Installing FreeBSD 8.1

This page is a cheat sheet for installing a default configuration of FreeBSD. After you have burned the download to a DVD drive then boot from that DVD.

These steps will quickly get your FreeBSD system to the point where it has the O/S installed and configured enough so that you can securely SSH into it to finish building and configuring the host.

Ethernet Configuration: IPv4 DHCP

    1. Select option 1, boot FreeBSD default.

    2. Sysinstall: Standard installation.

    3. Drives: Choose a drive to install to. The list might look something like this:

    4. ad10

    5. ad4

    6. ad6

    7. ad8

    8. FDISK Partition Editor:

    9. A = Use entire disk.

    10. S = Set bootable.

    11. Q = Finish.

    12. Boot Manager: S = Standard MBR.

    13. FreeBSD Disk Partitions (FreeBSD Disklabel Editor):

    14. A = Auto defaults. This command may produce a partition layout that looks like the table below.

    15. Distribution: All (all system sources and binaries).

    16. Ports Collection: Yes.

    17. Install Media: CD/DVD.

    18. Done: OK.

    19. Configure Ethernet: Yes. The devices capable of running the Ethernet protocol will be displayed, and may look similar to the following:

    20. re0 RealTek 8139C/8169/8169S/8110S PCI Ethernet Card

    21. sis0 SiS 900/SiS 7016 PCI Ethernet Card

    22. fwe0 FireWire Ethernet Emulator

    23. fwip0 IP over FireWire

    24. plip0 Parallel Port IP (PLIP) peer connection

    25. Try IPv6 configuration of the interface? No

    26. Try DHCP configuration of the interface? Yes

    27. Host: <host-name> Domain: <your-domain-name>

    28. IPv4 Gateway: 10.11.12.1 Name Server: 10.12.12.12

    29. re0 Configuration: IPv4 Address: 10.11.12.107/204

    30. Should this machine be a network gateway? No

    31. Configure inetd and associated services? No

    32. Enable ssh login? Yes

    33. Allow anonymous FTP? No

    34. Configure as NFS server? No

    35. Configure as NFS client? No

    36. Customize system console settings? No

    37. Set time zone? Yes

    38. PS/2, serial, or bus mouse? No

    39. Browse the ports collection? No

    40. Add a user? Yes

    41. Set admin password? Yes

    42. Change any more options? No

    43. X = Exit Install.