dosboot is an MS-DOS program. It is a boot loader for
NetBSD/i386 designed to permit
NetBSD to be booted directly from MS-DOS. By default, it boots a file with name
NETBSD in the current MS-DOS directory.
dosboot shares common code with the standard boot loader,
boot(8).
The recognized options are:
-c
Execute command (see below).
-i
Enter interactive mode. dosboot will present a prompt, allowing input of commands (see below).
-u
Boot from a UFS filesystem instead of an MS-DOS filesystem.
path
Specifies the kernel file. In MS-DOS mode (default) a normal MS-DOS filename (with or without drive specification) is accepted. In UFS mode (after
-u or after a
mode ufs command), a path in a
NetBSD filesystem is expected. By default, the file is looked up in partition ‘a' of the first harddisk. Another device or partition can be specified by prepending a block device name in terms of
NetBSD, followed by a colon (see
boot(8) and examples).
-adqsv
Flags passed to the kernel, see
boot(8).
The commands accepted after the
-c flag or in interactive mode are:
boot [device:] [filename] [-1234abcdmqsvxz]
Boot
NetBSD. See
boot in
boot(8) for full details.
dev [device]
Set the default device and partition for subsequent filesystem operations. Without an operand, print the current setting. This setting doesn't apply to MS-DOS mode.
help
Print an overview about commands and arguments.
ls [path]
Print a directory listing of path, containing inode number, filename and file type. This command works in UFS mode only. path can contain a device specification.
mode fstype
Switch filesystem type; fstype should be one of dos or ufs.
quit
Leave the dosboot program and exit to MS-DOS.
dosboot is also installed in the
release(7) hierarchy, under
installation/misc/dosboot.com.