NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

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

-D file

Provide a path for the installation log file (overrides BSDINSTALL_LOG). See ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES for more information on BSDINSTALL_LOG.

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.

autopart

Provides the installer's interactive guided disk partitioner for single-disk installations. Defaults to UFS.

bootconfig

Detects an appropriate partition and installs UEFI boot loader files.

zfsboot

Provides a ZFS-only automatic interactive disk partitioner. Creates a single zpool with separate datasets for /tmp, /usr, /usr/home, /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 /.

A shorter invocation to use the default partitioning (as autopart would have used) on the same disk:

bsdinstall scriptedpart ada0

or, even shorter:

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

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 downloaded if they are not already present in the directory defined by BSDINSTALL_DISTDIR. This should be a full path to the files, including architecture and release names. Most targets, e.g., auto and jail, that prompt for a FreeBSD mirror will skip that step if this variable is already defined in the environment. Example: ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/powerpc/powerpc64/9.1-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”

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 followed 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 sectors. If this variable is not empty, 4K sectors will be used. Default: “1”

ZFSBOOT_GELI_ENCRYPTION

If this variable is not empty, it will use geli(8) to encrypt the root pool, enabling automatically the ZFSBOOT_BOOT_POOL variable. Default: “”

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 who to write this variable and to take a look into the default value of it.

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

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 distribution files since scripted installations normally install the same files and the distributions can be added directly to the installation media). bsdinstall scripts consist of two parts: a preamble and a setup script. The preamble sets up the options for the installation (how to partition the disk[s], which distributions to install, etc.) and the optional second part is a shell script run under chroot(8) in the newly installed system before bsdinstall exits. The two parts are separated by 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.

ZFSBOOT_DISKS="ada0 ada1"
ZFSBOOT_VDEV_TYPE=mirror

# 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=/

# 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

# Home directories separated so they are common to all BEs
/usr/home	# NB: /home is a symlink to /usr/home

# 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

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