For now sysinstall does not support GPT partition. So everything must be installed manualy but it is easy. This quick tutorial show you stept by step installation using GPT partitions. Why GPT? Better support for bigger drives (>2TB) and up to 128 partitions instead of 4.
Step 1. Partitioning the drive
----------------------------------We boot from FreeBSD 8.2 USB image and then we go to Fixit menu and then from there we mount USB Live image, that has all necessary tools to install FreeBSD.
First we will initialize the drive to support GPT partitions:
gpart create -s GPT ad0
Then we will proceed creating partitions. We will create partitions for boot, root, tmp, var, usr.
gpart add -s 128 -t freebsd-boot -l boot ad0 # for boot (1)
gpart add -s 5G -t freebsd-ufs -l root ad0 # for / (root) (2)
gpart add -s 4G -t freebsd-ufs -l tmp ad0 # for tmp (3)
gpart add -s 4G -t freebsd-swap -l swap ad0 # for swap (4)
gpart add -s 10G -t freebsd-ufs -l var ad0 # for var (5)
gpart add -s 200G -t freebsd-ufs -l usr ad0 # for usr and home (6)
To see partitions you've just created use:
gpart show ad0
To see partition with labels use:
gpart show -l ad0
To delete a partiton use:
gpart delete -i3 ad0 # where 3 is third partiton.
If you want to remove GPT table from drive ad0 run (in case you want start partitioning process again):
gpart destroy ad0
Now we will place the MBR code in our freebsd-boot partition:
gpart bootcode -b /mnt2/boot/pmbr -p /mnt2/boot/gptboot -i 1 ad0
We need now to newfs (format) our newly created partitions:
newfs -U /dev/ad0p2
newfs -U /dev/ad0p3
newfs -U /dev/ad0p5
newfs -U /dev/ad0p6
We will mount now all partitions to install FreeBSD on them:
mount /dev/ad0p2 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot /mnt/tmp /mnt/var /mnt/usr
mount /dev/ad0p3 /mnt/tmp
mount /dev/ad0p5 /mnt/var mount /dev/ad0p6 /mnt/usr
Step 2. Installing FreeBSD
-------------------------------We will now use the install.sh script from our FreeBSD USB Image:
export DESTDIR=/mnt
cd /dist/8.2-RELEASE
for dir in base catpages dict doc info lib32 manpages; do (cd $dir; ./install.sh); done
If you install FreeBSD i386 you will not need lib32 in the for loop.
Now we install the kernel:
cd kernels
./install.sh GENERIC
We install the sources:
cd ..
cd src
./install.sh all
We copy the kernel in /mnt/boot/kernel directory:
cd /mnt/boot
rmdir kernel
cp -Rp GENERIC kernel
Step 3. Configuring FreeBSD
-----------------------------------
Last step is to configure FreeBSD by creating /etc/fstab, /etc/resolv.conf and /etc/rc.conf files.
We edit /mnt/etc/resolv.conf file and add our dns there:
nameserver 208.67.220.220 # that is your ISP's DNS
We create /etc/rc.conf with the following content (asuming em0 is our network card):
/etc/rc.conf
defaultrouter="10.0.0.1"hostname="server"
ifconfig_em0="inet 10.0.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0"
sshd_enable="YES"
We must create an /etc/fstab file with the following content:
/etc/fstab
# Device Mountpoint FStype Options Dump Pass#/dev/ad0p4 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/ad0p2 / ufs rw 1 1
/dev/ad0p3 /tmp ufs rw 2 2
/dev/ad0p6 /usr ufs rw 2 2
/dev/ad0p5 /var ufs rw 2 2
/dev/cd0 /cdrom cd9660 ro,noauto 0 0
GPT Partitioning Tips
----------------------- If you get the error "Device Busy" when you try to delete GPT from drive with gpart delete ad0 , you can succesfully delete GPT if you turn of the safety with sysctl variable:
sysctl kern.geom.debugflags=16
- If you want to destroy GPT table from the drive with gpart delete ad0 command you must first delete all partitions (Otherwise you might get "Device Busy" error.
