FreeBSD on Google Compute Engine

Nov 28, 2014 - freebsd gce

First you need to create a VirtualBox FreeBSD install using a 10G qcow format, use an SCSI controller for the install as the disk will be visible as da0 inside GCE.

On FreeBSD 10.1 I had to load virtio manually, so set this in /boot/loader.conf

`virtio_load="YES"
virtio_pci_load="YES"
virtio_blk_load="YES"
if_vtnet_load="YES"`

Copy your ssh key in your home user .ssh/authorized_keys, be sure to be in the wheel group.

On a Mac you need to install GNU tar (brew install gnu-tar), shutdown your VirtualBox vm and upload your image to GCE

`VBoxManage clonehd -format RAW ../VirtualBox\ VMs/FreeBSDGCE/BSDGCE.qcow
~/Downloads/disk.raw
gtar -Szcf freebsd.tar.gz disk.raw
gsutil mb gs://bsdimage
gsutil cp freebsd.tar.gz gs://bsdimage/gce-bsd.tar.gz
gcutil addimage freebsd  gs://bsdimage/gce-bsd.tar.gz`

You should now see “freebsd” as available install image in your console