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    Replacing hard drive with CF card

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Problems Installing or Upgrading pfSense Software
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    • J
      jan.gestre
      last edited by

      my question is kinda newbie, i just need to clarify this thing which has been bugging me for some time so here it goes, i'm planning to purchase a CF card to replace the hard drive install of pfsense so my question is when i install pfsense on the new CF card which image do i need, the live cd install which i used in my hard drive? or the embedded image? and would a 512 MB CF Card do the job? does a CF card install need a swap space?

      TIA

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      • R
        rsw686
        last edited by

        Since your running the full install currently your using the VGA output. If you load the embedded image to the CF card you will end up with serial console output.

        What you need to do is install it from the live cd and change /etc/platform to embedded. That way you don't kill the CF card writing it numerous times.

        I would assume you would not want to create the swap partition when using the live cd installer.

        I haven't done this before so somebody who has might be able to give you the exact steps to get this working.

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        • H
          hoba
          last edited by

          You should run the embedded image for this. 128MB cf-card is enough for this. Just flash the card and boot it up in your system.

          There will be some differences from the hdd install when runngn the embedded image:

          • console output is at com1 (video will stop once it is startig to boot the kernel. this is normal)
          • you won't be able to use packages as the embedded installs don't offer this feature
          • the filesystem will be RO to not kill the cf-card with too many writecycles
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          • J
            jan.gestre
            last edited by

            @hoba:

            You should run the embedded image for this. 128MB cf-card is enough for this. Just flash the card and boot it up in your system.

            it will be my first time to flash a cf card, how will i do this? meaning how to flash/reflash a cf card?

            TIA

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            • H
              hoba
              last edited by

              See http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Installing_pfSense for how to flash the image.

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              • W
                wlee618
                last edited by

                @jan:

                my question is kinda newbie, i just need to clarify this thing which has been bugging me for some time so here it goes, i'm planning to purchase a CF card to replace the hard drive install of pfsense so my question is when i install pfsense on the new CF card which image do i need, the live cd install which i used in my hard drive? or the embedded image? and would a 512 MB CF Card do the job? does a CF card install need a swap space?

                TIA

                I am doing the same exact thing of using a 512MB CF Card with IDE-CF card reader.  i have gotten all kinds of error messages during the install. Is there any tricks that can make this less painful?

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                • H
                  hoba
                  last edited by

                  Use the embedded image. If you use a full install your card will wear out sooner or later. If you still have problems try setting your bios to lba for the cf-drive and set it to the lowest available PIO mode. Disable UDMA and so on. Most cf-cards/readers don't support it.

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                  • N
                    nima.m
                    last edited by

                    Just little curious

                    If I install full version of pfsense on a CF card, how long those it take until my card get wear out ?

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                    • H
                      hoba
                      last edited by

                      Depends on you card and what additional packages you install. We never have measures write cycles of a full install. We just tried to lower those for embedded installations by mounting the volume readonly and using memory for frequently written logs and such.

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                      • D
                        databeestje
                        last edited by

                        Mine is not dead yet. So even if you need to replace it on a yearly basis that's not really a financial back breaker.

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                        • N
                          nima.m
                          last edited by

                          databeestje,

                          Have you used the full version of pfsense on a CF card for one year without getting any problem ?

                          If so, that cool.
                          In Sweden, you can buy a SANDISK COMPACTFLASH 512MB for 21$
                          So, it's very cheap and I don't mind to use it only for one year.

                          I thought that If you use pfsense non embedded with CF card, you would destroy the card in one month or two.

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                          • H
                            hoba
                            last edited by

                            I'm using my cfcards extensively for testing, some with full install and even if not they are sometimes rewritten several times a day. I have nevver had any issues with one of them and I'm torturing them for more than 2 years now like this. You probably should always have a backed up config.xml handy and in a production environment this is a no go but it looks like cfcards nowadays can handle quite a lot of write cycles.

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                            • C
                              cheeky
                              last edited by

                              I'm also thinking of using CF card as a replacement for my usual hard disk installations of pfsense.
                              Is it more reliable than hard disk installs? What hardware do i need to connect a CF card as a bootable medium for my firewall?
                              I encounter frequent software crashes of my pfsense firewalls, even all hardware are new.
                              Thank you very much.

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                              • H
                                hoba
                                last edited by

                                Use an IDE-CF-adaptor like the ones pc-engines sell: http://pcengines.ch/cflash.htm
                                The cfcard will then be seen by the bios like a hdd. It's of course not hotplugable.

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                                • C
                                  cheeky
                                  last edited by

                                  Thanks, Hoba.
                                  My problem is that there is no locally available CF to IDE adapter here in the Philippines. :o
                                  Is it possible to use a USB drive (via the USB port) as a replacement for the hard drive, and would it be reliable enough?
                                  Thanks again.

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                                  • H
                                    hoba
                                    last edited by

                                    Not sure, mainly depends on your boards bios and so on. USB support is not the greatest in freebsd currently. Haven't tried that yet.

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                                    • C
                                      cheeky
                                      last edited by

                                      Firstly, pfsense ROCKS!
                                      Would you recommend that i replace my hard-disk-installed pfsense with the one of an embedded version install using a compact flash card as the hard disk (via CF to IDE adapter)?
                                      I'm using pfsense firewalls (all hd installs) on all of my 5 internet cafe's here in the Philippines.
                                      What i observed is that hd installs are very prone to software corruption due to power outtage, incorrect shutdown, or sometimes even a normal power cycle corrupts the pfsense software. We usually turns off the firewall at night.
                                      All hardware that i am using is relatively new and without any defects  since i considers pfsense as a critical part of my cafe operation.
                                      I don't use any packages, only basic config of traffic shaping and load balancer. Traffic is only max of 2 mbps  download and 1 mbps upload.
                                      Would my systems be more corruption-free using CF since it would be loaded as read only?
                                      Is there a way to make my hd installs load as read only after configuring everything so as to avoid the corruption?
                                      Thanks in advance, still a newbie here.

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                                      • H
                                        heiko
                                        last edited by

                                        Also you can setup pfsense with "Disk-on-module". Not very fast, but stable, and writecycles are not a problem.
                                        Greetings
                                        heiko

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                                        • N
                                          nima.m
                                          last edited by

                                          cheeky,

                                          Is there a way to make my hd installs load as read
                                          only after configuring everything so as to avoid the corruption?

                                          I think so, I have test what you ask with 1.0.1-SNAPSHOT-03-08-2007
                                          in a couple of days without any problem.

                                          Maybe Hoba can also confirm this, he is the expert here.

                                          this is what I did :
                                          SSH to your router and choose option 8 and write following command :
                                          echo embedded > /etc/platform
                                          /etc/rc.conf_mount_ro
                                          exit

                                          now, choose option 5 for rebooting your router.
                                          after this your router will act exactly like a embeded version.

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                                          • C
                                            cheeky
                                            last edited by

                                            Any procedure on how to do that disk-on-module? Or the command suggested by nima.m is enough already to make my pfsense corruption-free?
                                            Thanks again.

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