I have successfully installed pfSense v2.0.1 on my net6501 and I thought I would share my notes that might help someone else. I used a 4GB USB flash memory device (you can go as low as about 512MB) for installation on a 16GB mSATA flash disk installed in slot0. If the net6501 BIOS does not correctly identify your USB memory device or size at POST time, save yourself a bunch of trouble and get one that it does recognize. The bare pfSense install is about 187MB, so it is only occupying only 2% of my 16GB flash.
First, note that all serial console support baked into the FreeBSD kernels runs at 9600 baud by default. (1) Download a special _all serial console_ pfSense from here: http://files.pfsense.org/jimp/pfSense-memstick-serial-2.0.1-RELEASE-i386.img.gz Later release versions may properly support a serial console, so you might want to check for that. Decompress (gunzip) the image on your host system. (2) On a Linux or FreeBSD sysetm, plug your USB flash device into a port and check your syslog to identify the raw device, i.e. /dev/sdf and not a partition like /dev/sdf0. As root, transfer the decompressed image using like this: "dd if=pfSense-memstick-serial-2.0.1-RELEASE-i386.img of=/dev/sdf bs=1k". Wait for completion and possibly "sync" to make sure the I/O is flushed, it's about 260MB. If you're running Windows or Mac, do something equivalent. (3) Plug the USB device into the net6501, and reboot. Use ctrl-p to enter the BIOS monitor, and set the console speed to 9600 baud: "set conspeed=9600" then "reboot". Reset the speed of your serial console to 9600. Next boot cycle, enter the monitor and "boot 81" since 80 should be the mSATA (or SATA if you installed a SATA disk) device. Before doing that, you can save yourself some trouble later and set the hardware date and time to the correct UTC (GMT) time with the "time" and "date" BIOS commands. (4) pfSense should boot up from the USB memory, and you can either test drive it or install a full version, I chose to install on the mSATA. Reboot and you should end up running the pfSense serial console "configurator". You can do a lot of the firewall configuration here but it is much easier to get a minimum configuration set up and then use the "webConfigurator". (5) By this point, if you're like me, 9600 baud is giving you a rash and reminding you of days best long forgotten when you spent big money on a 9600 baud modem. So I set everything up for 115200 baud. First, shell out of the configure menu with option 8. From the shell, edit /boot/loader.conf.local and add the following 3 lines to the end of it: comconsole_speed=115200 legal.intel_wpi.license_ack=1 legal.intel_ipw.license_ack=1 (The last two lines are a net6501ism that eliminates some noise in the dmesg bootlog). For good measure, I'm not sure if this is necessary, I modified the /etc/gettytab to change the "bootupcli" entry from "std.9600" to "std.115200". Exit from the shell and reboot (5), and from the BIOS now "set conspeed=115200" and reboot. Reset your serial terminal speed to 115200 baud. Everything should go smoothly now, with the exception of the FreeBSD bootloader which is still baked at 9600, but once the kernel loader starts, the speed will be set properly. From the pfSense console menu, select (1) to assign at least your LAN interface and (2) to assign an IP to it (say W.X.Y.Z). Then you can use a web browser to connect to "https://W.X.Y.Z"; and use the "webConfigurator". I would suggest starting with the System -> Setup Wizard to get the ball rolling. I selected 115200 because I wasn't sure how fast the TIA-232 transceivers on the net6501 could be reliably operated, nor do I know what are the upper limits for the hardware serial port clocks or the FreeBSD drivers. I do know some of the switched capacitor transceivers are limited to 150 - 200kbps. I hope this helps. Andrew _______________________________________________ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
