Re: NetBSD VPS in Australia

[Jeff Rizzo <riz%boogers.sf.ca.us@localhost>]

On 11/4/12 1:17 AM, Ruben Schade wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> Do anyone have any experience here running NetBSD in a VPS located in
> Australia, either as a supported OS or in a generic VPS? My current VPS
> provider Mammoth has been reliable and fast, but CentOS has me missing
> NetBSD something fierce.

Sorry, don't know anything about Australia.  :)
> If not, hypothetically speaking would it be possible to bootstrap NetBSD
> in a Linux VPS, or would it be needlessly complex? I remember reading
> somewhere that someone did this, but I haven't been able to find it.

It's definitely doable, it can be complex depending how many roadblocks 
the provider puts in your way.  There's two different things you need:  
the ability to control what kernel is booted, and console access.  (You 
could probably do it without console access, but that falls under 
"needlessly complex" In my book)

If your provider allows you to change your kernel, it *should* be just a 
matter of dropping a netbsd xen INSTALL kernel where the booter can find 
it, and using that to install over the console. Depending whether your 
provider uses a version of pvgrub that supports booting from FFS, you 
may need an ext2fs boot partition (that only has the kernel in it).  I 
encourage you to play around...

+j

> Apologies if I should have posted this in regional-au, but this list
> seems to have more traffic.
>
>
> --
> Cheers,
> Ruben Schade
> http://rubenschade.com/
> http://alpha.app.net/rubens
> I may be wrong, but I'm never uncertain.