Making your own OpenBSD iso

openbsd, genisoimage | October 17, 2015

So you pre-ordered your OpenBSD CD set but don't have a CD-ROM drive in your computer? This is how you build your own install.iso.

Prepare the directory structure.

$ mkdir -p /tmp/OpenBSD/5.8/i386 $ /tmp/OpenBSD/5.8/i368

I ripped my files from the CD on an iMac with a CD-ROM drive and copied them to my CD-ROM-less Lenovo Yoga. My directory now hold these files:

$ ls -l -rw-r--r-- 1 tvl tvl 52962862 okt 17 18:04 base58.tgz -rwxr--r-- 1 tvl tvl 2048 okt 17 18:04 boot.catalog -rwxr-xr-x 1 tvl tvl 10539527 okt 17 18:05 bsd -rwxr-xr-x 1 tvl tvl 10571701 okt 17 18:06 bsd.mp -rwxr-xr-x 1 tvl tvl 7032722 okt 17 18:06 bsd.rd -rw-r--r-- 1 tvl tvl 72956 okt 17 18:06 cdboot -rw-r--r-- 1 tvl tvl 2048 okt 17 18:06 cdbr -rw-r--r-- 1 tvl tvl 46524877 okt 17 18:08 comp58.tgz -rw-r--r-- 1 tvl tvl 1474560 okt 17 18:08 floppy58.fs -rw-r--r-- 1 tvl tvl 2713526 okt 17 18:08 game58.tgz -rw-r--r-- 1 tvl tvl 47362 okt 17 18:02 INSTALL.i386 -rw-r--r-- 1 tvl tvl 8991058 okt 17 18:09 man58.tgz -rw-r--r-- 1 tvl tvl 81188 okt 17 18:09 pxeboot -rw-r--r-- 1 tvl tvl 1534 okt 17 18:02 SHA256.sig -r--r--r-- 1 tvl tvl 845 okt 17 18:02 TRANS.TBL -rw-r--r-- 1 tvl tvl 16906508 okt 17 18:10 xbase58.tgz -rw-r--r-- 1 tvl tvl 40009842 okt 17 18:11 xfont58.tgz -rw-r--r-- 1 tvl tvl 18953340 okt 17 18:12 xserv58.tgz -rw-r--r-- 1 tvl tvl 4489136 okt 17 18:13 xshare58.tgz

I use the genisoimage package (apt-get install on Debian) to build the iso.

$ cd ../.. genisoimage -r -no-emul-boot -b 5.8/i386/cdbr -c boot.catalog -o install58.iso /tmp/OpenBSD

You will now have a install58.iso file that you can use to install OpenBSD 5.8 pre-release, for example in VirtualBox.