From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Sep 3 01:36:47 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 76C4D16A41F for ; Sat, 3 Sep 2005 01:36:47 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jackbarnett@qwest.net) Received: from mpls-qmqp-04.inet.qwest.net (mpls-qmqp-04.inet.qwest.net [63.231.195.115]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 1119A43D45 for ; Sat, 3 Sep 2005 01:36:46 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jackbarnett@qwest.net) Received: (qmail 89871 invoked by uid 0); 3 Sep 2005 01:32:05 -0000 Received: from unknown (63.231.195.4) by mpls-qmqp-04.inet.qwest.net with QMQP; 3 Sep 2005 01:32:05 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO abby) (63.231.238.226) by mpls-pop-04.inet.qwest.net with SMTP; 3 Sep 2005 01:36:45 -0000 Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 20:36:44 -0500 Message-ID: From: "Jack Barnett" To: questions@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.6604 (9.0.2911.0) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2180 Importance: Normal Cc: Subject: Custom Build X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 03 Sep 2005 01:36:47 -0000 Hello all, How this is the correct list to post this to, if not, please point me to a more apporiate list. What I want to do is make a custom automated build for FreeBSD. Basically, create a build, burn it to CD-ROM, go stick it into a server and it automatically configures to the correct hardware, auto sets up the file system (1 hard drive per server) and then reboots. When it comes back up, I have a full functionaly customized FreeBSD install. The only interaction that should happen during the install, is putting in the hostname, select static or dynamic ip and then [for non-FreeBSD app] select to save to local or network drive. I'm good with perl/bash, etc, so I know how to create a script to automate the install for our application. I need to do this on a lot of servers, so doing a manual install would take weeks. Each server has 1 hard drive, all the data is stored on a very robust file server that gets backed up, if the hard drive fails, we just replace, rebuild and contiune where we left off. During the install, it should just partion off 512 for swap, then use rest of disk for root directory. Each disk may be a differant size, but they will all be more then 2 gigs. The build I want to create would be a "mini-FreeBSD", just the kernal, some basic programs and 1 non-FreeBSD application. The only port that would be open is for SSHD and all servers would sit behind a firewall in there own seperate subnet (firewall only routes http requests to upload data and incoming ssh connections). We're currently using a very old custom Linux build, it's less then 10 megs total. The problem we are having with this, is that it doesn't support all the newer hardware we use (the build is about 4-5 years old) and FreeBSD is our "standard operating envoriment" (as far as servers goes), the admins here are more famlair with FreeBSD so it makes sense to switch to FreeBSD since we have to update the build anyways (the guy that made the build isn't here any more and the rest of us are FreeBSD fan-boys :P ) All the other FreeBSD servers that aren't in the cluster/grid are manually installed. Could someone point me in the right direction or to some documentation or other resources? Regards, Jack