Some situations may require a customized FreeBSD installation media and/or source. This might be physical media or a source that sysinstall(8) can use to retrieve the installation files. Some example situations include:
A local network with many machines has a private FTP server hosting the FreeBSD installation files which the machines should use for installation.
FreeBSD does not recognize the CD/DVD drive but Windows® does. In this case, copy the FreeBSD installation files to a Windows® partition on the same computer, and then install FreeBSD using those files.
The computer to install does not have a CD/DVD drive or a network card, but can be connected using a null-printer cable to a computer that does.
A tape will be used to install FreeBSD.
As part of each release, the FreeBSD Project provides ISO images for each supported architecture. These images can be written (“burned”) to CD or DVD media using a burning application, and then used to install FreeBSD. If a CD/DVD writer is available, this is the easiest way to install FreeBSD.
Download the Correct ISO Images
The ISO images for each release can be downloaded from
ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ISO-IMAGES-
or the closest mirror. Substitute
arch/versionarch and
version as appropriate.
An image directory normally contains the following images:
| Filename | Contents |
|---|---|
FreeBSD- | This CD image starts the installation process by booting from a CD-ROM drive but it does not contain the support for installing FreeBSD from the CD itself. Perform a network based install, such as from an FTP server, after booting from this CD. |
FreeBSD- | This DVD image contains everything necessary to install the base FreeBSD operating system, a collection of pre-built packages, and the documentation. It also supports booting into a “livefs” based rescue mode. |
FreeBSD- | This image can be written to a USB memory stick in order to install machines capable of booting from USB drives. It also supports booting into a “livefs” based rescue mode. The only included package is the documentation package. |
FreeBSD- | This image can be written to a USB memory
stick in order to install machines capable of
booting from USB drives. Similar to the
bootonly.iso image, it does
not contain the distribution sets on the medium
itself, but does support network-based
installations (for example, via ftp). |
FreeBSD-version-RELEASE-arch-disc1.iso | This CD image contains the base FreeBSD operating system and the documentation package but no other packages. |
FreeBSD- | A CD image with as many third-party packages
as would fit on the disc. This image is not
available for
FreeBSD 9.X. |
FreeBSD- | Another CD image with as many third-party
packages as would fit on the disc. This image is
not available for
FreeBSD 9.X. |
FreeBSD- | This CD image contains support for booting into a “livefs” based rescue mode but does not support doing an install from the CD itself. |
When performing a CD installation, download either
the bootonly ISO image or
disc1. Do not download both, since
disc1 contains everything that the
bootonly ISO image contains.
Use the bootonly ISO to perform a
network install over the Internet. Additional software
can be installed as needed using the Ports Collection as
described in Chapter 5, Installing Applications: Packages and Ports.
Use dvd1 to install FreeBSD and a
selection of third-party packages from the disc.
Burn the Media
Next, write the downloaded image(s) to disc. If using another FreeBSD system, refer to Section 18.5.2, “Burning a CD” for instructions.
If using another platform, use any burning utility that exists for that platform. The images are in the standard ISO format which most CD writing applications support.
To build a customized release of FreeBSD, refer to the Release Engineering Article.
FreeBSD discs are laid out in the same way as the FTP site. This makes it easy to create a local FTP site that can be used by other machines on a network to install FreeBSD.
On the FreeBSD computer that will host the FTP site, ensure that the CD/DVD is in the drive and mounted:
#mount /cdrom
Create an account for anonymous FTP. Use vipw(8) to insert this line:
ftp:*:99:99::0:0:FTP:/cdrom:/nonexistent
Ensure that the FTP service is enabled in
/etc/inetd.conf.
Anyone with network connectivity to the machine can now
chose a media type of FTP and type in
ftp:// after picking
“Other” in the FTP sites menu during the
install.your
machine
If the boot media for the FTP clients is not precisely the same version as that provided by the local FTP site, sysinstall(8) will not complete the installation. To override this, go into the menu and change the distribution name to .
This approach is acceptable for a machine on the local network which is protected by a firewall. Offering anonymous FTP services to other machines over the Internet exposes the computer to increased security risks. It is strongly recommended to follow good security practices when providing services over the Internet.
To prepare for an installation from a Windows® partition,
copy the files from the distribution into a directory in the
root directory of the partition, such as
c:\freebsd. Since the directory
structure must be reproduced, it is recommended to use
robocopy when copying from a CD/DVD. For
example, to prepare for a minimal installation of FreeBSD:
C:\>md c:\freebsdC:\>robocopy e:\bin c:\freebsd\bin\ /sC:\>robocopy e:\manpages c:\freebsd\manpages\ /s
This example assumes that C: has
enough free space and E: is where the
CD/DVD is mounted.
Alternatively, download the distribution from ftp.FreeBSD.org. Each distribution is in its own directory; for example, the base distribution can be found in the 9.3/base/ directory.
Copy the distributions to install from a Windows®
partition to c:\freebsd. Both the
base and kernel
distributions are needed for the most minimal
installation.
There are three types of network installations available: Ethernet, PPP, and PLIP.
For the fastest possible network installation, use an Ethernet adapter. FreeBSD supports most common Ethernet cards. A list of supported cards is provided in the Hardware Notes for each release of FreeBSD. If using a supported PCMCIA Ethernet card, be sure that it is plugged in before the system is powered on as FreeBSD does not support hot insertion of PCMCIA cards during installation.
Make note of the system's IP address, subnet mask, hostname, default gateway address, and DNS server addresses if these values are statically assigned. If installing by FTP through a HTTP proxy, make note of the proxy's address. If you do not know these values, ask the system administrator or ISP before trying this type of installation.
If using a dialup modem, have the service provider's PPP information handy as it is needed early in the installation process.
If PAP or CHAP are used to connect to the
ISP without using a script, type
dial at the FreeBSD
ppp prompt. Otherwise, know how to
dial the ISP using the “AT
commands” specific to the modem, as the PPP dialer
provides only a simple terminal emulator. Refer to Section 27.2, “Configuring PPP” and ../../../../doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/ppp.html
for further information. Logging can be directed to the
screen using set log local ....
If a hard-wired connection to another FreeBSD machine is available, the installation can occur over a null-modem parallel port cable. The data rate over the parallel port is higher than what is typically possible over a serial line.
To perform an NFS installation, copy the needed FreeBSD distribution files to an NFS server and then point the installer's NFS media selection to it.
If the server supports only a “privileged
port”, set the option NFS Secure
in the menu so that the
installation can proceed.
If using a poor quality Ethernet card which suffers
from slow transfer rates, toggle the
NFS Slow flag to on.
In order for an NFS installation to
work, the server must support subdir mounts. For example,
if the FreeBSD 10.2 distribution lives on:
ziggy:/usr/archive/stuff/FreeBSD,
ziggy will have to allow the direct
mounting of /usr/archive/stuff/FreeBSD,
not just /usr or
/usr/archive/stuff.
In FreeBSD, this is controlled by using
-alldirs in
/etc/exports. Other
NFS servers may have different
conventions. If the server is displaying
permission denied messages, it is
likely that this is not enabled properly.
All FreeBSD documents are available for download at http://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/
Questions that are not answered by the
documentation may be
sent to <[email protected]>.
Send questions about this document to <[email protected]>.