Re: should bsdinstall work?

On 2021-05-04 18:58, tech-lists wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Tue, May 04, 2021 at 04:35:17PM -0400, Nathan Whitehorn wrote:
> 
>> Where are you trying to install
>> to? Usually the assumption is that the microsd images *are* the
>> installed system rather than a tool you use to install a system.
> 
> I'm trying to install -current (or stable/13 or releng/13.0) to a
> bootable usb3-connected external hd on raspberry pi 4 hardware. The goal
> is to have this pi booting without microsd to a root-on-zfs system.
> 
> I have used raspios 64-bit to update its firmware and configured it so
> it tries to boot the microsd card and if this fails, boots to usb3. Took
> out that card, wrote
> FreeBSD-14.0-CURRENT-arm64-aarch64-RPI-20210415-14d0cd7225e-246078.img
> to another and booted it, then ran bsdinstall and selected the external
> hd. The install fails to progress beyond the point I mentioned.
> 
> Maybe another wau of doing it would be to just write
> FreeBSD-14.0-CURRENT-arm64-aarch64-RPI-20210415-14d0cd7225e-246078.img
> to the hd from my freebsd desktop. Would that method be expected to
> work? The thing is, I want root-on-zfs *and* booting with no microsd.
> Just writing the .img to the hd would mean i'd have to abandon zfs.
Doesn't bsdinstall allow choosing different means of fetching the
dist files? Last I remember using it, I was able to choose ftp http(s),
etc... Making, or using an already matched MANIFEST is fairly trivial.
You could obtain your desired base files and create or use the one
with it. Then point bsdinstall to somewhere to get them. If you need
a remote. I could give you one to use.

HTH

--Chris