pfsense on Compact flash?

neil1454

Is it still possible to install pfsense on a compact flash card. I had pf sense installed a long while ago but apparently I used a nanobsd version which I cannot remember to be honest.

Can anyone please help me preferably with an idiots guide ?

Many thanks in advance

viragomann

@neil1454
In the past there were images with default settings provided for different card sizes, which you could download and write to your CF card.

This is not the case anymore. But anyway you can plug the CF card into your device and install pfSense from USB then like on any other disk.
Select UFS filesystem to be used and after the installation go to System > Advanced > Miscellaneous and enable RAM Disks usage to avoid frequently write activities.

stephenw10

Yup, it is still possible, I have some systems here running from CF. But, yes, you need to take steps to avoid excess writes. In addition to use UFS and ramdisks I would also remove the SWAP partition at install. Do not run packages that write a lot of logs.
I will also add the CF is almost unbelievably slow! So be prepared for upgrades to take waaaay longer than you expect. Normal boot and running is fine though.

Steve