The European cloud and dedicated server provider Hetzner does not offer a FreeBSD rescue system anymore. Users running dedicated servers with FreeBSD may run into difficulties if anything goes wrong. But it is still possible to install FreeBSD and access its data from the rescue mode.
There are now two tutorials at Hetzner to install FreeBSD.
- Installing FreeBSD with OpenZFS via the Linux rescue system (requires an UEFI-capable server)
- Installing FreeBSD on older dedicated servers via the Linux rescue system
I personally recommend the UEFI-way, as it is quicker to setup and you can edit contents of both EFI and ZFS partitions from the Linux rescue mode.
y0m says:
Thank you for your work!
Sad that Hetzner decided that all of a sudden.
Michael says:
Hi Martin,
There’s also https://depenguin.me now, which basically boots mfsBSD in QEMU running on top of the Linux rescue system and passes the disks through to the VM. So no need to reduce your storage pool’s redundancy.
The custom mfsBSD image, which the script uses by default, provides access over ssh to mfsbsd@ (no direct root access) using an ssh public key provided by the user invocation (file or URL), no password based logins and no risk of having someone logging into the server using well-known credentials. The user can override the mfsBSD image to be used of course.
Cheers
sarangkot says:
Martin,
Thank you for creating the mfsBSD isos. They’re a god send!
Is there documentation on how to create an i386 version of FreeBSD 14 mfsBSD iso? The reason is I have a really old i386 with 512MB memory that doesn’t have a CD drive. In the past I’ve used the version 10 i386 mfsBSD but I was wondering if I could create the 14 version by myself.
Let me know.
Again, really appreciate you creating and maintaining mfsBSD isos!
machin chose says:
My personnal method for dedicated servers not supporting officially freebsd (OVH in France) is to prepare the system at home on an usb stick with the help of your mfsBSD (mfsBSD to boot in a fullproof & clean environnement), or simply a fresh freebsd installer:
– setup the second usbkey as a clean system image (usually 8Gb is good) ,
– setup the “will boot on everiyhing environnement” (check etc/fstab, etc/rc.conf for dhcp , boot/loader.rc),
– unmount the usbkey,
– “dd” your fresh usb-key somewhere accessible on the internet;
– then use another dd on linux (at OVH they call it the rescue environnement) to “feed” the boot disk.
– reboot and finalyze your filesystem & system characteristics (or re-modify/adjust your usb key, resend your image and refeed the dedicated boot disk until it works). Usually , for me, the finbalization is to add a partition table with the disk remaining, set my homes on it then change fstab accordingly , etc…
Thanks for your mfsBSD !