On Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 8:45 PM, Steve Lake <steve.l...@raiden.net> wrote:
> Hi all. I'm looking at trying to create a custom install disk for > Freebsd based off an existing install to make reinstallation quick and > painless, similar to how apt-on-cd works for Linux. The reason behind this > is I'm looking at going overseas for a couple years and will be leaving a > bsd server in my brother-in-law's care. Since he's a hardware guy, if the > server fails, he can easily fix it and get it back up. But he will be > clueless as to how to reinstall the server itself and get it running > afterwards (assuming the failure was caused by the HD failing). > > So I want to leave behind a cd that's setup in such a way that all > he has to do is pop it in, boot it up, and maybe answer a couple questions > prior to install. After that the cd does the rest. And when it's finished, > the system ends up with a fresh copy of the server as it was when the > snapshot was created, including all settings and applications. > > ... > > Steven Lake > Owner/Technical Writer > Raiden's Realm > www.raiden.net > Bringing Linux and BSD to the World > > The following is not an answer to your question but only to suggest a possible installation step to be able to use in such an instance and many repeated installations . There is such a facility in Mandriva Free 2008 ( www.mandriva.com ) . During installation it is possible to use a diskette to save all of the responses of the user for the installation . Then , for a new installation on another PC , when this diskette is submitted to the Mandriva installer , it is not asking any question about installation and it is using the parameters stored in that diskette . I wish that the FreeBSD is also applies such a step . It would be very useful for the installers because re-entry of all of the parameters for a new install of the same operating system on the same machine or a similar another machine really is very time consuming . Even such a facility may use XML files to make it usable for different successive releases with a possible update of the XML files . Instead of diskette , a USB stick may also be used because diskette drives are disappearing slowly . Thank you very much Mehmet Erol Sanliturk _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
