HOWTO: make a headless boot install disk for FreeBSD 5.3

A more detailed description right now isn't feasible as I haven't finished my cluster. The handbook on advanced installations is pretty accurate except for what it takes to do make the boot.flp correct for headless installs.

Create the boot.flp image just like in the handbook. Then mount the floppy. Then edit the loader.conf file on the floppy.
ee /mnt/boot/loader.conf
or
ee /floppy/boot/loader.conf
Yours may vary slightly. I use ee (easy editor), you can replace that with your favorite editor. In the file add this line to the top of the file,
console="comconsole"
Now that line will cause it to become a console only boot. If you actually have a monitor connected you will see it start to boot and then appear to stop. It goes to continue it's information display through the serial port. This information is carried on to the permanent installation. Meaning after you have fully installed FreeBSD 5.3 this way you will only see the dmesg in the serial console. While you will be able to load FreeBSD this way once the install is done, you can only see the dmesg. You cannot log in via the console port without altering the getty files. You can if you enabled sshd log in via ssh. You can always go into the /boot/loader.conf of the hard disk and remove the console line. However on a headless install this is kinda silly.

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