On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 3:25 PM, Michel Servaes
<[email protected]> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 12:21 PM, Stefan Baur
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hi,
I wanted to use pfSense as a m0n0wall replacement in a virtual
machine setup
(VMware Server 2.0.2 Linux host).
With m0n0wall, I had a virtual floppy disk so that m0n0wall thought
it was
saving its configuration data to a floppy.
After powering off the VM, I could loop-mount the floppy image from
the host
and save the config file somewhere else for backup purposes.
The idea behind that was that I don't have to back up the entire VM
image
when the config changes.
Trying to do this with pfSense 1.2.3 or a recent 2.0 Beta fails, as it
doesn't recognize the floppy:
FWIW
You could and try to save to an USB flash (let VM port the USB port to
your VM environment) ?
I thought that saving to an USB flash disk was one of the options...
I thought of that, however, there are a few problems with that idea:
1) It needs a physical USB flash disk, virtual USB flash disks are not
available in VMware Server 2.0.2.
2) Matching physical USB devices to VMs is rather error-prone, if you
have several of these devices attached to one server running several VMs.
3) I'm not 100% sure if I tried it with a USB stick, but I believe the
VMware image simply does not allow the use of external storage (be it
floppy, USB or a second hard disk).
(My guess is that whoever created the image thought "Hey, it's running
from a hard disk where it has unlimited writes, why would it need to
support external storage?")
Also, using a USB flash disk would still be a workaround - if you're
advertising "can save config to floppy", then it should just work(TM).
Kind Regards,
Stefan
