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FreeBSD

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Hi there,

I am aware that linode stands for Linux Node, but let's not be religious and try and all be friends ;)

I've got used to using FreeBSD as I've used it for a long time. I'd like to use it on my server and I'd really like to stay with linode as everything has been great.

I recently setup a new linode to try and install FreeBSD but I didn't get anywhere, I followed a few suggestions on blog posts and so on, but nothing worked.

I got so far as to create my own image for FreeBSD 10.0 x64, I dd'd this to the disk attached to the FreeBSD linode.

I notice that the version of pv-grub linode is using does not appear to have UFS2 support compiled in, which means I couldn't directly boot the image.

I think I need to create some kind of additional ext2 disk image in front of my FreeBSD image, that contains the kernel for FreeBSD, and then setup pv-grub to boot this. The kernel would then mount the other disk image and continue.

I don't really want to do it like this however, as it would make more sense for the FreeBSD image to be self contained, to make updating easier.

Is it possible you could provide a version of pv-grub that has UFS2 support compiled in?

Is anyone here using FreeBSD or wants to use it? It would be useful to hear your opinions.

staropram

5 Replies

There were some hints here:

https://forum.linode.com/viewtopic.php?t=10024&p=57773

There's a wiki article about installing NetBSD that might be relevant:

https://www.linode.com/wiki/index.php/NetBSD_Howto

Keep in mind that *BSD on Linode is unsupported and seems to be considered unstable by most people who've got it working.

This is an interesting topic. I've never actually got FreeBSD running on Linode but those that have claimed it to be unstable. The last I heard you had to ask support to remove all CPUs but one just to get it to boot and even then it's far from production quality. FreeBSD 10 may behave better. I think they improved pvgrub support.

If you want to try it then try it, just don't expect the same stability you get from Linux images.

I have used FreeBSD on AWS and it appears to be its usual stable and dependable self. There it's run as a hvm image not pvgrub though. I think if you run it on their free tier it counts as a free windows machine.

Well, I've updated things a bit since those articles referenced, and it's a rough draft, but if you're interested:

http://techdoc.thatitcompany.com/somewh … on-linode/">http://techdoc.thatitcompany.com/somewhat-stable-freebsd-9-3-xen-pvparavirtualized-installation-on-linode/

Although they're systematically doing away with the 32-bit version of pv-grub which will make me have to rethink my approach, but nonetheless this does work, and has been for the most part stable thus far. There's a few things I have yet to add to the doc that I will in the next couple of days that help even more.

-tdeath

Update to my previous post, after much load testing in every way imaginable, I can officially say the results of my freebsd how to produce a STABLE, vs somewhat stable as I mentioned prior. I have actually moved some production sites over to it including http://techdoc.THATITCOMPANY.com/

tdeath,

Congrats on reaching this milestone. Is your "How To" up to date or should I wait a little bit before diving in?

MSJ

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