Network Issue Trying to Install From Boot Only ISO

D

drmdolfan

Newbie here. I was running FreeBSD 14 on VirtualBox (NAT, wireless physical networking) on Mac using the VHD with no problems. I was watching an online FreeBSD tutorial for installation via the boot only ISO and then adding packages to that so I downloaded the latest Boot Only ISO. I followed the basic instructions up to wo point where the installer was at the screen to select from one of the mirror sites. I had set the network to IPv4, DHCP only and accepted the default DNS resolver. Whenever I selected a mirror it came back as "connection refused". I noticed that the default was actually selecting the host gateway instead of the VM/Virtualbox gateway so I set the resolver address to the virtualbox NAT gateway which should be the passthrough DNS address (10.0.2.2). This time the response took longer but it came back with "Address family for host not supported". There was an article mentioning to turn on virtual box nat dns resolver and I tried that. This time it identified a default DNS address as 10.0.2.3. I accepted that but the response came back immediately as connection refused. Any advice?
 
Either (1) Nobody has ever tried this (2) Very few people monitor forums or offer help (to noobs?) here (3) The nature of the question reveals that the OP shouldn’t even be trying to learn FreeBSD? (4) Study harder? (5) other
 
Welcome to The FreeBSD Forums. I began watching your topic a few weeks ago because I'm a user of VirtualBox on FreeBSD. Currently:

Code: 
% pkg iinfo virtualbox
virtualbox-ose-6.1.50_1
virtualbox-ose-kmod-6.1.50
% freebsd-version -kru ; uname -aKU
15.0-CURRENT
15.0-CURRENT
15.0-CURRENT
FreeBSD mowa219-gjp4-zbook-freebsd 15.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 15.0-CURRENT main-n269117-c0d8f5862997 GENERIC amd64 1500017 1500017
%

drmdolfan said:
… (1) Nobody has ever tried this …
Click to expand...

I never ran a FreeBSD 14 guest on a Mac host (that's why I hesitated before replying), I'll try the given ISO in a guest on the FreeBSD host that's here.

In the meantime: I can't think of an obvious reason for networking not working in this context; as you already know, the installed operating system seems to support the virtual network hardware.

Please watch this space (or maybe someone else can share their hands-on experience). Thanks
 
FreeBSD-14.0-RELEASE-amd64-bootonly.iso

bsdconfig in live mode prior to installation:
1712451451485.png

At this point, it's not obvious what to key:

1712451533187.png

I ignored the three hints in the border.

Instead, the space bar. Result:

1712451637544.png
 
I have barely touched virtual machines for years and not on apple hardware. One thing I remembered as a general concept was to try different virtual machine network adapters and review virtual machine network settings. Some default adapters seemed like a bad choice even for more common/commercial operating systems to have easy/good support of it.

You could try switching to another terminal to use command line tools to analyze what the state of the network is, but that definitely is not a 'simple' installation presentation at that point. Having data on the install media (=bigger install media) is always a more reliable way to get a system online.
 
Virtualisation aside, for a moment. IIRC despite a bug fix some time ago, it's too easy to use the TUI in a way that exposes a different bug.

Certainly, I encountered this problem in recent weeks with an old MacBook Pro. Something like:
  • if we inadvertently disable after enabling (above: not obvious what to key), then the TUI loses the ability to (re)enable.
The Mac is inches away, but cats are closer, so I resist the temptation to test right now. Later today, maybe (it's stupid O'clock in the morning) …
 
Why not simply use the installation image which contains base.txz and kernel.txz instead of fetching them during installation separately?

They are the same packages (creation time):

Rich (BB code): 
FreeBSD-14.0-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso       2023-Nov-10 09:25
FreeBSD-14.0-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso.xv    2023-Nov-10 09:25

Rich (BB code): 
BUILDDATE       9            2023-Nov-10 13:06
GITBRANCH       12           2023-Nov-10 13:06
MANIFEST        1046         2023-Nov-10 09:19
REVISION        13           2023-Nov-10 13:06
base-dbg.txz    272579508    2023-Nov-10 09:19
base.txz        199888992    2023-Nov-10 09:19
kernel-dbg.txz  105389572    2023-Nov-10 09:19
kernel.txz      54441304     2023-Nov-10 09:19
lib32-dbg.txz   22389984     2023-Nov-10 09:19
lib32.txz       62361112     2023-Nov-10 09:19
ports.txz       49404628     2023-Nov-10 09:19
src.txz         203465688    2023-Nov-10 09:19
tests.txz       17280220     2023-Nov-10 09:19
 

Confirmed​

grahamperrin said:
… MacBook Pro. Something like:
  • if we inadvertently disable after enabling …, then the TUI loses the ability to (re)enable.
Click to expand...

This bsdconfig netdev bug is trivially reproducible in VirtualBox, em0 by default.

Workaround:
  1. exit bsdconfig
  2. reboot -r
  3. again, live mode
  4. again, bsdconfig netdev
  5. enable, save, exit.
Maybe the same underlying cause as an open bug within this list: <https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=bsdconfig&list_id=682893>. A bugmeister was in Discord around four hours ago, I'll ask him.


Something more subtle than reboot -r should be possible for step (2).
 
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