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32 .Nd system installation and configuration tool
41 utility is used for installing and configuring
44 It is the first utility invoked by the
47 floppy and is also available as
48 .Pa /usr/sbin/sysinstall
51 systems for use in later configuring the system.
55 utility is generally invoked without arguments for the default
56 behavior, where the main installation/configuration menu is presented.
58 On those occasions where it is deemed necessary to invoke a subsystem
59 of sysinstall directly, however, it is also possible to do so by
60 naming the appropriate function entry points on the command line.
61 Since this action is essentially identical to running an installation
62 script, each command-line argument corresponding to a line of script,
63 the reader is encouraged to read the section on scripting for more
64 information on this feature.
68 utility is essentially nothing more than a monolithic C program with
69 the ability to write MBRs and disk labels (through the services
72 library) and install distributions or packages onto new and
76 It also contains some extra intelligence
77 for running as a replacement for
79 when it is invoked by the
81 installation boot procedure.
83 assumes very little in the way of additional utility support and
84 performs most file system operations by calling the relevant syscalls
91 utility currently uses the
93 library to do user interaction with simple ANSI line graphics, color
94 support for which is enabled by either running on a syscons VTY or some
95 other color-capable terminal emulator (newer versions of xterm will support
100 This product is currently at the end of its life cycle and will
101 eventually be replaced.
105 utility may be either driven interactively through its various internal menus
106 or run in batch mode, driven by an external script.
108 be loaded and executed in one of 3 ways:
110 .It Sy "LOAD_CONFIG_FILE"
113 is compiled with LOAD_CONFIG_FILE set in the environment
114 (or in the Makefile) to some value, then that value will
115 be used as the filename to automatically look for and load
118 starts up and with no user interaction required.
119 This option is aimed primarily at large sites who wish to create a
120 single prototype install for multiple machines with largely identical
121 configurations and/or installation options.
125 is run interactively, that is to say in the default manner, it will
126 bring up a main menu which contains a "load config file" option.
127 Selecting this option will prompt for the name of a script file which
128 it then will attempt to load from a DOS or UFS formatted floppy.
129 .It Sy "COMMAND LINE"
130 Each command line argument is treated as a script directive
133 is run in multi-user mode.
134 Execution ends either by explicit request
137 directive), upon reaching the end of the argument list or on error.
141 /usr/sbin/sysinstall _ftpPath=ftp://ziggy/pub/ mediaSetFTP configPackages
146 for FTP installation media (using the server `ziggy') and then
147 bring up the package installation editor, exiting when finished.
150 A script is a list of one or more directives, each directive taking
162 is the assignment of some internal
164 variable, e.g.\& "ftpPass=FuNkYChiKn", and
166 is the name of an internal
168 function, e.g.\& "mediaSetFTP", and
170 is a single-line comment for documentation purposes (ignored by
172 Each directive must be by itself on a single line,
173 functions taking their arguments by examining known variable names.
174 This requires that you be sure to assign the relevant variables before
175 calling a function which requires them.
179 variable can be assigned before each directive: this will cause any error
180 detected while processing the directive itself to be ignored.
183 will automatically reset to the default "unassigned" every time a directive is
186 When and where a function depends on the settings of one or more variables
187 will be noted in the following table:
189 .Sy "Function Glossary" :
190 .Bl -tag -width indent
192 Invoke the Anonymous FTP configuration menu.
197 Select which routing daemon you wish to use, potentially
198 loading any required 3rd-party routing daemons as necessary.
201 .Bl -tag -width indent
203 can be set to the name of the desired routing daemon,
208 otherwise it is prompted for.
211 Configure host as an NFS server.
216 Configure host as a user of the Network Time Protocol.
219 .Bl -tag -width indent
221 Whitespace-separated list of
223 servers to sync from.
226 Configure host to support PC NFS.
229 .Bl -tag -width indent
231 The name of the PCNFSD package to load if necessary (defaults to hard coded
235 Bring up the interactive package management menu.
240 Add users and/or groups to the system.
244 .It diskPartitionEditor
245 Invokes the disk partition (MBR) editor.
248 .Bl -tag -width findx
250 The disk geometry, as a cyls/heads/sectors formatted string.
251 The word "sane" instructs
253 to calculate a safe (not necessarily optimal) geometry if the
254 current one has more than 65535 cylinders, more than 256 heads or
255 more than 63 sectors per track (255 sectors on the PC98
260 Set to disk partitioning type or size, its value being
262 in order to use only remaining free space for
265 to use the entire disk for
267 but maintain a proper partition
272 partition (first found),
275 .Dq dangerously dedicated
280 blocks of available free space to a new
283 Default: Interactive mode.
287 to signify the installation of a boot manager,
289 to signify installation of a "standard" non-boot MGR DOS
292 to indicate that no change to the boot manager is desired.
295 If set, bring up the interactive disk partition editor.
298 Note: Nothing is actually written to disk by this function, an explicit call to
299 .Ar diskPartitionWrite
300 being required for that to happen.
301 .It diskPartitionWrite
302 Causes any pending MBR changes (typically from the
303 .Ar diskPartitionEditor
304 function) to be written out.
309 Invokes the disk label editor.
310 This is a bit trickier from a script
311 since you need to essentially label everything inside each
313 (type 0xA5) partition created by the
314 .Ar diskPartitionEditor
315 function, and that requires knowing a few rules about how things are
317 When creating a script to automatically allocate disk space
318 and partition it up, it is suggested that you first perform the
319 installation interactively at least once and take careful notes as to
320 what the slice names will be, then and only then hardwiring them into
323 For example, let's say you have a SCSI disk on which you have created a new
325 partition in slice 2 (your DOS partition residing in slice 1).
326 The slice name would be
332 being your DOS primary
334 Now let's further assume that you have 4GB in this
335 partition and you want to sub-partition that space into root, swap,
336 var and usr file systems for
338 Your invocation of the
340 function might involve setting the following variables:
341 .Bl -tag -width findx
342 .It Li "da0s2-1=ufs 2097152 /"
343 A 1GB root file system (all sizes are in 512 byte blocks).
344 .It Li "da0s2-2=swap 1048576 /"
345 A 512MB swap partition.
346 .It Li "da0s2-3=ufs 524288 /var"
347 A 256MB /var file system.
348 .It Li "da0s2-4=ufs 0 /usr 1"
349 With the balance of free space (around 2.25GB) going to the /usr
350 file system and with soft-updates enabled (the argument following
351 the mount point, if non-zero, means to set the soft updates flag).
356 for mounting or erasing existing partitions as well as creating new
358 Using the previous example again, let's say that we also wanted
359 to mount our DOS partition and make sure that an
361 entry is created for it in the new installation.
364 function, we simply add an additional line:
369 This tells the label editor that you want to mount
372 and not to attempt to newfs it (not that
374 would attempt this for a DOS partition in any case, but it could just
375 as easily be an existing UFS partition being named here and the 2nd
376 field is non-optional).
380 variable to request that the disk label editor use an interactive dialog
381 to partition the disk instead of using variables to explicitly layout the
382 disk as described above.
384 Note: No file system data is actually written to disk until an
389 Writes out all pending disklabel information and creates and/or mounts any
390 file systems which have requests pending from the
397 Resets all selected distributions to the empty set (no distributions selected).
402 Allows the selection of a custom distribution set (e.g.\& not just one of the
403 existing "canned" sets) with no user interaction.
406 .Bl -tag -width indent
408 List of distributions to load.
409 Possible distribution values are:
410 .Bl -tag -width indentxx
412 The base binary distribution.
416 Miscellaneous documentation
420 Manual pages (unformatted)
422 Pre-formatted manual pages
424 Profiled libraries for developers.
426 Dictionary information (for tools like spell).
428 GNU info files and other extra docs.
430 (amd64 and powerpc64 only)
431 32-bit runtime compatibility libraries.
433 The ports collection.
437 /usr/src/[top level files]
477 Local additions collection.
481 Selects the standard Developer's distribution set.
486 Selects the standard user distribution set.
491 Selects the very minimum distribution set.
495 .It distSetEverything
496 Selects the full whack - all available distributions.
501 Interactively select source subcomponents.
506 Install all currently selected distributions (requires that
507 media device also be selected).
512 Install (if necessary) an HTML documentation browser and go to the
513 HTML documentation submenu.
516 .Bl -tag -width indent
518 The name of the browser package to try and install as necessary.
519 Defaults to latest links package.
521 The name of the browser binary itself (if overriding the
527 Commit any and all pending changes to disk.
529 is essentially shorthand for a number of more granular "commit"
535 Commit any rc.conf changes to disk.
538 .Bl -tag -width indent
540 Preserve existing rc.conf parameters.
541 This is useful if you have a post-install script which modifies rc.conf.
544 Start an "express" installation, asking few questions of
550 Start a "standard" installation, the most user-friendly
551 installation type available.
556 Start an upgrade installation.
560 .It installFixitHoloShell
561 Start up the "emergency holographic shell" over on VTY4
563 This will also happen automatically
564 as part of the installation process unless
570 .It installFixitCDROM
571 Go into "fixit" mode, assuming a live file system CDROM
572 currently in the drive.
576 .It installFixitFloppy
577 Go into "fixit" mode, assuming an available fixit floppy
578 disk (user will be prompted for it).
582 .It installFilesystems
583 Do just the file system initialization part of an install.
587 .It installVarDefaults
588 Initialize all variables to their defaults, overriding any
594 Sort of like an #include statement, it allows you to load one
595 configuration file from another.
598 .Bl -tag -width indent
600 The fully qualified pathname of the file to load.
603 If a media device is set, mount it.
608 If a media device is open, close it.
615 CDROM as the installation media.
620 Select a pre-made floppy installation set as the installation media.
625 Select an existing DOS primary partition as the installation media.
626 The first primary partition found is used (e.g.\& C:).
631 Select an FTP site as the installation media.
634 .Bl -tag -width indent
636 The name of the host being installed (non-optional).
638 The domain name of the host being installed (optional).
640 The default router for this host (non-optional).
642 Which network interface to use.
643 Multiple network interfaces may be specified using a comma delimited list.
644 If netDev is set to ANY, all available network interfaces will be probed and the
645 first interface found to have a link will be used. (non-optional).
647 If set, bring up the interactive network setup form even
648 if all relevant configuration variables are already set (optional).
650 The IP address for the selected host interface (non-optional).
652 The netmask for the selected host interface (non-optional).
654 The fully qualified URL of the FTP site containing the
656 distribution you are interested in, e.g.\&
657 .Ar ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ .
659 .It mediaSetFTPActive
662 using "active" FTP transfer mode.
667 .It mediaSetFTPPassive
670 using "passive" FTP transfer mode.
684 .Bl -tag -width indent
686 The proxy to use (host:port) (non-optional).
689 Select an existing UFS partition (mounted with the label editor) as
690 the installation media.
693 .Bl -tag -width indent
695 full /path to directory containing the
703 .Bl -tag -width indent
705 The name of the host being installed (non-optional).
707 The domain name of the host being installed (optional).
709 The default router for this host (non-optional).
711 Which host interface to use
718 If set, bring up the interactive network setup form even
719 if all relevant configuration variables are already set (optional).
721 The IP address for the selected host interface (non-optional).
723 The netmask for the selected host interface (non-optional).
725 full hostname:/path specification for directory containing
728 distribution you are interested in.
730 .It mediaSetFTPUserPass
733 .Bl -tag -width indent
735 The username to log in as on the ftp server site.
738 The password to use for this username on the ftp
742 .It mediaSetCPIOVerbosity
745 .Bl -tag -width indent
747 Can be used to set the verbosity of cpio extractions to low or high.
750 Interactively get the user to specify some type of media.
755 Invoke the interactive options editor.
760 Try to fetch and add a package to the system (requires
761 that a media type be set),
764 .Bl -tag -width indent
766 The name of the package to add, e.g.\& bash-1.14.7 or ncftp-2.4.2.
769 Invoke the interactive group editor.
774 Invoke the interactive user editor.
779 Stop the script, terminate sysinstall and reboot the system.
780 On the sparc64 platform, the system is halted rather than rebooted.
785 Execute an arbitrary command with
789 .Bl -tag -width indent
791 The name of the command to execute.
793 from a boot floppy, very minimal expectations should
794 be made as to what is available until/unless a relatively
795 full system installation has just been done.
798 Configure a network device.
807 .Sh DISTRIBUTION MEDIA
808 The following files can be used to affect the operation of
810 when used during initial system installation.
811 .Bl -tag -width ".Pa packages/INDEX"
813 A text file of properties, listed one per line, that describe the
814 contents of the media in use.
815 The syntax for each line is simply
816 .Dq Ar property No = Ar value .
817 Currently, only the following properties are recognized.
818 .Bl -tag -width ".Va CD_MACHINE_ARCH"
820 This property should be set to the
822 version on the current
825 .Dq Li "CD_VERSION = 5.3" .
826 .It Va CD_MACHINE_ARCH
827 This property should be set to the architecture of the contents on
829 This property is normally only used with
831 products that contain
832 CDs for different architectures, to provide better error messages if
833 users try to install packages built for the wrong architecture.
835 .Dq Li "CD_MACHINE_ARCH = amd64" .
837 In a multi-volume collection (such as the
841 file on each disc should contain the full package index for the set.
842 The last field of the
844 file denotes which volume the package
847 property here defines the volume ID of the current disc.
849 .It Pa packages/INDEX
850 The package index file.
851 Each package is listed on a separate line with additional meta-data
852 such as the required dependencies.
853 This index is generated by
858 When multi-volume support is enabled, an additional field should be
859 added to each line indicating which media volume contains the given
863 For information about building a full release of
868 This utility may edit the contents of
873 as necessary to reflect changes in the network configuration.
875 If you have a reasonably complete source tree online, take
877 .Pa /usr/src/usr.sbin/sysinstall/install.cfg
878 for a sample installation script.
885 .An Jordan K. Hubbard Aq jkh@FreeBSD.org
887 Editing slice and partition tables on disks which are currently mounted by
888 the system is not allowed.
889 This is generally only a problem when
891 is run on a system that is already installed.
898 There are a (great) number of undocumented variables.