SYSINSTALL(8)

NAME
sysinstall - system installation and configuration tool

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

DESCRIPTION
sysinstall is a utility for installing and configuring FreeBSD systems. It is the first utility invoked by the FreeBSD installation boot floppy and is also copied into /stand/sysinstall on newly installed FreeBSD systems for use in later configuring the system.

The sysinstall program 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
sysinstall 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's 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.

sysinstall 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
sysinstall 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:
    /stand/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. 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_flags
        The flags to ntpdate(8), that is to say the name of the server 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

configXEnvironment
    Configure the X display subsystem.

    Variables: None

diskPartitionEditor
    Invokes the disk partition (MBR) editor.

    Variables:

    geometry
        The disk geometry, as a cyls/heads/sectors formatted string. 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.

    Note: Nothing is actually written to disk by this function, a 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've 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 500MB 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 40960 /
        A 20MB root file system (all sizes are in 512 byte blocks).

    da0s2-2=swap 131072 /
        A 64MB swap partition.

    da0s2-3=ufs 204800 /var
        A 100MB /var file system.

    da0s2-4=ufs 0 /usr
        With the balance of free space (around 316MB) going to the /usr file system.
    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).

    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 on of the existing "canned" sets) with no user interaction. Variables:

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

        bin The base binary distribution.

        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.

        crypto
            Encryption binaries and libraries.

        compat1x
            Compatibility with

        1.x

        compat20
            Compatibility with FreeBSD 2.0

        compat21
            Compatibility with FreeBSD 2.1

        compat22
            FreeBSD 2.2 and FreeBSD 3.0 a.out binary compatibility

        compat3x
            Compatibility with

        3.x (available for FreeBSD 4.0 systems only)

        ports
            The ports collection.

        krb4
            KerberosIV binaries.

        ssecure
            /usr/src/secure

        sbase
            /usr/src/[top level files]

        scontrib
            /usr/src/contrib

        sgnu
            /usr/src/gnu

        setc
            /usr/src/etc

        sgames
            /usr/src/games

        sinclude
            /usr/src/include

        slib
            /usr/src/lib

        slibexec
            /usr/src/libexec

        srelease
            /usr/src/release

        sbin
            /usr/src/bin

        ssbin
            /usr/src/sbin

        sshare
            /usr/src/share

        ssys
            /usr/src/sys

        subin
            /usr/src/usr.bin

        susbin
            /usr/src/usr.sbin

        ssmailcf
            /usr/src/usr.sbin/sendmail/cf

        XF86-xc
            XFree86 official sources.

        XF86-co
            XFree86 contributed sources.

        Xbin
            XFree86 3.3.6 binaries.

        Xcfg
            XFree86 3.3.6 configuration files.

        Xdoc
            XFree86 3.3.6 documentation.

        Xhtml
            XFree86 3.3.6 HTML documentation.

        Xlib
            XFree86 3.3.6 libraries.

        Xlk98
            XFree86 3.3.6 server link-kit for PC98 machines.

        Xlkit
            XFree86 3.3.6 server link-kit for standard machines.

        Xman
            XFree86 3.3.6 manual pages.

        Xprog
            XFree86 3.3.6 programmer's distribution.

        Xps XFree86 3.3.6 postscript documentation.

        Xset
            XFree86 3.3.6 graphical setup tool.

        X8514
            XFree86 3.3.6 8514 server.

        X9480
            XFree86 3.3.6 PC98 8-bit (256 color) PEGC-480 server.

        X9EGC
            XFree86 3.3.6 PC98 4-bit (16 color) EGC server.

        X9GA9
            XFree86 3.3.6 PC98 GA-968V4/PCI (S3 968) server.

        X9GAN
            XFree86 3.3.6 PC98 GANB-WAP (cirrus) server.

        X9LPW
            XFree86 3.3.6 PC98 PowerWindowLB (S3) server.

        X9NKV
            XFree86 3.3.6 PC98 NKV-NEC (cirrus) server.

        X9NS3
            XFree86 3.3.6 PC98 NEC (S3) server.

        X9SPW
            XFree86 3.3.6 PC98 SKB-PowerWindow (S3) server.

        X9TGU
            XFree86 3.3.6 PC98 Cyber9320 and TGUI9680 server.

        X9WEP
            XFree86 3.3.6 PC98 WAB-EP (cirrus) server.

        X9WS
            XFree86 3.3.6 PC98 WABS (cirrus) server.

        X9WSN
            XFree86 3.3.6 PC98 WSN-A2F (cirrus) server.

        XAGX
            XFree86 3.3.6 8 bit AGX server.

        XI128
            XFree86 3.3.6 #9 Imagine I128 server.

        XMa8
            XFree86 3.3.6 ATI Mach8 server.

        XMa32
            XFree86 3.3.6 ATI Mach32 server.

        XMa64
            XFree86 3.3.6 ATI Mach64 server.

        XMono
            XFree86 3.3.6 monochrome server.

        XP9K
            XFree86 3.3.6 P9000 server.

        XS3 XFree86 3.3.6 S3 server.

        XS3V
            XFree86 3.3.6 S3 Virge server.

        XSVGA
            XFree86 3.3.6 SVGA server.

        XVG16
            XFree86 3.3.6 VGA16 server.

        XW32
            XFree86 3.3.6 ET4000/W32, /W32i and /W32p server.

        XTGA
            Server for TGA cards (alpha architecture only).

        Xnest
            XFree86 3.3.6 nested X server.

        Xvfb
            XFree86 3.3.6 virtual frame-buffer X server.

        Xfnts
            XFree86 3.3.6 base font set.

        Xf100
            XFree86 3.3.6 100DPI font set.

        Xfcyr
            XFree86 3.3.6 Cyrillic font set.

        Xfscl
            XFree86 3.3.6 scalable font set.

        Xfnon
            XFree86 3.3.6 non-english font set.

        Xfsrv
            XFree86 3.3.6 font server.

    distSetDeveloper
        Selects the standard Developer's distribution set.

        Variables: None

    distSetXDeveloper
        Selects the standard X Developer's distribution set.

        Variables: None

    distSetKernDeveloper
        Selects the standard kernel Developer's distribution set.

        Variables: None

    distSetUser
        Selects the standard user distribution set.

        Variables: None

    distSetXUser
        Selects the standard X user's distribution set.

        Variables: None

    distSetMinimum
        Selects the very minimum distribution set.

        Variables: None

    distSetEverything
        Selects the full whack - all available distributions.

        Variables: None

    distSetCRYPTO
        Interactively select encryption subcomponents.

        Variables: None

    distSetSrc
        Interactively select source subcomponents.

        Variables: None

    distSetXF86
        Interactively select XFree86 3.3.6 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 lynx package.

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

    installCommit

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

        Variables: None

    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.

        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:

        file
            The fully pathname of the file to load.

    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

    mediaSetTape
        Select a tape device as the installation media.

        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 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).

        _ftpPath
            The fully qualified URL of the FTP site containing the FreeBSD distribution you're 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're 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're 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, medium 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 and terminate sysinstall.

        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's available until/unless a relatively full system installation has just been done.

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/release/sysinstall/install.cfg for a sample installation script.

BUGS
This utility is a prototype which lasted several years past its expiration date and is greatly in need of death.

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

HISTORY
This version of sysinstall first appeared in FreeBSD 2.0.