PF Sense Install Hang

[elliott35]

I am trying to build a PF Sense router that uses an SSD as the boot drive. 

 

I have created an install USB using the 64Bit, VGA, memstick installer download file from the PF sense website (pfSense-CE-memstick-2.4.3-RELEASE-amd64.img).

 

The computer is built with a 3570K, 8Gb of RAM, and a 128GB Sandisk SSD, Trendnet NIC, Onboard WIFI (some Asrock MOBO built in wifi card circa 2012).

 

It Hangs Here... The computer gods hate me apparently...

 

 

Sorry for the huge picture of my TV, But does anyone have an idea of what I'm doing wrong?

 

Thanks for the help!

 

 

[Falconevo]

Set boot mode to legacy instead of UEFI, should sort it

[elliott35]

I made a DVD using the ISO and installed off of that instead, it worked. Changing to Legacy probably would have had the same effect. 

 

Thanks,

[Alex Atkin UK]

That's an insanely beefy router you will have there.  Out of curiosity what speed broadband will it be handling?

 

Also bear in mind the WiFi in pfSense is next to useless even if you get it to work, it doesn't support 802.11n or 802.11ac AFAIK.  So if you plan to use WiFi you really need a dedicated Access Point or an old router configured in Access Point mode / with DHCP turned off and plugged into the LAN using one of the LAN ports.

[jde3]

It will support n (on the right cards) but PFSense removed a lot of the wifi drivers from the FreeBSD kernel. You'd need the developer image to restore them.

[elliott35]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

That's an insanely beefy router you will have there.  Out of curiosity what speed broadband will it be handling?

 

Also bear in mind the WiFi in pfSense is next to useless even if you get it to work, it doesn't support 802.11n or 802.11ac AFAIK.  So if you plan to use WiFi you really need a dedicated Access Point or an old router configured in Access Point mode / with DHCP turned off and plugged into the LAN using one of the LAN ports.

Yea, it was an accident really. I got fed the F up with crappy routers so I decided to repurpose my HTPC as a beast router. I am running some decent packages on it so its not a complete waste. I have a Gigabit fiber connection to the house.

1 hour ago, jde3 said:

It will support n (on the right cards) but PFSense removed a lot of the wifi drivers from the FreeBSD kernel. You'd need the developer image to restore them.

The wifi card is just because it's preinstalled on the mobo, I didn't really plan on using it. Although if I could get it working well I might consider turning it on, the box is in one of the worst served parts of the house.

[jde3]

3 hours ago, elliott35 said:

Yea, it was an accident really. I got fed the F up with crappy routers so I decided to repurpose my HTPC as a beast router. I am running some decent packages on it so its not a complete waste. I have a Gigabit fiber connection to the house.

The wifi card is just because it's preinstalled on the mobo, I didn't really plan on using it. Although if I could get it working well I might consider turning it on, the box is in one of the worst served parts of the house.

I wish PFSense team would work on this a little more. FreeBSD is a server OS so servers tend to not get a lot of wifi love.. (and everyone knows the total shit show wifi is on Linux) but PF Sense can be uses as a captive wifi portal. I've used it as a fallback wifi for a finicky router that keep needed to be reboot and it was very very stable and reliable if you had compatible hardware. I set it up for a relative and it would operate for +6 mo at a time without reboots with wifi working just fine the entire time.

 

Perhaps if more people start using TrueOS and GhostBSD on laptops FreeBSD's wifi support will improve.

[Alex Atkin UK]

For client use WiFi on Linux generally isn't too bad.  For Access Point however its a real mess, no doubt because the vendors make a tidy profit for the binary drivers in the vast majority of WiFi router/Access Points out there so they don't want the stock drivers to work just as well.

 

The pfSense situation is a drag, as I'd swap my ITX board for an mATX if I could slap an Atheros 802.11ac card in there.  My WiFi performance is getting majorly CPU bottlenecked on my TP-Link Archer C7.  I have pondered just putting one in my Linux server but I don't want to spend the money if I can't be sure it will work better than what I already have.  When I tried the C7s card in Linux it didn't work well at all.

 

I guess that machine isn't quite so overkill for Gigabit, especially if you plan to do anything REALLY heavy like packet inspection.

[jde3]

Generally you want an external access point (or a router in bridge mode) Ubiquity make good waps. FreeBSD does have initial support for ac but it's not in FreeBSD 11 that PFSense is based on.

[Alex Atkin UK]

If I were buying one tomorrow I would most likely go Ubiquity after having huge success with their LiteBeam devices.  Doubly so as their APs can be so nicely ceiling mounted.