On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 6:51 AM, stan <stanb@panix.com> wrote:
quoted text
> OK with one resevation you have convinced me. Let's eliminate teh
> reservation. One of the features of the system I chose was that it mounts
> the flas RO, and uses memory filesystems for volatile stuff. Is this no
> longer important? I have 2 existing soekris systems that have been in
> service for years, and have not given any trouble. I want the new ones to
> be equally troubel free. Can i acomplish this with a stnadard install?
>
> second, I have no idea how to boot a Soekris box from install media. There
> is no floppy, no CD... how do I acomplish this?
>

Here's a solution I was told from #openbsd on Freenode, on your local
machine (assuming you run OpenBSD on a machine somewhere):

1) dd if=/dev/zero of=bsdrd-boot.img bs=1024 count=20480
2) vnconfig svnd0 bsdrd-boot.img
3) print 'z\na\n\n\n\n\nw\n' | disklabel -E svnd0
4) newfs svnd0a
5) mount /dev/svnd0a /mnt
6) cp /bsd.rd /boot /mnt
7) /usr/mdec/installboot -v /mnt/boot /usr/mdec/biosboot svnd0
8) mkdir /mnt/etc && print 'stty com0 9600\nset tty com0\n' > /mnt/etc/boot.conf
9) umount /mnt
10) # insert CF card into a card reader
11) dd if=bsdrd-boot.img of=/dev/sdXc
12) # Remove CF card and insert into your Soekris box and boot it up
13) ...
14) Profit!

Once you've done this you'll be able to continue the install over a
serial console.  Null modem cables are cheap.  It would also be
trivial to wire up an RJ-45 connector to a 9-pin serial port connector
if you have a Cisco rollover cable handy.

-- 
Aaron Mason - Programmer, open source addict
I've taken my software vows - for beta or for worse