network boot and install servers

Dear Colleagues,

Today I have successfully installed FreeBSD over network without
floppies or CDROM, just like in Solaris network installation.

Here are my steps for creating an install server:

1. enabled tftpd, copied /boot/pxeboot to /tftpboot

2. mounted boot.flp via vn(4), copied its
contents to /pxeroot, shared /pxeroot over NFS.

3. enabled dhcp server, configured the options bootfile and
next-server (this was a Cisco dhcp server, but should work with
isc-dhcpd as well).

4. Booted from a box with a pxe enabled NIC and voila! Here is my
sysinstall.

If anyone is interested I could try and document the setup of a
networked install server in a form suitable for the Handbook. This
could be yet another regular way of installing FreeBSD, along with
booting from CDROM or the floppies. After all I think it is a very
respectable thing for an OS to be installed like this :)

-- 
Victor Sudakov,  VAS4-RIPE, VAS47-RIPN

To Unsubscribe: send mail to [email protected]
with "unsubscribe freebsd-config" in the body of the message