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How to Build a Disk Image

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kientzle edited this page Sep 7, 2014 · 3 revisions

The crochet.sh script can build a complete bootable FreeBSD image ready to be copied to a suitable device (e.g., SDHC card, Compact Flash card, disk drive, etc.). The script runs on FreeBSD-CURRENT, though some people have reported success running it on FreeBSD 9-STABLE.

Using the script to build an image consists of a few steps:

  1. READ board/board-name/README

    The board-specific directories each have a README with various details about running FreeBSD on a particular system. (Some boards have several README files in subdirectories with additional technical information.)

  2. CREATE a config file

    Start by copying config.sh.sample.

    The first line specifies the board configuration you want to use. The name here should exactly match a directory under "board/".

    The configuration file can specify a wide variety of customizations for the generated image. The config.sh.sample file includes extensive documentation in the form of comments.

  3. RUN crochet.sh as root

    $ sudo /bin/sh crochet.sh -c <config file>

    The script will first check that you have any needed sources. If you don't, the script will tell you exactly how to obtain the missing pieces. Follow the instructions and re-run the script until you have everything.

    As soon as it finds all the required pieces, the script will then compile everything and build the disk image. This part of the process can take many hours.

    Crochet keeps the built system, kernel, and other files between runs. In many cases, you can adjust the configuration and re-run crochet to build a new image in just a few minutes. However, if you update the FreeBSD sources or make a significant configuration change, you should probably delete the contents of the work directory to force everything to be rebuilt from scratch.

    Shortcut: If you only want the most basic build for a board, you can use this command without creating a config file:

    $ sudo /bin/sh crochet.sh -b <boardname>

    However, if you want to tweak the build in any way, you will need to create a config file.

  4. COPY the image to a suitable device (SD card, disk drive, etc)

    The script will suggest a 'dd' command to do this.

  5. BOOT the image on your board.

    Again, read board/board-name/README for details.

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