Make bootable usb-key with liveCD image

prequel · Oct 30, 2006, 9:09 PM

I'd like to make a bootable usb-key with the liveCD image on it.
Has anyone done this successfully?
Thanks

hoba · Oct 30, 2006, 9:23 PM

Satu made a script to convert the livecd into a bootable image that can be written to a usb stick:

http://builder.freesbie.org/~saturnero/pfSense-iso2ufs.sh

you need a freebsd system to run the script but you can do this directly on an installed pfSense. just upload the script and the iso to a temp directory and use it with the following syntax:

./pfSense-iso2ufs.sh /path/of/the/iso yourown.img yourconfig.xml factorydefaultconfig.xml

yourownimage.img is the name for the outputfile that will be created.

yourconfig.xml will be the config that will be replaces with the default config that was present in the iso image (for example you could add a complete config or make the system come up with the correct assigne nics for your platform already).

factorydefaultconfig.xml will replace the default factory default settings from the iso image with this version.

After the script finished you will get an .img.gz file that you can use to physdiskwrite.

This image runs just like the livecd. You want be able to make changes to the config that will surviva a reboot. There's also an issue with the installer that for some reason won't run in this configuration.

I haven't used that script recently, not sure if it still will work with the latest version of pfSense but give it a try.

syntax · Oct 31, 2006, 12:10 AM

The LiveCD does not include physwritedisk, and trying a simple dd if=out.img of=/dev/da0 didn't work for me. When I mounted the drive afterwards I could see all the files, but I wasn't able to boot from it.

However, selecting to install from the LiveCD to the usb keychain did work, so it wasn't a BIOS issue. Is there a way to turn the 'installed' version of pfSense to have the same installation options as the Live CD, such that on a machine with a CD drive I can install to the USB keychain, and then move that USB keychain to my cd-less final machine and install via that?

That, or is there some equivilent of rawrite that I can use to write that live CD ISO straight to the keychain from Windows, Linux, or Mac?

jeroen234 · Oct 31, 2006, 6:12 AM

here you can download physdiskwrite

http://m0n0.ch/wall/physdiskwrite.php

butt afther writting you will need to chanche it so that its boots from the usb device and not from cdrom

the script hobba give you is dowing that

syntax · Oct 31, 2006, 3:50 PM

With the 1.0.1 Live CD, it hangs on:
GEOM_LABEL: Label for provider data da0a is ufs/pfSense.
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ufs/pfSense
md0.uzip: 1563 x 65536 blocks

Do you suppose there will be any "official" img files that would get released with the Live CD, embedded, and dev editions? I can only imagine that with the plethora of 1U racks without CD's flying around (like the Hacoms) that there would be some form of regular demand for this.

sullrich · Oct 31, 2006, 3:29 PM

No, we are not going to increase the release burden any further than what it is now.

It is a great deal of work to update all of those images every time we release. It takes an average of 3+ hours to build them all. Unfortunately time does not grow on tree's so we must draw a line somewhere.

hoba · Oct 31, 2006, 3:42 PM

@syntax:

I can only imagine that with the plethora of 1U racks without CD's flying around (like the Hacoms) that there would be some form of regular demand for this.

Your forgot one more option. These devices can boot over ethernet. There are even prebuild VMware machines that you can fire up as server to boot the livecd over ethernet. Haven't tried this yet but it might be worth a try.

Quickrun through the community vm's:
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/74
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/371