[bjames]

I want to transfer my IRix installation media to my sgi hard drive for future installation over LAN.  Is there a program that does this?  Or if someone can Provide instructions on how to do this.

[jan-jaap]

The program to make a disc image is called 'dd'.

On IRIX (assuming your CD-ROM is ID #6 on controller # 0, see 'hinv'):

Code:

dd if=/dev/dsk/dks0d6vol of=disk_image.efs bs=512

On Linux:

Code:

dd if=/dev/cdrom of=disk_image.efs bs=512

IRIX installation discs are not ISO9660 but use a disc label (think: partition table) and the EFS filesystem instead. A Windows PC or a Mac won't be able to do much with them. Linux can mount IRIX installation discs and even loop mount the disc images:

Code:

mount -o loop,ro -t efs disk_image.efs /mount_point

*But* if you want to install over the network, you need the files on the discs, not a straight disc image.

[bjames]

*But* if you want to install over the network, you need the files on the discs, not a straight disc image.

Thats exacly what I want to do. So if I understand correct, I can just do a straight copy from the CD-Rom to a subfolder. Is it recommended to create subfolders for each CD-Rom or just copy entier contents of all CD-Rom into a single folder?

[Trippynet]

Definitely sub-folders, don't bung everything together.

[kikems]

*But* if you want to install over the network, you need the files on the discs, not a straight disc image.

Thats exacly what I want to do.  So if I understand correct, I can just do a straight copy from the CD-Rom to a subfolder.  Is it recommended to create subfolders for each CD-Rom or just copy entier contents of all CD-Rom into a single folder?

Make one folder per CD and copy all content with invisible files included, after that pack every folder as tar or tar.gz to storage.

[jan-jaap]

after that pack every folder as tar or tar.gz to storage.

This is maybe my obsession for correctness or unimportant (?) details showing, but a backup should always restore to the original, not be an interpretation of the original. The only full backup of a CD is a disc image, not a .tar.gz file.

A disc image can easily be restored to a CD-RW should the original disc get lost or damaged. You cannot boot a .tar.gz file. Rebuilding a bootable CD from a .tar.gz file is a ton of work and requires a working SGI system.

So, I have backups of *all* my IRIX CD-ROMs as disc images on my Linux server, using a naming scheme based on data extracted from the .IM file in the root of every semi-recent IRIX disc (IRIX 5 and newer), e.g.:

Code:

$ ls -l irix5.3/*.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 525074432 Nov 15  1994 irix5.3/812-0119-006_IRIX_5.3.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 530366464 Aug  5  1995 irix5.3/812-0119-008_IRIX_5.3_with_175Mhz_and_2MB_cache_support.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 607944704 Dec 21  1995 irix5.3/812-0119-010_IRIX_5.3_All_Indigo2_IMPACT.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 184467456 Dec 28  1994 irix5.3/812-0121-007_DIAGNOSTICS_5.3.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  23216128 Nov  9  1994 irix5.3/812-0127-004_Documenter's_Workbench_4.1.3.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  38125568 Nov 16  1994 irix5.3/812-0128-005_Network_File_System_5.3.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 334987264 Nov 14  1994 irix5.3/812-0129-005_IRIS_Development_Option_5.3.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  42483712 Nov 10  1994 irix5.3/812-0130-005_C++_Translator_4.0.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  25018368 Nov  8  1994 irix5.3/812-0131-005_Pascal_Compiler_1.4.4.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  24805376 Nov  9  1994 irix5.3/812-0218-005_4DDN_DECNet_Connectivity_4.1.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  65634304 Feb 28  1995 irix5.3/812-0241-003_European_Language_Module_1.3.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  25837568 Nov 11  1994 irix5.3/812-0274-004_Sirius_Video_1.1.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  51363840 Mar 13  1995 irix5.3/812-0288-003_MegaDev_3.0.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 536150016 Dec 21  1994 irix5.3/812-0323-001_IRIX_5.3_with_XFS.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 585859072 Dec 30  1994 irix5.3/812-0325-001_Varsity_5.3_Developer_Package_Update.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 525090816 Mar  1  1995 irix5.3/812-0336-001_IRIX_5.3_for_Indy_R4400_175MHz.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 527171584 Feb 10  1996 irix5.3/812-0336-004_IRIX_5.3_for_Indy_including_R5000.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 124600320 Apr 14  1995 irix5.3/812-0350-001_InPerson_2.0__Annotator_1.0.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 340770816 Aug 12  1995 irix5.3/812-0410-001_Desktop-Special_Edition_1.0.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 312016896 Nov 13  1995 irix5.3/812-0410-002_Desktop-Special_Edition_1.1.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 224493568 Dec 18  1995 irix5.3/812-0447-002_Impact_Demos_CD_for_5.3_Version_2.0.efs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  23494656 Nov 11  1995 irix5.3/812-0466-001_5.3_Patches_for_Indigo2_250MHz_R4400_1195.efs

The most important things I have on an installation server as directories with dist files. Yes this is a duplicate, but let's face it, how many GB's are we talking about here? In my case the fileserver (backups) and install server aren't even the same machine.

I use the installation server mostly for IRIX 6.2 and newer installs, where IRIX itself is split over multiple CDs. To install IRIX 4.0 or IRIX 5.3, an external CD-ROM is more convenient. Then, with IRIX up and running, I point the system towards the server to install the rest.

The downside of a disc image is that you have to loop-mount them (or burn them to a disc) before you can see the files inside. That's why I keep the images on a Linux server which can do that. IRIX cannot, but hey, I have the originals for the vast majority anyway.

When I first got started with MIPS/IRIX, a sysadmin at my University gave me a set of IRIX discs that had been copied with ... mkisofs. This is back when Usenet was the only source of information. You wouldn't believe how much time it took me to figure that out.