SYSINSTALL(8)

NAME
sysinstall - system installation and configuration tool

SYNOPSIS
sysinstall [var=value] [function] [...]

DESCRIPTION
The sysinstall utility is used for installing and configuring FreeBSD systems. It is the first utility invoked by the FreeBSD installation boot floppy and is also available as /usr/sbin/sysinstall on newly installed FreeBSD systems for use in later configuring the system.

The sysinstall utility is generally invoked without arguments for the default behavior, where the main installation/configuration menu is presented.

On those occasions where it is deemed necessary to invoke a subsystem of sysinstall directly, however, it is also possible to do so by naming the appropriate function entry points on the command line. Since this action is essentially identical to running an installation script, each command-line argument corresponding to a line of script, the reader is encouraged to read the section on scripting for more information on this feature.

NOTES
The sysinstall utility is essentially nothing more than a monolithic C program with the ability to write MBRs and disk labels (through the services of the libdisk(3) library) and install distributions or packages onto new and existing FreeBSD systems. It also contains some extra intelligence for running as a replacement for init(8) when it is invoked by the FreeBSD installation boot procedure. It assumes very little in the way of additional utility support and performs most file system operations by calling the relevant syscalls (such as mount(2)) directly.

The sysinstall utility currently uses the dialog(3) library to do user interaction with simple ANSI line graphics, color support for which is enabled by either running on a syscons VTY or some other color-capable terminal emulator (newer versions of xterm will support color when using the “xterm-color” termcap entry).

This product is currently at the end of its life cycle and will eventually be replaced.

RUNNING SCRIPTS
The sysinstall utility may be either driven interactively through its various internal menus or run in batch mode, driven by an external script. Such a script may be loaded and executed in one of 3 ways:

LOAD_CONFIG_FILE
    If sysinstall is compiled with LOAD_CONFIG_FILE set in the environment (or in the Makefile) to some value, then that value will be used as the filename to automatically look for and load when sysinstall starts up and with no user interaction required. This option is aimed primarily at large sites who wish to create a single prototype install for multiple machines with largely identical configurations and/or installation options.

MAIN MENU
    If sysinstall is run interactively, that is to say in the default manner, it will bring up a main menu which contains a "load config file" option. Selecting this option will prompt for the name of a script file which it then will attempt to load from a DOS or UFS formatted floppy.

COMMAND LINE
    Each command line argument is treated as a script directive when sysinstall is run in multi-user mode. Execution ends either by explicit request (e.g. calling the shutdown directive), upon reaching the end of the argument list or on error.

    For example:

        /usr/sbin/sysinstall _ftpPath=ftp://ziggy/pub/ mediaSetFTP configPackages

    Would initialize sysinstall for FTP installation media (using the server `ziggy') and then bring up the package installation editor, exiting when finished.

SCRIPT SYNTAX
A script is a list of one or more directives, each directive taking the form of:

var=value

function

or #somecomment

Where var=value is the assignment of some internal sysinstall variable, e.g. "ftpPass=FuNkYChiKn", and function is the name of an internal sysinstall function, e.g. "mediaSetFTP", and #comment is a single-line comment for documentation purposes (ignored by sysinstall). Each directive must be by itself on a single line, functions taking their arguments by examining known variable names. This requires that you be sure to assign the relevant variables before calling a function which requires them.

The noError variable can be assigned before each directive: this will cause any error detected while processing the directive itself to be ignored. The value of noError will automatically reset to the default "unassigned" every time a directive is processed.

When and where a function depends on the settings of one or more variables will be noted in the following table:

Function Glossary:

configAnonFTP
    Invoke the Anonymous FTP configuration menu.

    Variables: None

configRouter
    Select which routing daemon you wish to use, potentially loading any required 3rd-party routing daemons as necessary.

    Variables:

    router
        can be set to the name of the desired routing daemon, e.g. “routed” or “gated”, otherwise it is prompted for.

configNFSServer
    Configure host as an NFS server.

    Variables: None

configNTP
    Configure host as a user of the Network Time Protocol.

    Variables:

    ntpdate_hosts
        Whitespace-separated list of ntpdate(8) servers to sync from.

configPCNFSD
    Configure host to support PC NFS.

    Variables:

    pcnfsd_pkg
        The name of the PCNFSD package to load if necessary (defaults to hard coded version).

configPackages
    Bring up the interactive package management menu.

    Variables: None

configUsers
    Add users and/or groups to the system.

    Variables: None

diskPartitionEditor
    Invokes the disk partition (MBR) editor.

    Variables:

    geometry
        The disk geometry, as a cyls/heads/sectors formatted string. The word "sane" instructs sysinstall to calculate a safe (not necessarily optimal) geometry if the current one has more than 65535 cylinders, more than 256 heads or more than 63 sectors per track (255 sectors on the PC98 architecture). Default: no change to geometry.

    partition
        Set to disk partitioning type or size, its value being free in order to use only remaining free space for FreeBSD, all to use the entire disk for FreeBSD but maintain a proper partition table, existing to use an existing FreeBSD partition (first found), exclusive to use the disk in “dangerously dedicated” mode or, finally, somenumber to allocate somenumber blocks of available free space to a new FreeBSD partition. Default: Interactive mode.

    bootManager
        is set to one of boot to signify the installation of a boot manager, standard to signify installation of a "standard" non-boot MGR DOS MBR or none to indicate that no change to the boot manager is desired. Default: none.

    diskInteractive
        If set, bring up the interactive disk partition editor.

    Note: Nothing is actually written to disk by this function, an explicit call to diskPartitionWrite being required for that to happen.

diskPartitionWrite
    Causes any pending MBR changes (typically from the diskPartitionEditor function) to be written out.

    Variables: None

diskLabelEditor
    Invokes the disk label editor. This is a bit trickier from a script since you need to essentially label everything inside each FreeBSD (type 0xA5) partition created by the diskPartitionEditor function, and that requires knowing a few rules about how things are laid out. When creating a script to automatically allocate disk space and partition it up, it is suggested that you first perform the installation interactively at least once and take careful notes as to what the slice names will be, then and only then hardwiring them into the script.

    For example, let's say you have a SCSI disk on which you have created a new FreeBSD partition in slice 2 (your DOS partition residing in slice 1). The slice name would be da0s2 for the whole FreeBSD partition (da0s1 being your DOS primary partition). Now let's further assume that you have 4GB in this partition and you want to sub-partition that space into root, swap, var and usr file systems for FreeBSD. Your invocation of the diskLabelEditor function might involve setting the following variables:

    da0s2-1=ufs 2097152 /
        A 1GB root file system (all sizes are in 512 byte blocks).

    da0s2-2=swap 1048576 /
        A 512MB swap partition.

    da0s2-3=ufs 524288 /var
        A 256MB /var file system.

    da0s2-4=ufs 0 /usr 1
        With the balance of free space (around 2.25GB) going to the /usr file system and with soft-updates enabled (the argument following the mount point, if non-zero, means to set the soft updates flag).

    One can also use the diskLabelEditor for mounting or erasing existing partitions as well as creating new ones. Using the previous example again, let's say that we also wanted to mount our DOS partition and make sure that an /etc/fstab entry is created for it in the new installation. Before calling the diskLabelEditor function, we simply add an additional line:

        da0s1=/dos_c N

    before the call. This tells the label editor that you want to mount the first slice on /dos_c and not to attempt to newfs it (not that sysinstall would attempt this for a DOS partition in any case, but it could just as easily be an existing UFS partition being named here and the 2nd field is non-optional).

    You can also set the diskInteractive variable to request that the disk label editor use an interactive dialog to partition the disk instead of using variables to explicitly layout the disk as described above.

    Note: No file system data is actually written to disk until an explicit call to diskLabelCommit is made.

diskLabelCommit
    Writes out all pending disklabel information and creates and/or mounts any file systems which have requests pending from the diskLabelEditor function.

    Variables: None

distReset
    Resets all selected distributions to the empty set (no distributions selected).

    Variables: None

distSetCustom
    Allows the selection of a custom distribution set (e.g. not just one of the existing "canned" sets) with no user interaction.

    Variables:

    dists
        List of distributions to load. Possible distribution values are:

        base
            The base binary distribution.

        GENERIC
            The GENERIC kernel.

        doc Miscellaneous documentation

        games
            Games

        manpages
            Manual pages (unformatted)

        catpages
            Pre-formatted manual pages

        proflibs
            Profiled libraries for developers.

        dict
            Dictionary information (for tools like spell).

        info
            GNU info files and other extra docs.

        lib32
            (amd64 and powerpc64 only) 32-bit runtime compatibility libraries.

        ports
            The ports collection.

        ssecure
            /usr/src/secure

        sbase
            /usr/src/[top level files]

        scontrib
            /usr/src/contrib

        scrypto
            /usr/src/crypto

        sgnu
            /usr/src/gnu

        setc
            /usr/src/etc

        sgames
            /usr/src/games

        sinclude
            /usr/src/include

        skrb5
            /usr/src/kerberos5

        slib
            /usr/src/lib

        slibexec
            /usr/src/libexec

        srelease
            /usr/src/release

        srescue
            /usr/src/rescue

        stools
            /usr/src/tools

        sbin
            /usr/src/bin

        ssbin
            /usr/src/sbin

        sshare
            /usr/src/share

        ssys
            /usr/src/sys

        stools
            /usr/src/tools

        subin
            /usr/src/usr.bin

        susbin
            /usr/src/usr.sbin

        local
            Local additions collection.

distSetDeveloper
    Selects the standard Developer's distribution set.

    Variables: None

distSetUser
    Selects the standard user distribution set.

    Variables: None

distSetMinimum
    Selects the very minimum distribution set.

    Variables: None

distSetEverything
    Selects the full whack - all available distributions.

    Variables: None

distSetSrc
    Interactively select source subcomponents.

    Variables: None

distExtractAll
    Install all currently selected distributions (requires that media device also be selected).

    Variables: None

docBrowser
    Install (if necessary) an HTML documentation browser and go to the HTML documentation submenu.

    Variables:

    browserPackage
        The name of the browser package to try and install as necessary. Defaults to latest links package.

    browserBinary
        The name of the browser binary itself (if overriding the browserPackage variable). Defaults to links.

installCommit
    Commit any and all pending changes to disk. This function is essentially shorthand for a number of more granular "commit" functions.

    Variables: None

installConfigure
    Commit any rc.conf changes to disk.

    Variables:

    keeprcconf
        Preserve existing rc.conf parameters. This is useful if you have a post-install script which modifies rc.conf.

installExpress
    Start an "express" installation, asking few questions of the user.

    Variables: None

installStandard
    Start a "standard" installation, the most user-friendly installation type available.

    Variables: None

installUpgrade
    Start an upgrade installation.

    Variables: None

installFixitHoloShell
    Start up the "emergency holographic shell" over on VTY4 if running as init. This will also happen automatically as part of the installation process unless noHoloShell is set.

    Variables: None

installFixitCDROM
    Go into "fixit" mode, assuming a live file system CDROM currently in the drive.

    Variables: None

installFixitFloppy
    Go into "fixit" mode, assuming an available fixit floppy disk (user will be prompted for it).

    Variables: None

installFilesystems
    Do just the file system initialization part of an install.

    Variables: None

installVarDefaults
    Initialize all variables to their defaults, overriding any previous settings.

    Variables: None

loadConfig
    Sort of like an #include statement, it allows you to load one configuration file from another.

    Variables:

    configFile
        The fully qualified pathname of the file to load.

mediaOpen
    If a media device is set, mount it.

    Variables: None

mediaClose
    If a media device is open, close it.

    Variables: None

mediaSetCDROM
    Select a FreeBSD CDROM as the installation media.

    Variables: None

mediaSetFloppy
    Select a pre-made floppy installation set as the installation media.

    Variables: None

mediaSetDOS
    Select an existing DOS primary partition as the installation media. The first primary partition found is used (e.g. C:).

    Variables: None

mediaSetFTP
    Select an FTP site as the installation media.

    Variables:

    hostname
        The name of the host being installed (non-optional).

    domainname
        The domain name of the host being installed (optional).

    defaultrouter
        The default router for this host (non-optional).

    netDev
        Which network interface to use. Multiple network interfaces may be specified using a comma delimited list. If netDev is set to ANY, all available network interfaces will be probed and the first interface found to have a link will be used. (non-optional).

    netInteractive
        If set, bring up the interactive network setup form even if all relevant configuration variables are already set (optional).

    ipaddr
        The IP address for the selected host interface (non-optional).

    netmask
        The netmask for the selected host interface (non-optional).

    _ftpPath
        The fully qualified URL of the FTP site containing the FreeBSD distribution you are interested in, e.g. ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/.

mediaSetFTPActive
    Alias for mediaSetFTP using "active" FTP transfer mode.

    Variables: Same as for mediaSetFTP.

mediaSetFTPPassive
    Alias for mediaSetFTP using "passive" FTP transfer mode.

    Variables: Same as for mediaSetFTP.

mediaSetHTTP
    Alias for mediaSetFTP using an HTTP proxy.

    Variables: See mediaSetFTP, plus

    _httpPath
        The proxy to use (host:port) (non-optional).

mediaSetUFS
    Select an existing UFS partition (mounted with the label editor) as the installation media.

    Variables:

    ufs full /path to directory containing the FreeBSD distribution you are interested in.

mediaSetNFS

    Variables:

    hostname
        The name of the host being installed (non-optional).

    domainname
        The domain name of the host being installed (optional).

    defaultrouter
        The default router for this host (non-optional).

    netDev
        Which host interface to use (ed0 or ep0, for example. Non-optional).

    netInteractive
        If set, bring up the interactive network setup form even if all relevant configuration variables are already set (optional).

    ipaddr
        The IP address for the selected host interface (non-optional).

    netmask
        The netmask for the selected host interface (non-optional).

    nfs full hostname:/path specification for directory containing the FreeBSD distribution you are interested in.

mediaSetFTPUserPass

    Variables:

    ftpUser
        The username to log in as on the ftp server site. Default: ftp

    ftpPass
        The password to use for this username on the ftp server site. Default: user@host

mediaSetCPIOVerbosity

    Variables:

    cpioVerbose
        Can be used to set the verbosity of cpio extractions to low or high.

mediaGetType
    Interactively get the user to specify some type of media.

    Variables: None

optionsEditor
    Invoke the interactive options editor.

    Variables: None

packageAdd
    Try to fetch and add a package to the system (requires that a media type be set),

    Variables:

    package
        The name of the package to add, e.g. bash-1.14.7 or ncftp-2.4.2.

addGroup
    Invoke the interactive group editor.

    Variables: None

addUser
    Invoke the interactive user editor.

    Variables: None

shutdown
    Stop the script, terminate sysinstall and reboot the system. On the sparc64 platform, the system is halted rather than rebooted.

    Variables: None

system
    Execute an arbitrary command with system(3)

    Variables:

    command
        The name of the command to execute. When running from a boot floppy, very minimal expectations should be made as to what is available until/unless a relatively full system installation has just been done.

tcpMenuSelect
    Configure a network device.

    Variables: Same as for mediaSetFTP except that _ftpPath is not used.

DISTRIBUTION MEDIA
The following files can be used to affect the operation of sysinstall when used during initial system installation.

cdrom.inf
    A text file of properties, listed one per line, that describe the contents of the media in use. The syntax for each line is simply “property = value”. Currently, only the following properties are recognized.

    CD_VERSION
        This property should be set to the FreeBSD version on the current media volume. For example, “CD_VERSION = 5.3”.

    CD_MACHINE_ARCH
        This property should be set to the architecture of the contents on this volume. This property is normally only used with FreeBSD products that contain CDs for different architectures, to provide better error messages if users try to install packages built for the wrong architecture. For example, “CD_MACHINE_ARCH = amd64”.

    CD_VOLUME
        In a multi-volume collection (such as the FreeBSD 4-CD set), the ports/INDEX file on each disc should contain the full package index for the set. The last field of the INDEX file denotes which volume the package appears on, and the CD_VOLUME property here defines the volume ID of the current disc.

packages/INDEX
    The package index file. Each package is listed on a separate line with additional meta-data such as the required dependencies. This index is generated by “make index” from the ports(7) collection. When multi-volume support is enabled, an additional field should be added to each line indicating which media volume contains the given package.

For information about building a full release of FreeBSD, please see release(7).

FILES
This utility may edit the contents of /etc/rc.conf, /etc/hosts, and /etc/resolv.conf as necessary to reflect changes in the network configuration.

SEE ALSO
If you have a reasonably complete source tree online, take a look at /usr/src/usr.sbin/sysinstall/install.cfg for a sample installation script.

HISTORY
This version of sysinstall first appeared in FreeBSD 2.0.

AUTHORS
Jordan K. Hubbard <jkh@FreeBSD.org>

BUGS
Editing slice and partition tables on disks which are currently mounted by the system is not allowed. This is generally only a problem when sysinstall is run on a system that is already installed. Use fdisk(8) and bsdlabel(8) for these tasks.

There are a (great) number of undocumented variables. UTSL.