can't find '/etc/hostid' /boot/entropy size=0x1000
-
Hello, i am trying to install PFsense on my machine, but it doesn't work. It said installation complete when i installed it, but every single time i boot the device, i receive the following message :
can't find '/etc/hostid'
/boot/entropy size=0x1000.
Then the whole thing freezes and i have to shut it down by keeping the power button pressed.
I tried installing it with every single iso, but always get the same error. Be it, serial, vga, dvd, ADI, yet the problem isn't going away. I tried looking for solutions, but couldn't find anything online and the reddit community didn't bother to answer.
-
Obviously no guarantees, but this seems a host hardware that free bsd isn't 1000% liking.
I'd suggest going into the BIOS and tweaking some things around. Some sort of combination of UEFI/BIOS mode, SATA IDE/AHCI/RAID, secureboot, etc.
I would try the following combinations in order; and it may require a reload due to the obvious hardware changes:
UEFI and AHCI
UEFI and IDE
BIOS and AHCI
BIOS and IDEHonestly I can't even remember what mine is using for UEFI/BIOS....but generally since around 2015 or so, UEFI is hands down better.
-
@skogs well, at first it was a netgate gear which i changed it's software for VyOS, just to try it. And now i am trying to revert back to PFsense. When installing it, unlike only tutorials who simply press on install, i get the choice to either download it as UEFI or BIOS.
-
@skogs UPDATE : I was able to fix the problem. I don't know if this was the issue, but it worked. When formatting my USB drive, i used to always format it in FAT32, but this time i configured it in NTFS instead and it worked. I use a no name micro appliance firewall.
-
@bigmtl Glad you got it worked out. Makes even less sense to me now than before.
I'm particular and pretty much always use the ISO so wouldn't ever run into that issue.
Windows just plain gets in the way sometimes. :) -
I had the same issue on a SG4860-1U AFTER a cold shutdown. I reimaged the netgate appliance and it worked fine, rebooted and shutdown properly and everything was fine. When I pulled the power cable, got this error all of again. It seems the appliance cant withstand cold shutdowns. I am using a twins SSD, not sure if that is related.
Mysteriously, if I usie the power button as opposed to pull the cord for a cold shutdown, the issue doesnt happen. If I pull the damn cord, I need to reimage the device. Noticed it started happening after 21.05 upgrade, but I didnt cold shutdown on 21.02 though
-
I am having this same error and I have tried every bios setting that seemed relevant. I have an ASRock Q1900M that used to work fine with pfsense until the new 2.5 version was released. It actually broke my install when trying to upgrade from 2.4.4 to 2.5. I don't know what they changed but I don't think its a hardware issue. More likely since pfsense used to work its a software change that is causing an unnecessary hardware issue. I am at the frustration point of having to buy new hardware just to get pfsense running again.
-
@angryspec but did you do a full reinstall after each significant bios change?
I would still recommend doing the annoying reset the whole mobo to factory defaults, then fresh load. -
@skogs at first no, but eventually yes. I’ve been at this this for over two weeks in my spare time. I’ve tried different ssd’s, checked the ram, 3 different usb sticks, every iteration of uefi/legacy mode and ahci/ide. It was working fine until I upgraded. The upgrade broke the install to where it wouldn’t even boot. I just found a repository of old versions so I guess I either go back to 2.4.4 or buy new hardware.
-
@bigmtl I had the same thing so many times until I went to the boot menu and chose "usb key" not "UEFI usb key". UEFI never worked and I got the same error you experienced.
-
I had the exact same problem with an old ASRock UBox 111N.
None of the recommended and other BIOS changes helped.
Finally figured it out: switched to OPNSense.
I installed OPNSense from a memstick then my ASRock booted normally, connected to the GUI, etc.
I'd never heard of OPNSense until this pfSense problem. It's a fork from pfSense that happened in 2015. The code's much better so far, at least with older computers.
Whew.
-
@bigmtl I am trying to reload a SG-4860 via usb stick. Everything for the install finished and I'm able to do some configuring by hand....but after I started to restore the configuration from an "identical" machine the rebuilt one starts "hanging" right after the title msg. TURNS OUT it isn't actually hung as by accident I left the machine alone for several minutes and found that it had come up and the web interface was alive and working as was the router functionality that had been setup. What was happening is at the point the machine appeared to freeze, it was actually that the console USB Serial port is somehow becoming disabled and no more I/O happens until I reboot. This only starts once I start to import the previous config so further investigation may show what part of the config causes the problem.
Does anyone have any ideas? The twin brother machine's console from which I'm importing the backed up config seems to work fine. -
@handymandm hostid is required for ZFS. It seems to be a defect. workaround below
https://forum.netgate.com/topic/141691/defect-etc-rc-d-hostid-file-for-zfs-not-generated-from-uuid/4?_=1669295521699 -
@4o4rh
This just happened to me when trying to install latest pfsense to a iKoolcore R2max.
Had to go into single user mode and create the hostid as described in the referenced link. -
Most systems will show that error at boot because there is no uuid passed by the BIOS. It's harmless though, you shouldn't need to do anything.
-
@stephenw10
not entirely harmless: it failed to continue booting. After install, the reboot hung right after printing the message about /etc/hostid.
I then rebooted in single user mode, created /etc/hostid as described in the link mentioned earlier in this thread, only then did it reboot normally. -
I've never seen that. That was in a current version? Net installer?
-
@stephenw10
Yes, latest net installer, purchased (for USD 0) from netgate two days ago.
System is an R2max with N100, 8GB RAM, 128 GB SSD. -
Hmm, what error did you see when trying to install ZFS before setting a hostid?
-
@stephenw10 I didn't notice any errors during the setup process
(pfSense CE, ZFS, GPT, stripe, nda0). At the end I rebooted it, and then it hung.
