From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Dec 15 12:19:28 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C10571065680 for ; Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:19:28 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from robin@reportlab.com) Received: from mail-ew0-f21.google.com (mail-ew0-f21.google.com [209.85.219.21]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5E78D8FC12 for ; Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:19:28 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from robin@reportlab.com) Received: by ewy14 with SMTP id 14so3472207ewy.19 for ; Mon, 15 Dec 2008 04:19:27 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.210.130.13 with SMTP id c13mr4387389ebd.179.1229343566772; Mon, 15 Dec 2008 04:19:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from ?192.168.0.3? (host-82-44-127-245.static.telewest.net [82.44.127.245]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id p10sm205198gvf.31.2008.12.15.04.19.24 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Mon, 15 Dec 2008 04:19:25 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <49464B4D.4040206@chamonix.reportlab.co.uk> Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:19:25 +0000 From: Robin Becker User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.18 (Windows/20081105) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: questions-list freebsd References: 493D246C.80008@chamonix.reportlab.co.uk <493D53A9.3000106@janh.de> In-Reply-To: <493D53A9.3000106@janh.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: install freebsd from inside another operating system 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: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:19:28 -0000 After some messing around with various efforts on the depenguinator I came up with this scheme for getting a freebsd boot using an external freebsd machine ie not using the target to create the boot. ##freebsd machine #get the freebsd bootonly location wget [use your local location]/7.1-RC1-i386-bootonly.iso #determine its size (in my case 39M) ls -l 7.1-RC1-i386-bootonly.iso #make an image file slightly larger dd if=/dev/zero of=fbsd.img bs=1k count=40000 #create /dev/md0 connected to the image file mdconfig -a -t vnode -f fbsd.img -u 0 #lable it and make a file system thereon bsdlabel -w -B md0 auto newfs -m 0 md0a #make a mount point and then mount the new mem fs on it mkdir img mount /dev/md0a img #and check its usage etc etc df img #now make a mount point for the iso and connect it to md1 mkdir iso mdconfig -a -t vnode -f 7.1-RC1-i386-bootonly.iso -u 1 #and mount as cd mount_cd9660 /dev/md1 iso df iso #copy the iso to the image cp -pr iso/* img/ #clean up umount img iso mdconfig -d -u 0 mdconfig -d -u 1 #copy the image to the target scp fbsd.img me@target:/tmp/ ### target machine ubuntu 8.10 in my case Now after logging in to the target and sudoing su mv /tmp/fbsd.img /boot cp /usr/lib/syslinux/memdisk /boot then edited /boot/grub/menu.lst to contain a new entry title FreeBSD root (hd0,0) kernel memdisk initrd /boot/fbsd.img On reboot I selected the FreeBSD entry and was pleasantly surprised to see the freebsd boot process happening just fine. I suppose with this setup (provided all stays connected) one can do a full install from a network whose parameters may be set up during the install. -- Robin Becker