Installing OpenBSD over FreeBSD reddit / BSD ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dd_fff · 2018-12-28 14:37 Folks, I've got this unique use case - my VPS provider does not offer installation of custom .iso images - instead they've got a set of OS images to choose from - FreeBSD 10 is the only BSD available. And I'm pretty determined to use OpenBSD on that VPS. Is there a way to install OpenBSD on the already installed FreeBSD instance? So far I've downloaded bsd.rd to /boot and have tried two things: 1. booting bsd.rd straight from the boot prompt, 2. booting bsd.rd from the loader menu. Both of which failed. Is there a way to boot the OpenBSD ramdisk kernel that way or similar? Or maybe setting up OpenBSD unattended install? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- yuki_is_bored · 2018-12-28 15:25 If you have serial/vnc access to your VPS, you can do this little trick. It's not "over FreeBSD" though, you may be able to get it working on FreeBSD if you somehow install grub. 1. Install a Linux distribution that uses the grub bootloader 2. Download bsd.rd and put it on /boot 3. Have VNC/Serial access ready 4. Reboot the server 5. Immediately interrupt grub 6. Go to the GRUB command line 7. Run `kernel /bsd.rd` (You may need to check your `root` environment variable) 8. Run `boot` 9. Et voilà, You should have the ramdisk kernel booting up. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- daemonpenguin · 2018-12-28 15:50 Your VPS doesn't support custom ISOs and its only BSD offering is no longer supported? My recommendation would be to use a different VPS provider. I think both Vultr and Digital Ocean allow custom ISOs, and/or support installing BSD images. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dd_fff · 2018-12-28 19:30 Thanks, I'll try that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dd_fff · 2018-12-28 19:33 I know, I already have Vultr. The thing is they are really cheap - it's equivalent of 1USD in my currency and I've got 1 core, 1 GB RAM, 20 GB SSD. I got it on promotion so I'll keep it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- monotux · 2018-12-28 23:15 Which provider is that? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- localtoast · 2018-12-29 02:54 chances it's one of those kiddie hosts which is oversold as hell ---------------------------------------------------------------------- brynet · 2018-12-29 17:34 OpenBSD's kernel is not compatible with the FreeBSD boot loader. The boot arguments structure is different. If you have serial console access to this VPS, you should be able to use the `miniroot64.fs` image for this. This is the install media for USB/SD/CF and can be written directly to a hard disk. In general, picking a better hosting provider that allows booting from custom install media would probably be a better option. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dd_fff · 2018-12-29 18:14 Arubacloud.com