PfSense 2.0.2 on Fit-PC2i miniSD not working

genhed

Hello! I'm trying to install pfSense 2.0.2 on a Fit-PC2i. I decided to try the miniSD slot this time (no problems with installing on hard drive/USB). As indicated in an older thread here, latest firmware for this hardware supports booting from the miniSD slot. Unfortunately, pfSense doesn't seem to support it. Here's what I tried:

1. Wrote "pfSense-2.0.2-RELEASE-4g-i386-nanobsd_vga.img" to a miniSD card with Win32DiskImager
2. Booted the Fit-PC from the miniSD
3. Boot process halts with "ROOT MOUNT ERROR:"

Investigating at this point is impossible because the USB keyboard doesn't work at this point of the boot sequence. So, I tried another approach:

1. Wrote "pfSense-memstick-2.0.2-RELEASE-i386.img" to a USB pen drive with Win32DiskImager
2. Booted the Fit-PC from the USB pen drive
3. Started to install pfSense but the only available installation target is the USB pen drive

Are there any other options to try? Or is it simply not possible to get pfSense installed and booting from the miniSD card on Fit-PC2i? Any input will be much appreciated!

–genhed

Zorac

use physdiskwrite to write the image and write the original img.gz file (dont unpack it).

wallabybob

It would have been helpful if, at this point, @genhed:

3. Boot process halts with "ROOT MOUNT ERROR:"

you had typed "?" to see what disk had been recognised. The "ROOT MOUNT ERROR" is unsurprising since the nanobsd mages expects the root file system to be on something like /dev/ad0s1a but the boot device is (probably) something like /dev/da2. But I don't know how the SD card reader on a Fit-2 PC is connected into the system (USB port?) so its difficult to predict the device name.

It would probably also be useful, once you have booted from the USB pen drive, to break into the shell and post the output of shell commands:```

usbconfig
sysctl kern.disks

genhed

@Zorac:

use physdiskwrite to write the image and write the original img.gz file (dont unpack it).

Thanks for this suggestion. However, using another writer software did not make any difference.

genhed

@wallabybob:

It would have been helpful if, at this point, @genhed:

3. Boot process halts with "ROOT MOUNT ERROR:"

you had typed "?" to see what disk had been recognised. The "ROOT MOUNT ERROR" is unsurprising since the nanobsd mages expects the root file system to be on something like /dev/ad0s1a but the boot device is (probably) something like /dev/da2. But I don't know how the SD card reader on a Fit-2 PC is connected into the system (USB port?) so its difficult to predict the device name.

It would probably also be useful, once you have booted from the USB pen drive, to break into the shell and post the output of shell commands:```

usbconfig
sysctl kern.disks

Thanks for your suggestions. I didn't type "?" at that point because the USB keyboard was not yet functional. The keyboard "goes off" during the boot sequence and comes available shortly after the root is mounted successfully.

So, I went with your other suggestion and booted to the Live CD environment from the USB pen drive. The usbconfig command returns "UHCI root HUB Intel", the USB pen drive, 802.11n WLAN adapter and the USB keyboard. The sysctl kern.disks command returns only da0 which is the USB pen drive.

I decided to check the boot messages more closely with the dmesg command and found the following:


pci0: <base peripheral,="" sd="" host="" controller=""> at device 30.0 (no driver attached)
pci0: <base peripheral,="" sd="" host="" controller=""> at device 30.1 (no driver attached)
pci0: <base peripheral,="" sd="" host="" controller=""> at device 30.2 (no driver attached)

It seems that there is no driver for this device. Any ideas if it'll ever be supported?

wallabybob

@genhed:

It seems that there is no driver for this device. Any ideas if it'll ever be supported?

It might be worth trying a pfSense 2.1 snapshot build because that includes more up to date device drivers than the 2.0.x builds.

genhed

@wallabybob:

@genhed:

It seems that there is no driver for this device. Any ideas if it'll ever be supported?

It might be worth trying a pfSense 2.1 snapshot build because that includes more up to date device drivers than the 2.0.x builds.

2.1 produced the same results. I even tried FreeBSD 9.1 and it gives the same messages for the SD host controller. I'll just use the USB pen drive. Thanks for the help though! :)