Creating a jail via the TUI interface

Command

cbsd jconstruct-tui

This is the only command you need to remember. It launches an interactive ncurses dialog for step-by-step jail creation.

Required parameters

To create a basic jail, you only need to fill in one field:

  • jname — container name (e.g., jail1, web-server, db)

All other parameters have sensible defaults.

Commonly used parameters

After specifying the name, you typically configure:

Parameter Description Default Value
ip4_addr IPv4 address (and IPv6 if available) Automatically assigned from the nodeippool pool
vnet Enable/disable virtual network stack (VIMAGE) 0 (disabled)
baserw Base system mode: 0 — Read-Only from basejail + overlay, 1 — full write access 0
astart Auto-start jail on system boot 1

Other parameters

The TUI also allows configuring: host_hostname, ver (FreeBSD version), arch, interface, devfs_ruleset, zfs_snapsrc, zfs_encryption, nic_hwaddr, ci_gw4, pkg_bootstrap, mount_ports, applytpl, floatresolv, basename, various allow_* options, setting the root password, creating additional users, and enabling services.

It is recommended that only users familiar with the CBSD man page or the official FreeBSD Handbook documentation on jails modify these parameters.

Limitations

The command will not work if a file named CBSDfile exists in the current working directory. In this case, you must either change directories or remove the CBSDfile.

Overriding default values

All default parameters can be changed by creating a custom profile or file:

~cbsd/etc/jail-freebsd-default.conf

Reference template:

~cbsd/etc/defaults/jail-freebsd-default.conf

The override file inherits all parameters from defaults, allowing you to override only the necessary ones. This mechanism works identically for all three jail creation methods (TUI, CLI, CBSDfile).