Installing pfSense 2.0 on a Dell PowerEdge R210
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I second the keyboard experience here. I tried seeting up pfsense 2.0 a while ago on completely different hardware, but the installation would freeze at some point (could very well be at 38%). I had a Logitech wireless usb keyboard connected. Using a Cherry PS/2 keyboard everything worked flawlessly. Did also work with an OEM HP keyboard from a DC5800 I still had laying around.
So, you might wanna check the keyboard thing first. Make sure it is a PS/2 keyboard and that it is plugged in before POST.
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For Dell R210 i know for sure that it is the shared interrupt of the disk controllers that makes it go crazy during install.
It works fine with the amd64 version of pfSense with others you will have issues. -
There are still further issues with the DELL R210 once you get past the installation problems.
The onboard NICs don't work very well with the bce driver. I had ports detected at 10 baseT HD.
VoIP struggled on that box also with very poor call quality. Don't know if its the combination of the NICs and the i3 CPU that cause the problems. Swapped it out for a DELL PE1850 yesterday and it works perfectly with RC3. All my VoIP problems have gone away. -
Hmm i know of an install on amd64 which does not have any issues for handling traffic!
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Yeah… and I'm using a regular build, and haven't had a single problem :) I'm using the igb drivers for the Intel NICs.
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I experienced the 38% hang on a Dell Poweredge SC440 with pfsense 2.0 RC3. On the back of findings of previous posters, I tried a dedicated keyboard instead of a KVM - no luck. The Dell SC440 doesn't have a PS/2 port, so I couldn't try that.
Hardware - BIOS v.1.5.0, 1.8GHz Pentium D - 2x 1GB 667MHz DDR2, 2x 160GB WD SATA II drives (GEOM).
I then disabled multicore in the BIOS as recommended by bpf and the installation completed without issue. I installed the SMP kernel and re-enabled multicore when the system restarted after installation. I'm running through the config now, but at the very least the network interfaces have been picked up without trouble - the on-board BCM 5754, the PCIe BCM 5721 and the two PCI Intel 82541PI NICs.
I'll report back if there are any difficulties later that are overcome by disabling multicore in the BIOS.
S.
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I had to install pfSense 2.0 RC3 on a Dell PowerEdge R710 (dual Xeon X5650, 32 GB RAM, PERC H700, 6 x Seagate 450 GB 15k SAS in RAID 10) that is intended to be our new virtualisation host and just was availlable when the old firewall died. Although it was a high stress installation (the last day at work before my vacation) I remember having some serious troubles installing pfSense (both pfSense 1.2.3 and 2.0 RC3), too. No chance to get pfSense onto the SD Card (where vmWare vSphere will be installed later), it stopped somewhere at the partitioning. Trying to install to the RAID 10 took me through partitioning, at least. I also experienced the hang during installation but can't remember the percentage. After trying different startup options it suddenly worked but i can't tell anymore what I did exactly. Now it's idling around as the 100 Mbps WAN uplink isn't able to saturate the system.
Well I just ordered a PowerEdge R310 as future main pfSense system and an R210 II for backup, just in case Mr. Murphy's Law strikes again. Let's see how they behave during installation and how the R310 handles the future GBit WAN. -
Anxious to hear how people are getting 2.0 installed on the Rxxx series. (and if it is stable in a production environment). A few months ago I had posted about all my troubles trying to get pfSense installed on a R410 & R510, both with add-in multiple-port nics. Never did get it working in a way I was comfortable with. Ended up putting Untangle on the 410 and Astaro on the 510.
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I have arround 20 plus pfsense 2.0 running on Dell R210 and R610.
All of them are running great after the installation.
I have machines with 180 days uptime.Before the install you should enable vt and disable the nics.
After the install you should raise the nmbcluaters value to 95000Good luck.
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Hi,
we have similar setup - double R710s cluster for VMWare.
However, I've installed pfSense as virtual machine on R310 with Ubuntu Server as hypervisor to have all Dell-related stuff enabled (Dell OMSA).
It's saturating 10/10 Mbits link only, but works solid as rock, even it routes traffic between two different subnets as well. Max achieved throughput for e1000 driver is about 250Mbits as iperf says.Here is my VM XML file (hope this helps somebody):
<domain type="kvm"><name>Router_backup</name>
<uuid>6631e119-3df7-fdcd-2475-42286e49f116</uuid>
<memory>786432</memory>
<currentmemory>786432</currentmemory>
<vcpu>2</vcpu>
<os><type arch="i686" machine="pc-0.12">hvm</type></os>
<features><acpi><apic><pae></pae></apic></acpi></features>
<clock offset="utc"><on_poweroff>destroy</on_poweroff>
<on_reboot>restart</on_reboot>
<on_crash>restart</on_crash>
<devices><emulator>/usr/bin/kvm</emulator>
<disk type="file" device="cdrom"><driver name="qemu" type="raw"><target dev="hdc" bus="ide"><readonly></readonly></target></driver></disk>
<disk type="file" device="disk"><driver name="qemu" type="raw"><source file="/var/lib/libvirt/images/Router_backup.img">
<target dev="sda" bus="scsi"></target></driver></disk>
<interface type="bridge"><mac address="52:54:00:04:c0:a2"><source bridge="br1"></mac></interface>
<interface type="bridge"><mac address="52:54:00:8b:a7:5a"><source bridge="br0"></mac></interface>
<interface type="bridge"><mac address="52:54:00:92:5b:a2"><source bridge="br0"></mac></interface>
<interface type="bridge"><mac address="52:54:00:92:5c:a8"><source bridge="br0"></mac></interface><interface type="bridge"><mac address="52:54:00:53:0c:83"><source bridge="br1"></mac></interface>
<console type="pty"><target port="0"></target></console>
<console type="pty"><target port="0"></target></console>
<graphics type="vnc" port="-1" autoport="yes"><watchdog model="i6300esb" action="reset"></watchdog></graphics></devices></clock></domain>and network config on the host:
Bridge to LAN
auto br0
iface br0 inet static
address 192.168.0.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.0.254
bridge_ports eth0
bridge_stp off
bridge_fd 0
bridge_maxwait 0
#metric 1VLAN network access
auto br0:1
iface br0:1 inet static
address 10.10.10.254
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 10.10.10.0
broadcast 10.10.10.255#Bridge to modem's switch
auto br1
iface br1 inet manual
bridge_ports eth1
pre-up ifconfig eth1 up
bridge_stp off
bridge_fd 0
bridge_maxwait 0
#metric 1Just use separate e1000 virtual NICs for all IPs needed (gateways, VLANs) and then it works.
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I had the 38% hang on a Dell 1850. It installed when I went into the processor settings of the BIOS and disabled the Sequential Memory Optimization.
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I'm a little surprised that no one else tried to reboot and start the installation as a recovery install… I've tried this on two different systems that were both hanging at the 38% point and they seem to work flawlessly... ones been in production over 60 days with no restarts. The two that I've tried are R410 and PowerEdge 1950. Both of these have additional network cards installed and I used the same keyboard on them both. Let me know if anyone else finds that a recovery installation works for them.
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I tried different things to get pfSense 2.0 RELEASE onto the Dell R310 but pfSense seems to have a problem with the H200 Raid-Controller. As I had a spare vSphere 5 license I installed that on the R310 and pfSense into a virtual machine. On the PowerEdge R210 II I connected the Disks to the onboard SATA connectors as it's only the CARP failover system and a crash of the main system and the hard disk of the backup system at the same time is sufficiently unlikely. With the disks at the onboard controller installation of pfsense 2.0 was no problem.
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Just a quick note that the below worked for me - thanks for suggesting this! I also enabled VT in the bios prior to reading this far into the thread, so it's possible that even without VT on it would have worked with the recovery. Of course using recovery makes perfect sense this is exactly what it's for and why they do the -vvv on cpdup to get all the info.
Also this is a dell T310 system, but it seems like it's some common component based on the other reported identical troubles on the R210,310, etc.
I'm a little surprised that no one else tried to reboot and start the installation as a recovery install… I've tried this on two different systems that were both hanging at the 38% point and they seem to work flawlessly... ones been in production over 60 days with no restarts. The two that I've tried are R410 and PowerEdge 1950. Both of these have additional network cards installed and I used the same keyboard on them both. Let me know if anyone else finds that a recovery installation works for them.
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I've been trying for about 3 hours to install pfSense on a Dell Poweredge R210 with VmWare ESXi 5 as a host.
No matter what I try, the installer keeps hanging at 38 or 45%. I've tried pfSense 2.01 amd64, pfSense 2.01 i386 and even pfSense 123 without any luck.
In every case, the error log says:-<<< Executing `/usr/local/bin/cpdup -vvv -o /usr /mnt/usr'
[[i]Date and time]
->>> Exit status: 15Being frustrated, I just hit <<skip>> and it continued the installation. I'll keep you posted if everything is allright.</skip>
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Status report: Everything seems to be working fine, no problems so far.
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Isso mesmo muito obrigado por sua informação que me ajudou muito, eu utilizo um IBM ThinkCentre e estava utilizando um teclado generico, havia testado até a troca do HD original WesterDigital por um Samsung de 80GB e de nada adiantou, mas após ler este post troquei o teclado pelo original da IBM ThinkCentre e tudo foi resolvido…
Estou no Brasil e você do outro lado do mundo me ajudou, por isso eu digo: VIVA A LIBERDADE DO ACESSO A INFORMAÇÃO E ABAIXO AO S.O.P.A. ;D(translation)
That's right, thank you for your information that helped me, I use an IBM ThinkCentre and was using a generic keyboard, there were tested up to replace the original HD WesterDigital for a 80GB and Samsung to no avail, but after reading this post I changed the keyboard by the original IBM ThinkCentre and everything was resolved ...
I'm in Brazil and you across the world has helped me, so I say: LONG LIVE FREEDOM OF ACCESS TO INFORMATION AND BELOW THE S.O.P.A. ;D----------------------------------X
@Alexios:Hallo,
i had the same problem
PC HP DC7800 and my installation with Pfsense 2.0 RC1 stopped everytime at
38% in step /usr/local/bin/cpdup -vvv -l -o /usr/mnt/usr -too.I had installed earlier on the same PC Pfsense 1.23 and it worked.
First I checked the Bios settings, second different installation settings - no solution.But then i remembered that the only difference on my PC between Pfsense 2.0 RC1 and my Pfsense 1.23 installation was my Keyboard.
It sounds suspicious but with my Fujitsu-Siemens Keyboard PX PS2 my installation stopped everytime at 38% in step /usr/local/bin/cpdup -vvv -l -o /usr/mnt/usr .
With my Cherry Keyboard G83-6744 USB the installation with Pfsense 2.0 RC1 works fine now.
Someone made the same experience?
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Another owner of Dell PowerEDGE R210 here. Tried to install 2.0.1-RELEASE amd64 and experienced the famous 'hang at 38%' problem. Enabling VT and disabling C-states in BIOS didn't help. I didn't try other solutions suggested in this thread. Instead I updated the BIOS to 1.8.2 (I started out with 1.3.4). After BIOS update the installation went smoothly.
In order to be able to update the BIOS, I had to temporarily install Linux (I used SLES11 SP1, because that's what I happened to have at hand).
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thanks for the input vatson.
I've got a couple of 210's to do next month so I'll try your tip. -
In order to be able to update the BIOS, I had to temporarily install Linux (I used SLES11 SP1, because that's what I happened to have at hand).
Well, You didn't have to :)
Install Dell Repository Manager somewhere, take Dell Service DVD (now the latest version is 7.0.0), download SUU Linux repository for Your server, then expose it over NFS, and then run update of BIOS and all firmwares at once from this DVD..
I did it recently and strongly recommend this method, since we've failed with different firmware update method, which rendered Dell server unbootable..