Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 06:11:32 -0600 From: Scott Johnson <tmtowtdi@mailandnews.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Regarding FreeBSD image (pls fwd to wellsian) Message-ID: <38981EF4.41C67EA6@mailandnews.com>
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Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
> And also, suppose I download the CD image (which I would prefer, because
> then I would always have a copy with me which I can revert to incase of
> any troubles; and also I can install FreeBSD again if I wan't to), is
> there any waay I can install from that image *without* burning it to a CD?
> I was reading abt how to burn CDs in Linux, and there was some mention of
> a loop device which lets you check if the image works fine. Is there any
> way I can use that to install FreeBSD ?
Well, naturally you'll need another machine connected on the local
network running some capable os. Under linux you can mount the iso on a
loopback device (so named because it loops the data from the device back
into the fs layer: the image is an iso9660 filesystem sitting on top of
an ext2 filesystem, so it needs another go through the fs layer for you
to have access to the files on it.) Just mount it like this:
mount -t iso9660 image.iso /mnt -o loop=/dev/loop0
Of course if /dev/loop0 is in use you'll get an error. You can also use
losetup to associate the image with a loop device. (The same idea is
implemented by vn(4) and vnconfig(8)). Once you've got the image mounted
you can do a network install via NFS or FTP. I've tried this myself
installing RedHat 6.1 on a 486 without a cdrom, but ran out of memory
for some reason. (128M installed on the serving box.) So I wouldn't
count on it working.
Scott Johnson
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