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Date:      Fri, 12 Feb 2010 06:21:55 -0800
From:      Matt Reimer <mattjreimer@gmail.com>
To:        Charles Sprickman <spork@bway.net>
Cc:        stable@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: ZFS on root, serial console install
Message-ID:  <f383264b1002120621p37280304w3f0b18c25a5862c0@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.OSX.2.00.1002120121390.78881@charles-sprickmans-imac.local>
References:  <alpine.OSX.2.00.1002120121390.78881@charles-sprickmans-imac.local>

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On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 10:27 PM, Charles Sprickman <spork@bway.net> wrote:

> Any hints on that one?
>
> I finally got around to getting dhcp/tftp/nfs setup on an internal network
> to perform normal installs (and with some pxelinux hackery, the ability to
> boot a DOS disk or memtest86 disk images).
>
> Sysinstall in general is kind of an unweildy beast over serial, but one
> thing I was not able to accomplish was to get a shell (no extra virtual
> consoles on serial) or attempt any mounting of fixit media.  From my last
> install that put ZFS on root, I had to do quite a bit of tapdancing since I
> had no DVD or bootable USB media - lots of switching from the install disk
> to fixit, which brought me to many chicken and egg moments.  I did it
> though...
>
> But remotely, I'm not seeing a good way to do this.  If mfsroot were larger
> and had more tools, then I'd be in business.  This is probably the direction
> I need to get shoved in.
>
> I've looked at some other options with pxelinux and perhaps booting the
> mini ISO, but I'm not sure that gets me anywhere.
>
> Any tips?  This isn't a make or break situation, I live 15 minutes from the
> colo...  It's more of a quest. :)


The way I do it is to boot over the network using pxeboot, configure the
partitions and ZFS pool and filesystems mounted on /mnt, then install using
sysinstall, using the Options dialog to set the install directory to /mnt. I
think I created the NFS filesystem using "make installworld
DESTDIR=/usr/nfs/freebsd" or something like that; this gives you all the
tools you need.

Matt



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