Re: Making a custom boot (install) disk?

[Theo de Raadt <deraadt@cvs.openbsd.org>]

> Does anyone have any tips for making a boot disk with a special
> kernel?  I need to install OpenBSD on a RAID array on a Vortex
> controller.  The default boot floppy doesn't have a controller for
> this, so my plan is to make up a custom boot floppy.

I would recommend that you install the snapshot release, which has
support for this.  I would recommend the following:

	install 2.7-current snapshot
	get logged in as root
	cd /
	get the real 2.7 base27.tgz
	tar xvfz base27.tgz `tar tfz base27.tgz grep '\.so\.'`

That will give you a -current system -- and -current is pretty stable
at the moment -- but you will have the 2.7 shared libraries so that
2.7 packages work still (neat eh?  Someone should put this in the FAQ,
I suppose).

> I mounted floppy27.fs using the vnd, so I could see it had just two
> files: bsd and boot.  I assume that I can replace the bsd file with
> any custom kernel I have configured?  Or is it like FreeBSD, where the
> kernel must be compiled with the MFSROOT option?  I know there are
> tight size restrictions on the kernel, but this shouldn't be a problem
> because I only need a very few drivers on the install kernel.

It's even more complicated than that.  Sorry.

Alternatively, you could install 2.7 using the snapshot floppy,
and then replace the 2.7 /bsd with the snapshot /bsd file, that
should work fine too.