freebsd man page for pc-sysinstall

PC-SYSINSTALL(8)					    BSD System Manager's Manual 					  PC-SYSINSTALL(8)

NAME
     pc-sysinstall -- System installer backend

SYNOPSIS
     pc-sysinstall [-c file] [command]

DESCRIPTION
     The pc-sysinstall utility is a hybrid backend for installing FreeBSD.  When run in install mode it takes a configuration file and performs an
     installation according to the parameters specified in the configuration file.  When called with one of the system query commands it provides
     information about the system to aid a front end in building an appropriate configuration file.

     The following options are available:

     -c file
	     Perform an installation as directed by file.

COMMANDS
     The command can be any one of the following:

     help    Display a list of all commands.

     help command
	     Display the help data for the specified command.

     disk-list
	     Provide a listing of the storage devices detected on this system.

     disk-part disk
	     Queries the specified storage device and returns information about its partitions.

     disk-info disk
	     Returns information about a storage device's size, cylinders, heads, and sectors.

     detect-laptop
	     Tests to see if this system is a laptop or desktop.

     detect-emulation
	     Tests to see if this system is running in an emulator

     detect-nics
	     Returns a listing of the detected network cards on this system.

     list-components
	     Returns a listing of the available components which can be installed.

     list-rsync-backups user host port
	     Returns a listing of available rsync-backups on the target server in the life-preserver/ directory.

     list-tzones
	     Returns a listing of available timezones.

     query-langs
	     Returns a list of languages that the installer supports.

     sys-mem
	     Returns the size of installed system RAM in MegaBytes.

     test-netup
	     test if an internet connection is available.

     update-part-list
	     Returns a list of PC-BSD and FreeBSD installs on this system for updates.

     xkeyboard-layouts
	     Returns a list of keyboard layouts that xorg supports.

     xkeyboard-models
	     Returns a list of keyboard models that xorg supports.

     xkeyboard-variants
	     Returns a list of keyboard variants that xorg supports.

     create-part disk size
	     Create a new MBR primary slice on the target disk using size MB.

     delete-part partition
	     Delete the disk partition specified.  If this is the last partition, the disk partition layout will also be scrubbed, leaving a clean
	     disk ready for MBR or GPT file system layouts.

     start-autoinstall file
	     Start an automated installation with the specified file.  Normally only used by automated install scripts.

     setup-ssh-keys user host port
	     Setup SSH without a password for the target host, user, and port.	Used to prompt the user to log into a server before doing a rsync
	     + ssh restore.

HISTORY
     This version of pc-sysinstall first appeared in FreeBSD 9.0.

AUTHORS
     Kris Moore <kmoore@FreeBSD.org>

BUGS
     This utility was written to install PC-BSD and has seen limited use as an installer for FreeBSD.  It's likely that usage to install FreeBSD
     will expose edge cases that PC-BSD doesn't, as well as generate feature requests based on unforeseen needs.

BSD
								   June 24, 2010							       BSD