Remote System Builds

[Doug Hardie]

On 26 March 2012, at 11:20, Martin McCormick wrote:

> 	Is there yet any way to remotely rebuild a FreeBSD
> system? I have two FreeBSD systems on two remote campuses that
> presently run FreeBSD6.3. They need to be running FreeBSD9.0 and
> I don't really care how I get there as long as it can be done
> over the network. If we were physically there, I would put a
> CDROM in and blow them away since it is such a large jump.
> 
> 	I can have staff members there install CDROM's that were
> remastered to use the serial console, but I am hoping that maybe
> we are moving past this sort of logistics.
> 
> 	I just tried to unpack the 9.0 image using tar which has
> worked in the past to let one modify loader.conf but I got a
> bunch of errors this time about files that couldn't be created
> so maybe this is not the recommended headless installation
> technique any longer.

I am going to be facing the same issue in a few months.  My experiences with the serial console are that it is great for correcting small issues, trying to use it for initial configuration is not going to be real easy.  I would like to be able to build a custom CD for that specific machine that doesn't need any operator input.  They just install it and boot the machine. It would need to format the disk and do the complete installation (base and uniquely configured ports etc.). Is that possible?