Synopsis

To provide step-by-step guide on how to install a FreeBSD operating system. At the time of writing, FreeBSD7 is the latest version. However this guide is written to be as general as possible that could be applied for any version of FreeBSD.

In this guide, FreeBSD7 will be installed on Guest Computer of VMware Server 2.

What is FreeBSD?

FreeBSD is an advanced open source Operating System that can run under different hardware architectures, such as, but not limited to: x86, UltraSPARC, and ARM. For more information about FreeBSD, please read FreeBSD page at Wikipedia.

Why FreeBSD?

FreeBSD is a robust and a reliable operating system. Compare to other free operating system, it’s regarded to have the longest uptime. This is extremely important for high availability server. FreeBSD has its Ports collection (Like RPM for RedHat, and DEB for Debian), which provides an easy and consistent way of installing software package. It has over 19,000 ports available in the collection.

Requirements

• Internet Connection (preferably high speed connection)
• Computer (or Virtual Server such as VMware Server)
• Blank CD (only required if installing on a physical computer)
• Basic computer and linux/unix knowledge

Getting FreeBSD

Go to Getting FreeBSD and choose the right FreeBSD version and platform for you; in this case, FreeBSD7 & i386 for the platform. Click on the [ISO] link on ISO column. It’s recommended to just download the bootonly iso in order to save time and bandwidth. Any additional update and application will be downloaded as necessary. In this case, download 7.0-RELEASE-i386-bootonly.iso.

Once the ISO is downloaded to your computer, burn the ISO to a blank CD only if you are going to install it on a physical computer, otherwise go to the next section.

Installing FreeBSD

Put the CD inside your CD-ROM (or mount the ISO to your guest OS if you are using virtualization) and make sure your computer is bootable to your CD-ROM before your hard disk. Normally this can be done by press “Esc” button after the boot screen or via bios setting; see your computer manual to change the setting. Once it’s ready, turn on the computer and let it boot to CD-ROM until you see Country Selection screen and make the selection:

After you click ok, it will go to sysinstall Main Menu and choose Standard option:

Press ok on the next message screen to bring you to FDISK Partition Editor. On this screen you can press A for Auto (Use Entire Disk) or customize to fit your configuration:

Press Q once completed and it will bring to Install Boot Manager screen(s). Normally you only need to install boot manager on first disk (da0 or ad0), choose BootMgr for your first disk and choose None for the rest of your disks (if there is any):

Press ok on the next message screen to bring you to FreeBSD Disklabel Editor. On this screen you can also press A for Auto Defaults option or customize to fit your configuration:

Press Q once completed and it will bring to Choose Distributions screen. You can choose the pre-defined options such as User, Developer, X-User, Minimal, etc. Or you can customize the package by choosing Custom. For this example, I chose Custom with the following distributions selected: base (required), kernels (required), man, src (all), and ports:

Press X for Exit to back to Choose Distributions screen:

Choose OK to go to Choose Installation Media. If you use bootonly disk, you can pick either FTP, FTP Passive, or HTTP. If you use diskfull CDs or DVD, you choose CD/DVD:

In this example, we will be using FTP as the media, click OK and on the next screen it will go to Network interface information required and pick the right NIC. It will also prompt couple questions:

1. Do you want to try IPv6 configuration of the interface? [no]
2. Do you want to try DHCP configuration of the interface? [yes] and fill the proper value for each fields:

Once you click OK, it will give you User Confirmation Requested to warn that any existing data will be overwritten. Click Yes to start the installation. This may take awhile, depending on selected distributions, installation media (CD-ROM or internet), as well as your internet connection (if you chose FTP, FTP Passive, or HTTP).

After the installation completed, it will show the congratulation message:

After you click it will prompt the following questions and answer accordingly to your needs or the one suggested below:

1. Do you want this machine to function as a network gateway? [no]
2. Do you want to configure inetd and the network services that it provides? [no]
3. Would you like to enable SSH login? [yes]
4. Do you want to have anonymous FTP access to this machine? [no]
5. Do you want to configure this machine as an NFS server? [no]
6. Do you want to configure this machine as an NFS client? [no]
7. Would you like to customize your system console settings? [no]
8. Would you like to set this machine’s time zone now? [yes]
   1. Is this machine’s CMOS clock set to UTC? If it is set to local time, or you don’t know, please choose NO here! [no]
   2. Select region [America -- North and South]
   3. Select a country or region [United States]
   4. Select a zone which observes the same time as your locality [Pacific Time]
   5. Does the abbreviation `XXX’ looks reasonable?
9. Would you like to enable Linux binary compatibility? [yes]
   This is totally optional. It will allow to compile and run some Linux binaries that is not in the Port collections.
10. Does this system have a PS/2, serial, or bus mouse? [no]
11. The FreeBSD package collection is  a collection of thousands of ready-to-run applications, from text editors to games to WEB servers and more. Would you like to browse the collection now? [no]
    We would like to choose no, we can install all the necessary application later on. The reason we do not want to install it right now, most likely the collection ports are not up-to-date. So you might end up with outdated application.
12. Would you like to add any initial user accounts to the system? [...] [yes]
    1. Select User to add new user
    2. Select Group to add new group
    3. Once you are done, select Exit
13. Now you must set the system manager’s password. This is the password you’ll use to log in as “root”.
    enter your root password twice
14. Visit the general configuration menu for a chance to set any last options?
15. Once you are done, it will bring you back to sysinstall Main Menu and you can safely select Exit Install.
16. It will prompt you to eject any disc in order to prevent the system to boot from CD again.
17. The system rebooted, and wallah, now you have your FreeBSD installed on your system.

Further Reading

• FreeBSD Handbook: It is probably the most well written handbook out there, very resourceful.

Gallery