                        FreeBSD Jumpstart Guide

  Alfred Perlstein

   <alfred@FreeBSD.org>

   $FreeBSD: doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/pxe/article.sgml,v 1.27
   2006/08/29 19:45:44 blackend Exp $

   FreeBSD is a registered trademark of the FreeBSD Foundation.

   Intel, Celeron, EtherExpress, i386, i486, Itanium, Pentium, and
   Xeon are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation
   or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

   Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to
   distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those
   designations appear in this document, and the FreeBSD Project was
   aware of the trademark claim, the designations have been followed
   by the "(TM)" or the "(R)" symbol.

   This article details the method used to allow machines to install
   FreeBSD using the Intel(R) PXE method of booting a machine over a
   network.

     --------------------------------------------------------------

1 Introduction

     Warning: This procedure will make the "Server" both insecure and
     dangerous, it is best to just keep the "Server" on its own hub
     and not in any way accessible by any machines other than the
     "Clients".

   Terminology:

   Server     The machine offering netboot and install options.       
   Client     The machine that will have FreeBSD installed on it.     

   Requires: Clients supporting the Intel PXE netboot option, an
   Ethernet connection.

   Please let me know if you come across anything you have problems
   with or suggestions for additional documentation.

   If you would like someone to train/implement a specific netinstall
   system for you, please send email so that we can discuss terms.

   I would also like to thank Paul Saab <ps@FreeBSD.org> and John
   Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> for doing most of the programming work
   on pxeboot, the interface to the Intel PXE (netboot) system.

     --------------------------------------------------------------

2 Server Configuration

    1. Install DHCP: Install net/isc-dhcp3-server you can use this
       config file dhcpd.conf, stick it in /usr/local/etc/.

    2. Enable tftp:

         1. Make a directory /usr/tftpboot

         2. Add this line to your /etc/inetd.conf:

 tftp    dgram   udp     wait    nobody  /usr/libexec/tftpd    tftpd /usr/tftpboot

    3. Enable NFS:

         1. Add this to /etc/rc.conf:

 nfs_server_enable="YES"

         2. Add this to /etc/exports:

 /usr -alldirs -ro

    4. Reboot to enable the new services or start them manually.

     --------------------------------------------------------------

3 Bootstrap Setup

    1. Download bootfiles: Download the kern.flp and mfsroot.flp
       floppy images.

    2. Set up tftp/pxe-boot directory:

         1. Put pxeboot in the boot directory:

 # rm -rf /usr/obj/*
 # cd /usr/src/sys/boot
 # make
 # cp /usr/src/sys/boot/i386/pxeldr/pxeboot /usr/tftpboot

         2. Using the vndevice mount the kern.flp file and copy its
            contents to /usr/tftpboot:

 # mdconfig -a -t vnode -f kern.flp -u 0 # (vnconfig vn0 kern.flp) associate a vndevice with the file
 # mount /dev/md0 /mnt # (mount /dev/vn0 /mnt) mount it
 # cp -R /mnt /usr/tftpboot # copy the contents to /usr/tftpboot
 # umount /mnt              # unmount it
 # vnconfig -u vn0          # disassociate the vndevice from the file

    3. Compile a custom kernel for the clients (particularly to avoid
       the device config screen at boot) and stick it in
       /usr/tftpboot.

    4. Make a special loader.rc to and install it in
       /usr/tftpboot/boot/loader.rc so that it does not prompt for
       the second disk, here is mine.

    5. Extract the installer and helper utilities from the mfsroot
       disk and uncompress them, put them in /usr/tftpboot as well:

 # vnconfig vn0 mfsroot.flp         # associate a vndevice with the file
 # mount /dev/vn0 /mnt              # mount it
 # cp /mnt/mfsroot.gz /usr/tftpboot # copy the contents to /usr/tftpboot
 # umount /mnt                      # unmount it
 # vnconfig -u vn0                  # disassociate the vndevice from the file
 # cd /usr/tftpboot                 # get into the pxeboot directory
 # gunzip mfsroot.gz                # uncompress the mfsroot

    6. Make your sysinstall script install.cfg, you can use mine as a
       template, but you must edit it.

    7. Copy the sysinstall script into the extracted and uncompressed
       mfsroot image:

 # cd /usr/tftpboot
 # vnconfig vn0 mfsroot
 # mount /dev/vn0 /mnt
 # cp install.cfg /mnt
 # umount /mnt
 # vnconfig -u vn0

     --------------------------------------------------------------

4 Install Setup

    1. Put the install files in an NFS accessible location on the
       Server. Make a directory corresponding the 'nfs' directive in
       the install.cfg file and mirror the FreeBSD install files
       there, you will want it to look somewhat like this:

 ABOUT.TXT       TROUBLE.TXT     compat20        floppies        ports
 ERRATA.TXT      UPGRADE.TXT     compat21        games           proflibs
 HARDWARE.TXT    XF86336         compat22        info            src
 INSTALL.TXT     bin             compat3x        kern.flp
 LAYOUT.TXT      catpages        crypto          manpages
 README.TXT      cdrom.inf       dict            mfsroot.flp
 RELNOTES.TXT    compat1x        doc             packages

    2. Copy the compressed packages into the packages/All directory
       under nfs.

    3. Make sure you have an INDEX file prepared in the packages
       directory. You can make your own INDEX entries like so:

 alfred-1.0||/|Alfred install bootstrap||alfred@FreeBSD.org||||

       Then you can install custom packages, particularly your own
       custom post-install package.

     --------------------------------------------------------------

5 Custom Post-Install Package

   You can use the script pkgmaker.sh to create a custom package for
   post install, the idea is to have it install and configure any
   special things you may need done. pkgmaker is run in the directory
   above the package you wish to create with the single argument of
   the package (i.e., mypkg) which will then create a mypkg.tgz for
   you to include in your sysinstall package.

   Inside your custom package dir you will want a file called PLIST
   which contains all the files that you wish to install and be
   incorporated into your package.

   You will also want files called pre and post in the directory,
   these are shell scripts that you want to execute before and after
   your package is installed.

   Since this package is in your install.cfg file it should be run
   and do the final configuration for you.

     --------------------------------------------------------------

           This, and other documents, can be downloaded from
                ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/.

 For questions about FreeBSD, read the documentation before contacting
                        <questions@FreeBSD.org>.
   For questions about this documentation, e-mail <doc@FreeBSD.org>.
