Overview

Linode doesn’t offer OpenBSD as an installation choice. These notes describe the creation of an OpenBSD VM on Linode using the Linode rescue image to bootstrap the OpenBSD installer.

OpenBSD Installation

  1. Create a new linode. The “Nanode 1GB” plan at $5/month is sufficient.

  2. Under the “Advanced” tab, delete the existing disks and create two new disks, both unformatted raw. The first should be 16 GB, named root. The second should be 1 GB, named install.

  3. Under the “Rescue” tab, set /dev/sda to the install disk and submit. The system should boot into Finnix where you can download and apply the OpenBSD install image. For example:

    root@ttyS0:~# dmesg | grep "sda"
[    1.455839] sd 0:0:0:1: [sda] 2097152 512-byte logical blocks: (1.07 GB/1.00)
<snip>
root@ttyS0:~# wget http://mirrors.syringanetworks.net/pub/OpenBSD/6.5/amd64/install65.fs
root@ttyS0:~# dd if=./install65.fs of=/dev/sda
922496+0 records in
922496+0 records out
472317952 bytes (472 MB) copied, 64.5331 s, 7.3 MB/s
root@ttyS0:~# shutdown -h now

  4. Under the “Advanced” tab, delete the existing “configuration” and create a new configuration with the following settings:

    Label: OpenBSD - Install
VM Mode: Full virtualization
Select a Kernel: Direct disk
Run Level: Run Default Level
Memory Limit: Do not set any limits on memory usage
Block Device Assignment:
    /dev/sda: boot
    /dev/sdb: install
    /dev/sdX: None
Root Device: /dev/sdb
Filesystem/Boot Helpers: No to all

  5. Boot the newly created configuration. From the console, perform a normal OpenBSD install using /dev/sda as the target disk.

  6. Under the “Advanced” tab, create a second configuration with the following settings:

    Label: OpenBSD - Normal Operation
VM Mode: Full virtualization
Select a Kernel: Direct disk
Run Level: Run Default Level
Memory Limit: Do not set any limits on memory usage
Block Device Assignment:
    /dev/sda: boot
    /dev/sdX: None
Root Device: /dev/sda
Filesystem/Boot Helpers: No to all

  7. Boot the new configuration. You should be able to login to the new system via SSH.