Configuring a FreeBSD "Kickstart" server
                        by Steven St.Laurent  - steven@403forbidden.net


Intro

Ducks
Ingredients
Security
Contributing

Files
Distro
Files
Files
Mfsroot
Patch
PXEBoot
Boot
Kernel

Services
INETD
DHCP
TFTP
NFS
FTP

Details
How it works
Loader.rc

Installing

Finishing


	MORE DETAILS Loader.rc

	Its worth a second look at the loader.conf. 
	My example looks like this if you recall.

                echo Loading Kernel...
                load /kernel
                set console=comconsole
                echo Loading mfsroot
                load -t mfs_root /mfsroot
                echo booting...
                echo \007\007
                echo initializing...
                set vfs.root.mountfrom="ufs:/dev/md0c"
                boot

        Lets break this down a little to its easier to understand what it is
	doing and what we are trying to do.

                echo Loading Kernel...
                load /kernel

        here we display to the screen the message "Loading Kernel..." and then
	issue the command to load the file named kernel at our root (/). We 
	could have just as easily specified a different path.

                set console=comconsole

        Here we want to see our startup messages on the serial console instead
	of the video display. This is sufficient for my needs but you might do 
	this via the video display. If so set this to vidconsole instead of comconsole.

                echo Loading mfsroot
                load -t mfs_root /mfsroot

        Display the message "Loading mfsroot" and load the file mfsroot found at 
	our root (/). If you receive errors at this point make sure you can
	utilize tftp to manually fetch the mfsroot file to your machine.

                echo booting...
                echo \007\007
                echo initializing...

        Just some messages for the display so we know where we are.

                set vfs.root.mountfrom="ufs:/dev/md0c"
                boot

        Set the root to be the memory disk we just loaded the mfsroot into and
	then boot the system. If you receive any errors mounting the root
	partition then its likely your mfsroot image is corrupted. I made this
	mistake and spent a good hour trying to figure out what I did wrong.
	When in doubt use vnconfig to mount your mfsroot image to verify its
	integrity.



Copyright © 2003 - Steven St.Laurent - steven@403forbidden.net