How to create a FreeBSD 8.0 boot CD without boot.flp?

[Manolis Kiagias]

On 11/02/2010 12:08 π.μ., Pierre-Luc Drouin wrote:
> What I am trying to do is basically to install FreeBSD 8.0 on a CD. I
> followed these instructions to install FreeBSD on a USB stick:
>
> http://typo.submonkey.net/articles/2006/04/13/installing-freebsd-on-usb-stick-episode-2
>
>
> minus the fdisk/bsdlabel/newfs part . I just set up rc.conf to
> configure the ethernet interface with DHCP and load sshd
>
> then I am now creating an iso image with the boot image. So at the
> root of the CD I will have the boot directory containing the kernel
> subdirectory.
>
> I figured out about the boot image error from mkisofs. I had to copy
> cdboot into the actual boot directory for the image and the path
> specified by the -b option is relative to the root directory of the CD...
>
> So should this work according to you?
>
> Thanks!
>

It is going to be an interesting experiment. The official install
CD/DVDs boot from boot/kernel on the CD but the root filesystem used is
actually in an mfs (memory disk). Also it executes sysinstall instead of
init at the end of the boot sequence. I suppose you can mount the root
filesystem from CD as read-only but you will have to handle things like
/var and /usr and you will probably need some writing capability. I am
sure this can be done in more than a few ways though I've never
researched this myself.