Welcome to NanoBSD, ​FreeBSD default method for installing ​FreeBSD on embedded devices, like ​Soekris and others. The manual described below is (loosely) based on the Concept plan of Tim Baas, but also consists of many hints by ​official 'Introduction to NanoBSD' manual

Have to remember links

• ​http://people.freebsd.org/~phk/nanobsd/soekris_4x26/make.soekris_4x26.conf
• ​http://www.paeps.cx/weblog/2005/Jul/10

Procedure

Please note to find the supporting files in the subdirectory nanobsd

Build environment

Get yourself a fresh freebsd host with ports and subversion installed

1. Run the basic CD installer of 7.x. Manual tested with 7.1-RELEASE (real basic install will fit our needs). Installing FreeBSD is not scope of the document, take a look into ​the FreeBSD handbook Chapter 2 Installing FreeBSD if you do not know the details.
2. get latest sources csup -g -L 2 -h cvsup.nl.freebsd.org /usr/share/examples/cvsup/standard-supfile
3. install subversion pkg_add -r subversion
4. fetch ports portsnap fetch extract
5. OPTIONAL, every developer has his own preferences, these are mine ;-) pkg_add -r vim-lite sudo screen

Introduction

First download the environment and run initial build

$ setenv R /root/nanobsd
$ svn checkout http://svn.wirelessleiden.nl/svn/projects/iris/nanobsd $R
$ cd $R
$ sh /usr/src/tools/tools/nanobsd/nanobsd.sh -c $R/cfg/nanobsd.wleiden

Even the little script got flags, check the output of sh /usr/src/tools/tools/nanobsd/nanobsd.sh -h

-b suppress builds (both kernel and world)
-k suppress buildkernel
-w suppress buildworld
-c specify config file

Briefly:

1. Compile all packages below using (cd /usr/ports$DIR; make package-recursive; cp *.tbz $R/pkg
2. Rerun build, saving some time, no kernel/world rebuild sh /usr/src/tools/tools/nanobsd/nanobsd.sh -b -c $R/cfg/nanobsd.wleiden
3. XXX: TODO how-to install config into image
4. 1. New image: Put full image on flash disk dd bs=64k if=/usr/obj/nanobsd.wleiden/_.disk.full of=/dev/da0
5. 1. Existing image: Put partial image on slice dd bs=64k if=/usr/obj/nanobsd.wleiden/_.disk.image of=/dev/da0s[12]

WL specific

stumber, hidden gem maybe /usr/src/tools/tools/net80211/stumber

Packages needed

net/pen (Load balancing)                             
textproc/expat2 (apache2 dependency)
converters/libiconv (apache2 dependency)
devel/pcre (apache2 dependency)
www/apache2 BATCH=yes (webserver)
lang/perl58 (apache2 dependency)
net-mgmt/net-snmp WITHOUT_PERL=yes (monitoring)
net/isc-dhcp30-server (dhcp server) 
net/pen (proxy load balancer) 

TODO

• XXX: Merge into tickets
• XXX: Complete list/set scope
• Proper unique automated SSH key generation into image
• Script to generate into

Optimization choices

Library trim, delete unused libraries =

ldd -a /usr/bin/* /bin/* /sbin/* /usr/sbin/* /usr/local/bin/* /usr/local/sbin/* | awk '/=>/ {print $1}' | sort -u
basename `ls -1 /lib/* /usr/lib/* /usr/local/lib/*` | sort -u > /tmp/all.txt

Light based packages =

• dnsmasq instead of isc-dhcp30-server and bind
• thttpd instead of apache

Hints

• You could always decide to install your FreeBSD base instance into a ​virtual envirionment
• cvsup.nl.freebsd.org is the local dutch cvsup mirror, replace nl with your proper country code
• It seems tempting to follow /usr/share/examples/cvsup/stable-supfile instead of /usr/share/examples/cvsup/standard-supfile please DO NOT unless your like big trouble as stable-supfile is the stable DEVELOPMENT branch e.g. upcoming stable.
• Default username/password = root/welkom01
• Great mac os x terminal emulator is screen install using macports.org $ screen /dev/tty.PL2303-0000101D 9600

Comments, questions or remarks?

Feel free to edit this page or send an email to our ​techniek mailinglist