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0. FreeBSD Installation

Before you install Hoster, let me walk you through the FreeBSD installation procedure that is officially supported to smoothly run it on your box.

TLDR

TLDR for the advanced users. You can stick to your normal installation procedure as long as:

  • ZFS is chosen as your default file system
  • OS/root ZFS pool name must be kept as zroot
  • Unbound is installed along with the base system

If you've manually built your FreeBSD kernel, don't forget to include bhyve support!

Other than that, everything else can be modified.

Boot FreeBSD Installation Image

We officially support FreeBSD 13 Release (13.1 and 13.2), and FreeBSD 14 Current FreeBSD Boot Screen

Hit enter to start the installation FreeBSD Installer Welcome Screen

First steps

Keyboard layout

Select your keyboard layout (I'll stick to the US keyboard layout) Keymap Selection

Hostname

Pick a host name Set hostname

Optional system components

Select optional system components (at least pick what's selected on a screenshot) Optional system components

Network settings

Pick your main network interface Network connection

Assign IPv4 address IPv4

I am using the DHCP here, but you can also pick no and manually assign IPv4 address IPv4

HosterCore doesn't yet support IPv6, so I'll skip it for now IPv6

DNS

Configure DNS DNS configuration

ZFS settings

Choose ZFS as your file system Pick filesystem

Pick the correct ZFS settings:

  • Pool name must be zroot
  • I am usually encrypting SWAP and giving it at least 4GB
  • Pool type, number of disks involved and so on are not important and you are free to choose whatever works best for you

Correct ZFS settings

I am using stripe or RAID0 in other words for this setup, because it only has one disk stripe zvol

Mark the disks you'd like to be included in the initial installation disk list

Confirm that you are happy with the storage setup so far storage setup configuration

Download and extract the missing parts

I am using a small installation image, and now it's required to pick an online mirror to grab the missing packages mirror selection

Wait just a couple of minutes for the installer to download and extract the required stuff fetching distro extracting distro

Root password

Assign a root password storage setup configuration

Timezone settings

Pick a time zone time zone selector country list pick date pick time

Additional packages

Install additional packages (please select all things, like you see in the screenshot) system configuration

System hardening

System hardening (I am usually selecting all of the below) system hardening

Add more users

HosterCore requires root user, so I don't bother with adding users on private nodes. Plus you can always add more users later. add user accounts

Finish the installation

Finish the installation and reboot the system final configuration manual configuration reboot

Final touches

Log in

login screen

Install your favourite text editor

My favourite text editor is micro, that's why I am gonna install and use it here pkg bootstrap pkg bootstrap install micro

Edit SSH config

I want to enable remote root SSH login, because it's the only available account on this system right now config location

Find a line 36 (or close to that), which should say PermitRootLogin, change from no to yes and uncomment it find line apply change

Restart SSH

Now we simply need to restart the SSHD service, and we'll be ready to move on to the next step: HosterCore installation country list