 slave 1
uda0 at uba0 csr 172150 vec 770, ipl 15
uda0: version 3 model 3
uda0: DMA burst size set to 4
ra0 at uda0 slave 0: ra82, size = 1216665 sectors
dz0 at uba0 csr 160100 vec 300, ipl 15
dz1 at uba0 csr 160110 vec 310, ipl 15
dz2 at uba0 csr 160120 vec 320, ipl 15
dz3 at uba0 csr 160130 vec 330, ipl 15
Changing root device to ra0a
Automatic reboot in progress...
Fri Feb  6 09:47:10 PST 2004
Can't open checklist file: /etc/fstab
Automatic reboot failed... help!
erase ^?, kill ^U, intr ^C
#

Preparing the disk

Now we have to prep the machine for both the tape, and the type of disk. Type in the following commands.

# newfs ra0g ra82
# newfs ra0h ra82
# mkdir /home
# mount /dev/ra0g /usr
# cd /dev
# MAKEDEV tmscp0
# MAKEDEV dz0

The output will be like this:

# newfs ra0g ra82
/dev/rra0g:     841320 sectors in 984 cylinders of 15 tracks, 57 sectors
        430.8MB in 62 cyl groups (16 c/g, 7.00MB/g, 3200 i/g)
super-block backups (for fsck -b #) at:
 32, 13776, 27520, 41264, 55008, 68752, 82496, 96240, 109984,
 123728, 137472, 151216, 164960, 178704, 192448, 206192, 218912, 232656,
 246400, 260144, 273888, 287632, 301376, 315120, 328864, 342608, 356352,
 370096, 383840, 397584, 411328, 425072, 437792, 451536, 465280, 479024,
 492768, 506512, 520256, 534000, 547744, 561488, 575232, 588976, 602720,
 616464, 630208, 643952, 656672, 670416, 684160, 697904, 711648, 725392,
 739136, 752880, 766624, 780368, 794112, 807856, 821600, 835344,
# newfs ra0h ra82
Warning: 209 sector(s) in last cylinder unallocated
/dev/rra0h:     291346 sectors in 341 cylinders of 15 tracks, 57 sectors
        149.2MB in 22 cyl groups (16 c/g, 7.00MB/g, 3200 i/g)
super-block backups (for fsck -b #) at:
 32, 13776, 27520, 41264, 55008, 68752, 82496, 96240, 109984,
 123728, 137472, 151216, 164960, 178704, 192448, 206192, 218912, 232656,
 246400, 260144, 273888, 287632,
# mkdir /home
# mount /dev/ra0g /usr
# cd /dev
# MAKEDEV tmscp0
# MAKEDEV dz0

Restoring the usr slice

The disk's /usr slice will not have been formatted. We can not go ahead and mount it, and restore the /usr files.

# cd /usr
# mt rew
# mt fsf 3
# tar xpbf 20 /dev/rmt12
# mkdir src
# cd src
# mkdir sys
# cd sys
# mt fsf
# tar xpbf 20 /dev/rmt12
# cd ..
# mt fsf
# tar xpbf 20 /dev/rmt12

Configuring the fstab

Now we just need to create the fstab then we can reboot the emulator into multiuser mode. Enter in the following commands:

# cd /etc
# cat > fstab
/dev/ra0a:/:rw:1:1
/dev/ra0h:/home:rw:1:3
/dev/ra0g:/usr:rw:1:2

Now you need to press CONTROL+d which will end the stream. Finally you can tell the emulator to reboot.

# reboot
syncing disks... done

HALT instruction, PC: 8002F4F8 (BRB 8002F4F7)
sim> q
Goodbye
NVR: writing buffer to file 

First Multiuser Boot

Now we can just re-run the last command, and we should boot multiuser! By default there is no root password. Also the system will run fsck uppon boot, so depending on your host computer this could take a while.

C:\Quasijarus0c\work>vax.exe boot.ini

VAX simulator V3.8-0
NVR: buffering file in memory
Loading boot code from ka655x.bin

←[c
KA655-B V5.3, VMB 2.7
Performing normal system tests.
40..39..38..37..36..35..34..33..32..31..30..29..28..27..26..25..
24..23..22..21..20..19..18..17..16..15..14..13..12..11..10..09..
08..07..06..05..04..03..
Tests completed.
Loading system software.
(BOOT/R5:0 DUA0



  2..
-DUA0
  1..0..

loading boot

Boot
: /vmunix
326312+104440+130352 start 0x23b8
4.3 BSD Quasijarus UNIX #3: Sat Feb 14 20:31:03 PST 2004
    root@luthien.Harhan.ORG:/nbsd/usr/src/sys/GENERIC
real mem  = 16744448
SYSPTSIZE limits number of buffers to 112
avail mem = 14920704
using 112 buffers containing 917504 bytes of memory
MicroVAX 3000, ucode rev 6
tmscp0 at uba0 csr 174500 vec 774, ipl 15
tms0 at tmscp0 slave 0
tms1 at tmscp0 slave 1
uda0 at uba0 csr 172150 vec 770, ipl 15
uda0: version 3 model 3
uda0: DMA burst size set to 4
ra0 at uda0 slave 0: ra82, size = 1216665 sectors
dz0 at uba0 csr 160100 vec 300, ipl 15
dz1 at uba0 csr 160110 vec 310, ipl 15
dz2 at uba0 csr 160120 vec 320, ipl 15
dz3 at uba0 csr 160130 vec 330, ipl 15
Changing root device to ra0a
Automatic reboot in progress...
Fri Feb  6 09:59:45 PST 2004
/dev/ra0a: 448 files, 5199 used, 1894 free (22 frags, 234 blocks, 0.3% fragmentation)
/dev/rra0g: 12312 files, 71682 used, 323169 free (417 frags, 40344 blocks, 0.1% fragmentation)
/dev/rra0h: 1 files, 1 used, 136503 free (15 frags, 17061 blocks, 0.0% fragmentation)
Fri Feb  6 09:59:58 PST 2004
checking quotas: done.
starting system logger

preserving editor files
clearing /tmp
standard daemons: update cron accounting.
starting network daemons: routedFeb  6 10:00:00 myname named[79]: /etc/named.boo
t: No such file or directory
 named inetd printer.
starting local daemons: sendmail.
Fri Feb  6 10:00:01 PST 2004


4.3 BSD UNIX (myname.my.domain) (console)

login:

Now we can simply logon as root.

Fri Feb  6 10:00:01 PST 2004


4.3 BSD UNIX (myname.my.domain) (console)

login: root
Feb  6 10:01:26 myname login: ROOT LOGIN console
4.3 BSD Quasijarus UNIX #3: Sat Feb 14 20:31:03 PST 2004

Welcome to UNIX!

erase ^?, kill ^U, intr ^C
#

From here you can explore the system. All of the man pages are installed, and there is enough of a base system to get going. Right now the networking is outside of the scope of this guide.

Enabling remote users

Shutdown the OS, and add the following lines into the boot.ini (just make sure they are above the boot command or it'll not work correctly..). This will allow for 8 users to connect on tcp port 8888.

set dz lines=8
att dz 8888
set dz 7b

I would also recommend to windows users, either putty, or syncterm. The default telnet client sucks.