build image from the source

[Holger Kipp]

On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 05:38:37PM +0530, Saurabh Chopra wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I am absolutely a newbie in freebsd. My query is that I want to create
> an image from the freebsd sources. And I will be using this image to
> boot another x86 machine. Is there any utility that will use the
> compiled kernel and build the image? .Please be as descriptive in your
> answers as possible.

You may find http://romana.now.ie/writing/customfreebsdiso.html
helpful - see also 'man release' for further information.

If you need to set up several possibly identical machines, you might 
however want to setup a central server that provides the data created
with make buildworld and make buildkernel and provide booting and
installing via dhcp and startscripts (eg. for serverfarms). That way
it is also much easier to keep all servers updated.

As you said you're a newbie in freebsd, you might consider using
FreeBSD Stable instead of Current (also for the mailing list).
Currently this means using 7.x and not 8. See the FreeBSD handbook
for further details on stable vs. current:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-stable.html

Best regards,
Holger