Welcome to the DruidBSD project homepage

Druid(R) is a build platform that aims to produce truly universal boot images (*.iso files) that can be downloaded once and then mastered onto any type of media, including (but not limited to) CD/DVD optical media, USB flash media, and even hard disks.

DruidBSD(tm) is a FreeBSD micro-distribution which exists as a 1.9MB floppy image (GZIP-compressed mfsroot). When paired with the Druid(R) platform, you get a universal LiveCD and/or Installer environment.

Meet the FreeBSD Druid

The FreeBSD Druid(R) is a unified installer platform targeted at the Enterprise FreeBSD market.

 

 

The following features make the FreeBSD Druid(R) a unique FreeBSD installer:

  • Built on the trusty sysinstall(8) installer used for over 15+ years by the community at-large
  • Graphical boot menu provided by SYSLINUX(tm)
  • Offers both scripted installation and advanced installation (traditional sysinstall(8) menu)
  • Can install FreeBSD in minutes with as-little-as 6 keystrokes
  • Install either 32-bit or 64-bit FreeBSD from an easy-to-use selection menu without rebooting
  • Anti-foot-shooting measures (CPU architecture sanity checks, etc.)
  • Automatic disk partitioning for scripted installation (if only one target-installation disk is probed)
  • Option to always-invoke interactive disk partitioning for scripted installation, if desired
  • Interactive rescue script for fixing non-bootable systems
  • Holographic shell with bash-prompt and hundreds of utilities
  • Easily run sshd from the Druid boot media
  • Pre/Post install hooks for easily extending the installer
  • Automatically enables Soft Updates Journaling
  • Installs and configures sysutils/host-setup for first-run
  • Contains "perl" distribution that installs perl-5.14.1_3 package
  • Contains "local" distribution that installs rsync-3.0.9, bonnie-2.0.6_1, and sup-2.0.20060802 packages
  • Easily customizable on any OS that can modify an ISO filesystem
  • Much much more!

Head on over to the downloads section to get your own copy of this polished Enterprise FreeBSD Installer.

UPDATE! Functionality for VirtualBox 4.x Users Still Hit-or-Miss

VirtualBox 4.x users across multiple platforms are reporting either absolute success or absolute failure. For some, it seems not to matter whether using the ISO file directly (error shown below) or booting from a CD/DVD you've created from the ISO (hangs at cdboot).

Currently there is no known solution to the problems some users are reporting with VirtualBox other than that these issues are unique to VirtualBox on certain host platforms (such as Mac OS X). VirtualBox on PC-BSD 8.2 seems unaffected for example. Neither VMware Workstation 7 on Windows 7 nor Parallels 4 on Mac OS X 10.6 seem affected and can use any/all media types provided (ISO file directly or burned to optical media first).

 

 

Other News (past and present)

2012-01-31: host-setup updated (new version 4.0.2 replaces previous 4.0.1).

Minor revisions:

  • This version has been accepted into the FreeBSD ports tree under sysutils/host-setup.
  • A package has been built and is available for download.
  • Skip rc_conf_files that don't exist
  • Prevent spurious warnings when using stat(1)
  • Fix broken inline parameter expansion
2012-01-12: netwait package released for FreeBSD versions older than 9.0 (which lack this feature).

Package contains:

  • Post-installation script that will automatically ensure that the mountcritremote rc.d script is set to require netwait.
  • Enhanced version of netwait rc.d script -- patched to allow a value of "NO" (case-insensitive) for "netwait_ip" in rc.conf(5); allowing you to safely set netwait_ip to defaultrouter.
  • Also modified to change rcorder(8) keywords to start netwait before mountcritremote.
  • Sensible defaults stored in /etc/rc.conf.d/netwait (also serves as documentation for the script, considering that the currently-installed /etc/defaults/rc.conf may not mention netwait unless running FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE or higher).
  • This version of netwait -- if enabled by setting netwait_enable to "YES" (case-insensitive) in rc.conf(5) -- will automatically use the value of defaultrouter as the IP address to ping. This has the net-effect that one does not need to separately configure the IP address to ping during boot if a defaultrouter has already been configured. For most, this means that simply enabling netwait is all that is needed to fix the network race-condition that occurs on boot.
2012-01-11: tzdialog updated (new version 1.2 replaces previous 1.1).

Many revisions:

  • This version has been accepted into the FreeBSD ports tree under sysutils/tzdialog.
  • A package has been built and is available for download.
  • Synchronize with FreeBSD HEAD revision of tzsetup(8), including MFC of ...
  • Properly support `\n' escape-sequence in info/msg/menu boxes when calculating appropriate dialog(1) sizes.
  • Unlink /etc/localtime before creation.
  • Fix bug in preserving /etc/localtime as a symbolic-link.
  • Clear console in-between menus and on-exit when using dialog(1).
  • Update dependency list to include ln(1).
  • Bump dialog-height by-one on FreeBSD-9 for zone confirmations due to new implementation of dialog(1) (now based on cdialog).
  • Always override user-provided umask.
  • Update usage statement/synopsis (alphabetize -e flag).
  • Minor syntax changes.
  • Comments.
2012-01-03: host-setup updated (new version 4.0.1 replaces previous 4.0).

Minor revisions:

  • This version has [previously] been accepted into the FreeBSD ports tree under sysutils/host-setup.
  • A package has been built and is available for download.
  • Abstract remaining instances of "/etc/resolv.conf" to "$RESOLV_CONF".
  • Minor syntax tweak for odd-duck eval.
2012-01-03: sysrc updated (new version 3.2.2 replaces previous 3.2.1).
  • This version has been accepted into the FreeBSD ports tree under sysutils/sysrc.
  • A package has been built and is available for download.
  • Fix minor bug (s/chmod/chown/) when using `-x' to remove a configuration variable from rc.conf(5).
2012-01-03: host-setup updated (new version 4.0 replaces previous 3.2).

Major new revision:

  • Added `-s' option for "secure-mode" (prompts for sudo(8) credentials). Designed to allow secure access when executed from either a window or display manager.
  • Updated dependency list (see code comments near top).
  • Display CVS revision (if available) in dialog(1) title.
  • Fully support Xdialog(1).
  • Introduce an initial delay when probing interfaces for carrier status information.
  • Fix Ctrl-C when aborting dhclient(8) setup.
  • Add detection of new vimage netgraph(4) bridged interfaces.
  • Fix typos.
  • Delete defaultrouter from rc.conf(5) when going DHCP.
  • Fix netmask calculation on 9.0-CURRENT.
  • Always allow network changes within a vimage jail.
  • Fix bug that could wipe-out resolv.conf(5) when switching from DHCP back to static.
  • Prevent hang when changing hostname via X11-Forwarded ssh(1) connection.
  • Add SYNCDHCP and NOSYNCDHCP support for appropriate releases.
  • Re-apply defaultrouter when switching from DHCP back to static.
  • Fix Xdialog(1) sanity checks for 9.0-CURRENT.
  • Add support for Xdialog(1)'s `--print-maxsize' feature.
  • Add support for tzdialog(8) -- available here at druidbsd.sf.net
  • Add support for executing tzsetup(8) within an xterm(1) when executing via Xdialog(1).
  • Add support for the `-s' flag of tzsetup(8) added in FreeBSD 7.3, 8.0, or higher.
  • Improved error reporting for tzsetup(8)/tzdialog(8).
  • Whitespace and other miscellaneous corrections.
2012-01-02: vimage-1.4 rc.d script released.

Critical change/bug-fix:

  • Deprecate inferior "vimage_*_services" variable in favor of new "vimage_*_prestart_services" and "vimage_*_afterstart_services" for both fine-grain control and to work-around a bug/limitation (see `/etc/rc.conf.d/vimage' for further details).
  • The above implementation-change was necessary to get firewalls based on ipfw to "boot" correctly as a vimage.

Read more about vimage.

2011-12-31: sysrc updated (new version 3.2.1 replaces previous 3.2).
  • This version has [previously] been accepted into the FreeBSD ports tree under sysutils/sysrc.
  • A package has been built from the ports tree and is available for download.
  • Fix 9.0-CURRENT bug resulting in "Canot create : No such file or directory"
2011-11-17: tzdialog updated (new version 1.1 replaces previous 1.0.2).

Changes include the following:

  • Add -e flag, which causes the exit_status to only return success if-and-only-if both the user selects a timezone and the system has successfully installed it.
  • Add support for Xdialog(1)'s `--print-maxsize' option.

2010-09-15: The DruidBSD(tm) project is registered on SourceForge.net

2010-09-13: The DruidBSD(tm) project enters public-beta

 

 

Links

SourceForge.net Project Page
SynHXD Project