From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Feb 24 12:36:25 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id MAA02394 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Tue, 24 Feb 1998 12:36:25 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from gdi.uoregon.edu (gdi.uoregon.edu [128.223.170.30]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA02382 for ; Tue, 24 Feb 1998 12:36:19 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dwhite@gdi.uoregon.edu) Received: from localhost (dwhite@localhost) by gdi.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.8) with SMTP id MAA26401; Tue, 24 Feb 1998 12:36:08 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dwhite@gdi.uoregon.edu) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 12:36:08 -0800 (PST) From: Doug White Reply-To: Doug White To: gkshenaut@ucdavis.edu cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: roll-in installation? In-Reply-To: <199802232215.OAA06420@myrtle1.bogs.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Mon, 23 Feb 1998, Greg Shenaut wrote: > Is there a mechanism already in place which would allow a hands-off > roll-in installation from SCSI tape of a FreeBSD distribution onto > a virgin machine? You might be able to hack it using an install script that takes care of the initial setup (or at least guides you through it). The install script manpage is in the sysinstall sources; you can fetch it from http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/release/sysinstall/sysinstall.8. Run it through `groff -Tascii -mdoc sysinstall.8 | more' to read, and/or copy to /usr/local/man/man8 and use `man sysinstall'. > What I have in mind would be auto-generating a > tape image of the model system using some combination of dump, tar, > and dd, along with parameter blocks containing information for > fdisk/mkfs/format. Then you boot to a floppy containing code which > can deal with the tape; it rolls it in, and, presto changeo, you've > got a complete, bootable, system only needing its rc.conf file > edited in order to run. (Assuming the model has the same hardware > as the target, of course.) Cool idea. Tape installation had some peculiarities at last check; poke around in the docs for info. Doug White | University of Oregon Internet: dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu | Residence Networking Assistant http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~dwhite | Computer Science Major To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message