A hands-on technical walkthrough that dissects OpenBSD's bsd.rd installation kernel without rebooting. The guide demonstrates how to extract and examine each layer—from gzip compression through ELF binary structure to the embedded FFS miniroot filesystem—using standard Unix tools like rdsetroot, vnconfig, and disklabel. Readers
Table of contents
What this lab is aboutFollow the SEE ALSO linksStep 1 — What does bsd.rd look like on disk?Step 2 — Strip the gzip layerStep 3 — Look at the ELF headerStep 4 — How big is the embedded ramdisk?Step 5 — Extract the minirootStep 6 — Mount and explore the minirootStep 7 — Clean upPutting it all togetherGoing furtherSort: