[nycbug-talk] FreeBSD completely headless install?

[Jay Savage]

On 1/11/06, Dru <dlavigne6 at sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, 11 Jan 2006, Jay Savage wrote:
>
> > This may have been discussed before, but I couldn't find anything.
>
> >I need to install FreeBSD 6. The computer I have available is
> >currently running as a headless server (OBSD 3.6) and the monitor,
> >keyboard, and anything else useful are instorage due to a recent move.
> >I don't even have a null modem cable at the moment, which might
> >simplify matters.
>
> >My ideal here would be a live cd, or even floppy that booted with some
> >generic drivers, grabbed an ip from dhcp, and started sshd from a
> >known port with a known password so that I could start sysinstall from
> >the command line. It's seems intuitive enough, but I haven't been able
> >to find anything like it.
>
> >Does anyone have a suggestion?
>
>
> If you have a copy of BSD Hacks, #77 is a starter point on scripting
> sysinstall. If you don't:
>
> man sysinstall
> more /usr/src/usr/sbin/sysinstall/install.cfg
>
> You'll see that you can pretty well put in whatever is scriptable...
>
> If I had another system available, I would modify the script to my needs
> and test it on a system I could see. Once happy with the results, I would
> then use the script on the headless system.
>
> Have fun,
>
> Dru
>

Dru,

Thanks. I have a copy kicking around at home, I'll take a look. My
problem, though is that I don't have access to a freebsd machine at
the moment, or a viable test system. I have an Apple iBook running
10.4, a really beat up PIII Thinkpad running SuSE 9.1, and this
headless machine I want to install on, currently running OpenBSD 3.6.
Not an ideal setup, but I'm living in a very cramped apartment for a
couple of months, and I put everything I didn't think I'd need (turns
out I was wrong about the peripherals) into storage. I may end up
loading fbsd on the Thinkpad and going from there with the sysinstall
hacks and/or the freesbie toolkit.

Thanks,

-- jay
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