Router Issues

[Bob Q Kazoo]

Okay, so here's the situation:

I was given the task to make a private network in our school for the tech ed department and my plan was to have a NAS within our private network to store all of our data for the room. I was going to make a router running off PFSense but are having issues getting it to read as a boot device. The harddrive has nothing on it, the hardware is an AMD Phenom II 64-Bit and 4GB of RAM. I understand that the CPU is old and weak but its good enough for a router. I was wondering if anyone had any idea or ideas on how to actually boot PFSense onto the computer. I've used a disk and a USB and had no luck. Thanks for the help

 

                  -BobQ

[KirbyTech]

Good chance you didn't make/use the USB correct if you did then change the boot order to the hard drive and it should boot right up. Can you provide images showing what you see/have done.

[beavo451]

It's like a windows install. You have to create a boot usb, boot from the usb drive, and install pfsense onto the hard drive.

[tt2468]

1 hour ago, beavo451 said:

It's like a windows install. You have to create a boot usb, boot from the usb drive, and install pfsense onto the hard drive.

He has already done that though. He is saying that his installer is broken.

[beavo451]

4 hours ago, Kyle Manning said:

He has already done that though. He is saying that his installer is broken.

He didn't actually say he installed it. He just says "having issues getting it to read as a boot device".  He could have copied the installer onto a harddrive and expected it boot for all we know. 

[mlinton]

Here is what I would do,

Get your hands on 2 USB thumb drives -- although some people have used Sandisk, I have had a hard time getting them to boot but many other brands work fine. (For the record, I think that Sandisk makes some great stuff, but some software just wont boot from them).

1) Download pfsense (AMD64 version)

2) Use LiLi USB Creator (free) to make your pfsense ISO bootable on USB drive 1.

3) Get rid of the hard drive completely.

4) Plug both USB drives into the computer and boot it up.

      - The computer should boot to the drive with the installer on it since there are no other options.  If it fails to boot, make sure that the drive is in the list of bootable devices within your BOIS.

5) Run the installer (or use option 99 if pfsense boots all the way to the main menu)

6) Use the second USB drive as your installation target (USB drive 2) -- the installer will likely pick it up automatically since its the only other storage device.

7) When it ask you to remove the installation drive, remove drive 1, leave drive 2 and reboot.

 

See what happens.  Since pfsense runs in a rom, there is very little reason to run it on a hard drive unless you are installing a lot of other applications besides the firewall.  Based on your description, it sounds like this will work fine for you.  8 GB drives work great.

 

Mark

[beavo451]

2 hours ago, mlinton said:

Here is what I would do,

Get your hands on 2 USB thumb drives -- although some people have used Sandisk, I have had a hard time getting them to boot but many other brands work fine. (For the record, I think that Sandisk makes some great stuff, but some software just wont boot from them).

1) Download pfsense (AMD64 version)

2) Use LiLi USB Creator (free) to make your pfsense ISO bootable on USB drive 1.

3) Get rid of the hard drive completely.

4) Plug both USB drives into the computer and boot it up.

      - The computer should boot to the drive with the installer on it since there are no other options.  If it fails to boot, make sure that the drive is in the list of bootable devices within your BOIS.

5) Run the installer (or use option 99 if pfsense boots all the way to the main menu)

6) Use the second USB drive as your installation target (USB drive 2) -- the installer will likely pick it up automatically since its the only other storage device.

7) When it ask you to remove the installation drive, remove drive 1, leave drive 2 and reboot.

 

See what happens.  Since pfsense runs in a rom, there is very little reason to run it on a hard drive unless you are installing a lot of other applications besides the firewall.  Based on your description, it sounds like this will work fine for you.  8 GB drives work great.

 

Mark

You use a hard drive with PFSense due to the amount of writes it does when logging.

[mlinton]

9 hours ago, beavo451 said:

You use a hard drive with PFSense due to the amount of writes it does when logging.

I see what you are saying, but in his environment (unless it is much larger than I am assuming) the amount of logging is not going to wear down a USB thumb drive.  The only deployment that I have done with pfsense that required a hard drive was for a non-profit that required an excessive amount of logging, they were also running snort and additional syslog servers -- but we still had the pfsense image on USB drive.

 

As a reference, the pfsense box I am running at our office has been logging all blocked firewall and system activity for 3 years with user and server activity on a a cheap Kingston drive -- although the box itself is due for an upgrade, the drive has been fine.

 

So, I suppose that it comes down to his workload?

[Bob Q Kazoo]

On 3/5/2016 at 7:19 PM, mlinton said:

Here is what I would do,

Get your hands on 2 USB thumb drives -- although some people have used Sandisk, I have had a hard time getting them to boot but many other brands work fine. (For the record, I think that Sandisk makes some great stuff, but some software just wont boot from them).

1) Download pfsense (AMD64 version)

2) Use LiLi USB Creator (free) to make your pfsense ISO bootable on USB drive 1.

3) Get rid of the hard drive completely.

4) Plug both USB drives into the computer and boot it up.

      - The computer should boot to the drive with the installer on it since there are no other options.  If it fails to boot, make sure that the drive is in the list of bootable devices within your BOIS.

5) Run the installer (or use option 99 if pfsense boots all the way to the main menu)

6) Use the second USB drive as your installation target (USB drive 2) -- the installer will likely pick it up automatically since its the only other storage device.

7) When it ask you to remove the installation drive, remove drive 1, leave drive 2 and reboot.

 

See what happens.  Since pfsense runs in a rom, there is very little reason to run it on a hard drive unless you are installing a lot of other applications besides the firewall.  Based on your description, it sounds like this will work fine for you.  8 GB drives work great.

 

Mark

I was using an 8gb drive but was unsuccessful so far. Now I was making it a bootable using what I remember as Rufus (Not positive if that is the correct software) I will try a different version of PFSense next but if the problem continues, I will reply back with the results. Thanks so much and thanks to anyone else that posted in this thread, it's great to see just how helpful people are willing to be

[mlinton]

Just checking in -- did you get your firewall figured out?

 

Mark

[Bob Q Kazoo]

On 3/9/2016 at 8:12 AM, mlinton said:

Just checking in -- did you get your firewall figured out?

 

Mark

I haven't gotten the chance yet because the teacher has been busy with other events going on at school. I'm going to most likely change the cpu/mobo to an intel based processor and ddr2 ram

 

                         -BobQ

[Bob Q Kazoo]

On 3/15/2016 at 10:38 AM, Bob Q Kazoo said:

I haven't gotten the chance yet because the teacher has been busy with other events going on at school. I'm going to most likely change the cpu/mobo to an intel based processor and ddr2 ram

 

                         -BobQ

So far, I've tried several versions of the 64 bit version and the 32 bit versions and still have no luck. Most likely going to switch to the Intel based system. I'll try to take some pictures of the BIOS config so you guys can look and see if there's anything wrong.