Own FreeBSD Distro

[anritsu]

Hello everyone,

As i said in the title i want to make my own distro. Because i'm tired with the installation processes of every mail or proxy server.

How can i make a cdrom iso which is including my freebsd's upgraded version(*) and ports that i installed into system?

(*) make buildworld && make buildkernel && make installkernel & make installworld

[ninjatux]

You can just backup or tar-up the install on one server and dump it on another using the LiveFS cd. You don't need to make your own distro.

[anritsu]

@ninjatux,
Servers that i use are not the same. Sometimes it's a sparc, sometimes i386 sometimes amd64.
And also i want to spare time with making that distro. If you can help about this, i'll be much pleased. Thank you.

[phoenix]

The two most common methods for creating your own custom install are:
- create an installation script for sysconfig, and use that with the standard install CD to automate installation (see the man page for sysconfig for more info on this), or

- do an install once on each architecture, setup, install software, configure everything; then create a disk image(using dump, or dd, or tar, or dar, or g4u), and use that image along with a LiveCD (Frenzy/FreeSBIE) or the LiveFS install CD to image all the servers you need.

[ninjatux]

Originally Posted by anritsu

@ninjatux,
Servers that i use are not the same. Sometimes it's a sparc, sometimes i386 sometimes amd64.
And also i want to spare time with making that distro. If you can help about this, i'll be much pleased. Thank you.

This will require three different distributions.

[anritsu]

Originally Posted by ninjatux

This will require three different distributions.

So, can anyone show me the way please?

[vermaden]

Try this for start:
/usr/ports/sysutils/freesbie

# cat pkg-descr
The FreeSBIE port is a collection of scripts which
help a user to create CDs/DVDs containing a complete
operating system based on FreeBSD.
It is used as "live-cd" and boots straight from CD.
Consequent use of filesystem compressing techniques allow to
include a huge number of applications on a single disc.

Creation of the CDs/DVDs is completely dialog based as well as
building and installing of packages.

For further information, please visit the official homepage.

WWW: http://www.freesbie.org/

[RudiK]

These guys have some pretty goo instructions on building your own FreeBSD project:

http://m0n0.ch/wall/ && http://doc.m0n0.ch/dev/

[mdh]

It's not necessary to make what the Linux world would call a distro. What you most likely want to do is simply create a CD with your FreeBSD setup on it, and use a LiveCD like FreeSBIE to boot the box, then (using a shell script, perhaps?) create your partitions/newfs them/etc, and finally roll out your release onto it. Simply enough. If you don't have a huge boatload of software installed, you may even be able to fit all three system types onto one DVD if you bzip2 some stuff and create a shell script to extract it or something of that nature.

[nORKy]

Is it possible to use a complexe/script PXE boot to install a distro ??

Ex:
- PXE boot.
- download a generic kernel, start on it.
- It show a user menu to select some installation type ("manager", "administrator", "...)
- You select one.
- Automatic download files (images disk ? packages ? ...) that match user choice
- Reboot. it's finish

[mdh]

Originally Posted by nORKy

Is it possible to use a complexe/script PXE boot to install a distro ??

Ex:
- PXE boot.
- download a generic kernel, start on it.
- It show a user menu to select some installation type ("manager", "administrator", "...)
- You select one.
- Automatic download files (images disk ? packages ? ...) that match user choice
- Reboot. it's finish

Sure, just either
A> get init to run the installer menu, such as via an rc script
or
B> if you want to be really fancy, replace init with your installer and have the kernel compiled to use it in place of init.

The installer could be pretty darn simple, using the first method. The first method is likely a lot more practical. Just set it up in the image that the machines will be netbooting.