INSTALLATION GUIDE

A fresh drive.
A private seed.

The violetBSD Image Writer writes a compatible .img or .img.gz, adds unique private entropy for this installation, and verifies the entire personalized image.

Before you write

Extract the release ZIP first. Use a 32 GB or larger external drive with 512-byte logical sectors. Verify the published SHA256 checksums. A compressed input needs temporary space for the full 16 GiB image. The destination will be erased.

Run the native application

• Linux x86-64: requires glibc and GTK 3. Unmount all destination partitions, make the binary executable, and run it from a graphical terminal:

chmod +x violetbsd-image-writer-linux-x86_64
sudo ./violetbsd-image-writer-linux-x86_64

• macOS: unmount the external disk in Disk Utility, then run from Terminal:

chmod +x violetbsd-image-writer-macos-universal
sudo ./violetbsd-image-writer-macos-universal

• Windows x86-64: open the executable and accept the administrator prompt.

Choose the image and destination, then confirm the drive to erase. The tool offers external/removable drives only. Linux rejects mounted filesystems, active swap and mapped devices. macOS APFS destinations are excluded. Windows needs a drive that supports being taken offline; disconnect it after the write.

These development binaries are not publisher-signed. Physical-device writing by the Go edition still needs acceptance testing on each platform. Do not use a failed or interrupted destination until it has been rewritten successfully.

Verify entropy after boot

After a normal multi-user boot, log in as root at the violetBSD console. These commands do not reveal the private seed.

First, confirm the kernel has enough credited entropy:

sysctl kern.entropy.needed
# Expected: kern.entropy.needed = 0

Confirm the boot service loaded the seed:

grep -F 'Loaded entropy from /var/db/entropy-file.' /var/run/rc.log

Look for that message in the log or on the boot console. An early entropy warning can appear before the disk seed is loaded.

Check permissions, numeric ownership and size:

stat -f '%Sp %u:%g %z' /var/db/entropy-file
# Expected: -rw------- 0:0 536

The file should be mode 0600, owned by root:wheel, and 536 bytes long. File existence alone is not proof of successful entropy loading; also check the kernel value and load message.

The seed changes during boot. Do not compare its post-boot checksum with the original, copy it between machines, or share its contents. No manual seeding is needed after a successful write and boot.

If the checks fail

grep -Ei 'random_seed|entropy|rndctl' /var/run/rc.log
ls -ln /var/db/entropy-file
mount

Check that you booted the correct drive, the root filesystem is writable, and normal multi-user boot completed. Do not generate SSH keys or enable cryptographic services until kern.entropy.needed is zero. A generic image writer does not replace the public image’s zero-credit placeholder.

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