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BSDINSTALL(8) FreeBSD System Manager's Manual BSDINSTALL(8)
NAME
bsdinstall - system installer
SYNOPSIS
bsdinstall [options] [target] [...]
DESCRIPTION
bsdinstall is used for installation of new systems, both for system setup
from installation media, e.g., CD-ROMs, and for use on live systems to
prepare VM images and jails.
Much like make(1), bsdinstall takes a target and possible parameters of
the target as arguments. If invoked with no arguments, it will invoke
the auto target, which provides a standard interactive installation,
invoking the others in sequence. To perform a scripted installation,
these subtargets can be invoked separately by an installation script.
OPTIONS
bsdinstall supports the following options, global to all targets:
-D file Provide a path for the installation log file (overrides
BSDINSTALL_LOG). See ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES for more information
on BSDINSTALL_LOG.
TARGETS
Most of the following targets are only useful for scripting the
installer. For interactive use, most users will be interested only in
the auto, jail, and script targets.
auto Run the standard interactive installation, including
disk partitioning.
jail destination Sets up a new chroot system at destination, suitable
for use with jail(8). Behavior is generally similar
to auto, except that disk partitioning and network
setup are skipped and a kernel is not installed into
the new system.
script script Runs the installation script at script. See
SCRIPTING for more information on this target.
keymap If the current controlling TTY is a syscons(4) or
vt(4) console, asks the user to set the current
keymap, and saves the result to the new system's
rc.conf.
hostname Prompts the user for a host name for the new system
and saves the result to the new system's rc.conf.
If BSDINSTALL_CONFIGCURRENT is set, also sets the
host name of the current system.
netconfig Interactively configures network interfaces (first
invoking wlanconfig on wireless interfaces), saving
the result to the new system's rc.conf and
resolv.conf. If BSDINSTALL_CONFIGCURRENT is set,
also configures the network interfaces of the
current system to match.
zfsboot Provides a ZFS-only automatic interactive disk
partitioner. Creates a single zpool with separate
datasets for /home, /tmp, /usr, /usr/ports,
/usr/src, and /var. Optionally can set up geli(8)
to encrypt the disk.
partedit Provides the installer's interactive manual disk
partitioner with an interface identical to sade(8).
Supports multiple disks as well as UFS, ZFS, and FAT
file systems. ZFS is set up with one pool and
dataset per partition.
scriptedpart parameters
Sets up disks like autopart and partedit, but non-
interactively according to the disk setup specified
in parameters. Each disk setup is specified by a
three-part argument:
disk [scheme] [{partitions}]
Multiple disk setups are separated by semicolons.
The disk argument specifies the disk on which to
operate (which will be erased), or the special value
DEFAULT, which will result in either a selection
window (as in autopart) for the destination disk or,
if there is only one possible disk, will
automatically select it. The scheme argument
specifies the gpart(8) partition scheme to apply to
the disk. If scheme is unspecified, scriptedpart
will apply the default bootable scheme on your
platform. The partitions argument is also optional
and specifies how to partition disk. It consists of
a comma-separated list of partitions to create
enclosed in curly braces. Each partition
declaration takes the form
size type [mount point]
size specifies the partition size to create in bytes
(K, M, and G suffixes can be appended to specify
kilobytes, megabytes, and gigabytes respectively),
while the auto keyword causes the partition to take
all the remaining space on the disk. The type
option chooses the gpart(8) filesystem type, e.g.,
freebsd-ufs, freebsd-zfs, or freebsd-swap. The
optional mount point argument sets where the created
partition is to be mounted in the installed system.
As an example, a typical invocation looks like:
bsdinstall scriptedpart ada0 { 20G freebsd-ufs /, 4G
freebsd-swap, 20G freebsd-ufs /var, auto freebsd-ufs
/usr }
Note that the list of partitions should not include
boot partitions (e.g. EFI system partitions), which
will be created automatically on whatever disk
includes /.
bsdinstall scriptedpart DEFAULT
mount Mounts the file systems previously configured by
autopart, partedit, or scriptedpart under
BSDINSTALL_CHROOT.
distfetch Fetches the distributions in DISTRIBUTIONS to
BSDINSTALL_DISTDIR from BSDINSTALL_DISTSITE.
checksum Verifies the checksums of the distributions listed
in DISTRIBUTIONS against the distribution manifest.
distextract Extracts the distributions listed in DISTRIBUTIONS
into BSDINSTALL_CHROOT.
rootpass Interactively invokes passwd(1) in the new system to
set the root user's password.
adduser Interactively invokes adduser(8) in the new system.
time Interactively sets the time, date, and time zone of
the new system.
services Queries the user for the system daemons to begin at
system startup, writing the result into the new
system's rc.conf.
entropy Reads a small amount of data from /dev/random and
stores it in a file in the new system's root
directory.
config Installs the configuration files destined for the
new system, e.g., rc.conf(5) fragments generated by
netconfig, etc.) onto the new system.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables control various aspects of the
installation process. Many are used internally during installation and
have reasonable default values for most installation scenarios. Others
are set by various interactive user prompts, and can be usefully
overridden when making scripted or customized installers.
TMPDIR The directory to use for temporary files. Default:
"/tmp"
DISTRIBUTIONS The set of distributions to install, e.g., "base.txz
kernel.txz ports.txz". Default: unset
PARTITIONS The partitioning of the disk onto which the system
is being installed. See scriptedpart of the TARGETS
section for format details. If this variable is
unset, the installer will use the default
partitioning as in autopart. Default: unset
BSDINSTALL_DISTDIR The directory in which the distribution files can be
found (or to which they should be downloaded).
Default: "/usr/freebsd-dist"
BSDINSTALL_DISTSITE URL from which the distribution files should be
https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/releases/powerpc/powerpc64/13.1-RELEASE/
or
http://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/amd64/12.2-RELEASE/.
BSDINSTALL_CHROOT The directory into which the distribution files
should be unpacked and the directory at which the
root file system of the new system should be
mounted. Default: "/mnt"
BSDINSTALL_LOG Path to a log file for the installation. Default:
"$TMPDIR/bsdinstall_log"
BSDINSTALL_TMPETC Directory where files destined for the new system's
/etc will be stored until the config target is
executed. If this directory does not already exist,
it will be created. Default:
"$TMPDIR/bsdinstall_etc"
BSDINSTALL_TMPBOOT Directory where files destined for the new system's
/boot will be stored until the config target is
executed. If this directory does not already exist,
it will be created. Default:
"$TMPDIR/bsdinstall_boot"
ROOTPASS_ENC Encrypted string to set the root password to in the
format expected by pw(8) -H 0. This option is used
if both it and ROOTPASS_PLAIN are set.
ROOTPASS_PLAIN Plain text string to set the root password to.
ZFSBOOT_POOL_NAME Name for the pool containing the base system.
Default: "zroot"
ZFSBOOT_POOL_CREATE_OPTIONS
Options to be used when creating the base system's
pool. Each option must be preceded by the -O flag
to be taken into consideration or the pool will not
be created due to errors using the command zpool.
Default: "-O compress=lz4 -O atime=off"
ZFSBOOT_BEROOT_NAME Name for the boot environment parent dataset. This
is a non-mountable dataset meant to be a parent
dataset where different boot environment are going
to be created. Default: "ROOT"
ZFSBOOT_BOOTFS_NAME Name for the primary boot environment, which will be
the default boot environment for the system.
Default: "default"
ZFSBOOT_VDEV_TYPE The type of pool to be created for the base system.
This variable can take one of this values: stripe
(No redundancy), mirror (n-Way mirroring), raid10
(RAID 1+0 - n x 2-Way Mirrors), raidz1 (RAID-Z1 -
Single Redundancy RAID), raidz2 (RAID-Z2 - Double
Redundancy RAID) or raidz3 (RAID-Z3 Triple
Redundancy RAID). Default: "stripe"
ZFSBOOT_FORCE_4K_SECTORS
Indicates either the pool will use 4K or 512
ZFSBOOT_GELI_KEY_FILE
Path to the geli(8) keyfile used to encrypt the pool
where the base system is stored. Default:
"/boot/encryption.key"
ZFSBOOT_BOOT_POOL If set, a separated boot pool will be created for
the kernel of the system and loader(8). Default:
unset
ZFSBOOT_BOOT_POOL_CREATE_OPTIONS
Options to use when creating the boot pool, when
enabled (See ZFSBOOT_BOOT_POOL ). Default: unset
ZFSBOOT_BOOT_POOL_NAME
Name for the optional boot pool when it is enabled,
(See ZFSBOOT_BOOT_POOL ). Default: "bootpool"
ZFSBOOT_BOOT_POOL_SIZE
Size of the boot pool when it is enabled (See
ZFSBOOT_BOOT_POOL ). Default: "2g"
ZFSBOOT_DISKS Disks to be used for the base system, including the
boot pool. This variable must only be used on a
scripted installation. See SCRIPTING for more
information. Default: unset
ZFSBOOT_SWAP_SIZE Size of the swap partition on each block device.
This variable will be passed to gpart(8); which
supports SI unit suffixes. Default: "2g"
ZFSBOOT_SWAP_ENCRYPTION
If set, enables the encryption of the swap partition
using geli(8). Default: ""
ZFSBOOT_SWAP_MIRROR If set, enables a swap mirroring using gmirror(8).
Default: unset
ZFSBOOT_DATASETS ZFS datasets to be created on the root zpool, it
requires the following datasets: /tmp, /var/tmp,
/$ZFSBOOT_BEROOT_NAME/$ZFSBOOT_BOOTFS_NAME. See ZFS
DATASETS for more information about how to populate
this variable and its default value.
ZFSBOOT_CONFIRM_LAYOUT
If set and the installation is interactive, allow
the user to confirm the layout before continuing
with the installation. Default: "1"
SCRIPTING
bsdinstall supports unattended, or minimally-attended, installations
using scripting. This can be used with either modified physical
installation media or with diskless(8) installations over the network;
information on preparing such media can be found in BUILDING AUTOMATIC
INSTALL MEDIA
Scripted installations follow an essentially identical path to
interactive installations, though with some minor feature differences
(for example, scripted installations do not support fetching of remote
the usual script header (#!), which also sets the interpreter for the
setup script.
A typical bsdinstall script, using the default filesystem layout and the
UFS filesystem, looks like this:
PARTITIONS=DEFAULT
DISTRIBUTIONS="kernel.txz base.txz"
#!/bin/sh
sysrc ifconfig_DEFAULT=DHCP
sysrc sshd_enable=YES
pkg install puppet
For a scripted installation involving a ZFS pool spanning multiple disks,
the script instead looks like this:
DISTRIBUTIONS="kernel.txz base.txz"
export ZFSBOOT_VDEV_TYPE=stripe
export ZFSBOOT_DISKS="ada0 ada1"
export nonInteractive="YES"
#!/bin/sh
echo "ifconfig_DEFAULT=DHCP" >> /etc/rc.conf
echo "sshd_enable=YES" >> /etc/rc.conf
pkg install puppet
On FreeBSD release media, such a script placed at /etc/installerconfig
will be run at boot time and the system will be rebooted automatically
after the installation has completed. This can be used for unattended
network installation of new systems; see diskless(8) for details.
PREAMBLE
The preamble consists of installer settings. These control global
installation parameters (see ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES) as well as disk
partitioning. The preamble is interpreted as a sh(1) script run at the
very beginning of the install. If more complicated behavior than setting
these variables is desired, arbitrary commands can be run here to extend
the installer. In addition to the variables in ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES, in
particular DISTRIBUTIONS, the preamble can contain a variable PARTITIONS
which is passed to the scriptedpart target to control disk setup.
Alternatively, to use zfsboot instead of partedit, the preamble can
contain the variable ZFSBOOT_DATASETS instead of PARTITIONS (see below).
If using zfsboot, the variables ZFSBOOT_DISKS and ZFSBOOT_VDEV_TYPE must
be set to create the pool of disks for the base system. Usually, for a
mirrored booting disk, these two variables look like this:
ZFSBOOT_DISKS="ada0 ada1"
ZFSBOOT_VDEV_TYPE=mirror
Remember to export all the variables for the zfsboot command, otherwise
installation will fail.
SETUP SCRIPT
Following the preamble is an optional shell script, beginning with a #!
declaration. This script will be run at the end of the installation
process inside a chroot(8) environment in the newly installed system and
can be used to set up configuration files, install packages, etc. Note
base system. This variable definition can become large if the pool
contains many datasets. The default value of ZFSBOOT_DATASETS is:
# DATASET OPTIONS (comma or space separated; or both)
# Boot Environment [BE] root and default boot dataset
/$ZFSBOOT_BEROOT_NAME mountpoint=none
/$ZFSBOOT_BEROOT_NAME/$ZFSBOOT_BOOTFS_NAME mountpoint=/
# Home directories separated so they are common to all BEs
/home mountpoint=/home
# Compress /tmp, allow exec but not setuid
/tmp mountpoint=/tmp,exec=on,setuid=off
# Do not mount /usr so that 'base' files go to the BEROOT
/usr mountpoint=/usr,canmount=off
# Ports tree
/usr/ports setuid=off
# Source tree (compressed)
/usr/src
# Create /var and friends
/var mountpoint=/var,canmount=off
/var/audit exec=off,setuid=off
/var/crash exec=off,setuid=off
/var/log exec=off,setuid=off
/var/mail atime=on
/var/tmp setuid=off
The first column is the name of the dataset to be created as part of the
ZFSBOOT_POOL_NAME pool and the remainder of each line contains the
options to be set on each dataset. If multiple options are given, they
can be separated by either commas or whitespace; everything following a
pound/hash character is ignored as a comment.
BUILDING AUTOMATIC INSTALL MEDIA
If building automatic install media, use tar to extract a release ISO:
mkdir release-media
tar -C release-media -xvf FreeBSD-13.0-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso
Then place a script as above in etc/installerconfig
This directory can then be used directly as an NFS root for diskless(8)
installations or it can be rebuilt into an ISO image using the release
scripts in /usr/src/release. For example, on amd64:
sh /usr/src/release/amd64/mkisoimages.sh -b '13_0_RELEASE_AMD64_CD'
output.iso release-media
HISTORY
This version of bsdinstall first appeared in FreeBSD 9.0.
AUTHORS
Nathan Whitehorn <nwhitehorn@FreeBSD.org>
Devin Teske <dteske@FreeBSD.org>
Allan Jude <allanjude@FreeBSD.org>