low memory install (512MB) from dvd image on virtualbox/cloud

[dada216]

I seem not to be able to wrap my head around what I have to do to make this work.

I will start to use opnsense as a vpn hub for my network hosted on a vps with low memory (512MB), the network is my own personal homelab/vps network so there won't be a lot going on so I think 512MB will be enough.

I want to try it on a similar local vm first so I made one with virtualbox, 512MB 10GB disk, I plan to swap a lot to it, the vps where I'll host it as NVMe disks.

the live cd boots allright, but I get the message that you require at least 30GB disk or 1GB ram to not make the installation fail, I've read here that in that case swap can be used and I tried to make a 2GB file, I'm trying with no success, I'm used to linux admin and the bsd world is new to me, so I need help with the commands here.

If I just start the install and ignore the warning it obviously fail, immediately.
if I just use the GUI to make a swap (setting, system, misc, make 2G swap) it says I need to reboot, so no good there, the system reboots from dvd and doesn't see/keep/uses the swap file.

I made it manually and immediately made it available with

Code: [Select]

swapon -aL and the installation went forward, but halfway through it failed with another error and it seems to me that's still swap related, as I exited the installer lots of swap errors were thrown on the console.

I'm under the impression that the 2GB swap file is created in some tmp root filesystem which is actually on my disk and during installation when that same disk gets formatted (i used automatic install) it can't keep going because it's actually using the swap residing on that file...

edit: I am still learning *bsd tools and I didn't know about sade, I can now format the disk from the live environment and add my swap partition, attach it to the live environment with swapon -lA but i get the following warning


warning: total configured swap (1116672 pages) exceeds maximum recommended amount (855904 pages).
warning: increase kern.maxswzone or reduce amount of swap.

which is something I should do at boot time? right? can't reboot the live environment so...

anyway beside not all the swap being used I still can't get the install to work, if I select manual install what are the steps?
I should NOT format the disk, correct? I should then NOT repartition it but just mount root and swap as made earlier with sade, correct?
if I do that the installer fails at

bsdlbels -w ada0 (there's one more flag but i can't remember it now)



how do I go about using the installer in a 512MB environment (less since it's virtualized)?
how do I go about making a huge swap partition (not file) under opnsense and use that as swap during installation?
I think I'd like to use a huge swap partition (2 GB) anyway since the vps will only have 512MB, that will solve most issues with low memory, correct? (I know I'd loose speed but that's allright)

[franco]

Use 1G RAM to install, then reassign to 512MB after install if think it is enough.

I don't understand the swap remark. If you want to swap you essentially slow things down more than needed.

Swapping is like driving down a highway stuck in 1st gear.


Cheers,
Franco

[fabian]

My installation needs ~ 550 MB memory without doing anything. This means whatever you plan to do, it will write something to the swap and it will be really slow.