New to pfSense and trying to do someting sort of unsupported
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I picked up an ALIX.2c3 kit from Netgate with pfSense 1.2 Release embedded on it and discovered I wanted to run the full version of pfSense. So I picked up at 4GB CF card with the intent of running the full 1.2.1 BETA on this separate card. I used VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 2 to run the pfSense-20080822-1429.iso to do a Full Install on my new CF card via a USB reader. This seemed to go ok. I then followed the steps at http://devwiki.pfsense.org/FullInstallOnWRAP more or less as close as possible (there was a immutable file in /mnt/boot/loader.rc). When I put the new CF card into my ALIX and booted it up all I saw was XXX's, and then I remembered to set the serial port speed to 9600 baud. Once I did this I was then greeted by the following:
Rebooting... PC Engines ALIX.2 v0.99 640 KB Base Memory 261120 KB Extended Memory 01F0 Master 044A CF CARD Phys C/H/S 7769/16/63 Log C/H/S 971/128/63 1 FreeBSD Default: 1 //bboooott..ccoonnffiigg:: --DDConsoles: internal video/keyboard serial port BIOS drive C: is disk0 BIOS 640kB/261120kB available memory FreeBSD/i386 bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1 (sullrich@freebsd7-releng_1_2.geekgod.com, Fri Aug 22 08:03:07 EDT 2008) Loading /boot/defaults/loader.conf Unable to load a kernel! | can't load 'kernel' Type '?' for a list of commands, 'help' for more detailed help. OK ?I'm still a bit new to FreeBSD so I tried a few things from within the bootloader but seemed to get no joy. Here is an output of some things I could get in case it helps:
OK boot kernel can't find 'kernel' OK show LINES=24 boot_multicons=YES bootfile=kernel comconsole_speed=9600 console=vidconsole comconsole currdev=disk0s1a: hint.adv.0.at=isa hint.adv.0.disabled=1 hint.aha.0.at=isa hint.aha.0.disabled=1 hint.aic.0.at=isa hint.aic.0.disabled=1 hint.apm.0.disabled=1 hint.apm.0.flags=0x20 hint.ata.0.at=isa hint.ata.0.irq=14 hint.ata.0.port=0x1F0 hint.ata.1.at=isa hint.ata.1.irq=15 hint.ata.1.port=0x170 hint.atkbd.0.at=atkbdc hint.atkbd.0.irq=1 hint.atkbdc.0.at=isa hint.atkbdc.0.port=0x060 hint.bt.0.at=isa hint.bt.0.disabled=1 hint.cs.0.at=isa hint.cs.0.disabled=1 hint.cs.0.port=0x300 hint.ed.0.at=isa hint.ed.0.disabled=1 hint.ed.0.irq=10 hint.ed.0.maddr=0xd8000 hint.ed.0.port=0x280 hint.fd.0.at=fdc0 hint.fd.0.drive=0 hint.fd.1.at=fdc0 hint.fd.1.drive=1 hint.fdc.0.at=isa hint.fdc.0.drq=2 hint.fdc.0.irq=6 hint.fdc.0.port=0x3F0 hint.fe.0.at=isa hint.fe.0.disabled=1 hint.fe.0.port=0x300 hint.ie.0.at=isa hint.ie.0.disabled=1 hint.ie.0.irq=10 hint.ie.0.maddr=0xd0000 hint.ie.0.port=0x300 hint.le.0.at=isa hint.le.0.disabled=1 hint.le.0.drq=0 hint.le.0.irq=10 hint.le.0.port=0x280 hint.ppc.0.at=isa hint.ppc.0.irq=7 hint.psm.0.at=atkbdc hint.psm.0.irq=12 hint.sc.0.at=isa hint.sc.0.flags=0x100 hint.sio.0.at=isa hint.sio.0.flags=0x10 hint.sio.0.irq=4 hint.sio.0.port=0x3F8 hint.sio.1.at=isa hint.sio.1.irq=3 hint.sio.1.port=0x2F8 hint.sio.2.at=isa hint.sio.2.disabled=1 hint.sio.2.irq=5 hint.sio.2.port=0x3E8 hint.sio.3.at=isa hint.sio.3.disabled=1 hint.sio.3.irq=9 hint.sio.3.port=0x2E8 hint.sn.0.at=isa hint.sn.0.disabled=1 hint.sn.0.irq=10 hint.sn.0.port=0x300 hint.vga.0.at=isa hint.vt.0.at=isa hint.vt.0.disabled=1 interpret=OK kernel=kernel kernel_options= loaddev=disk0s1a: mac_ifoff=NO module_path=/boot/modules prompt=${interpret} temp_options= OK OK ls / d .snap d boot d bin d dev COPYRIGHT d conf d conf.default d etc d kernels d libexec d lib d root d sbin d usr d var d tmp d mnt boot.config d cf OK cd bo OK cd boot cd not found OK ls boot boot boot0 mbr d defaults boot0sio boot boot1 boot2 cdboot loader.help loader.4th support.4th screen.4th frames.4th beastie.4th loader.rc loader pxeboot d firmware d kernel d modules device.hints d zfs OK not found OK ls boot/kernel boot/kernel acpi_ibm.ko acpi.ko acpi_panasonic.ko acpi_aiboost.ko acpi_asus.ko acpi_fujitsu.ko ng_frame_relay.ko acpi_sony.ko acpi_toshiba.ko ndis.ko acpi_video.ko acpi_dock.ko if_ndis.ko padlock.ko ipfw.ko dummynet.ko fdescfs.ko cpufreq.ko linker.hints kernel.gz ng_async.ko ng_atm.ko ngatmbase.ko ng_ccatm.ko ng_sscfu.ko ng_sscop.ko ng_uni.ko ng_atmllc.ko ng_bpf.ko ng_bridge.ko ng_car.ko ng_cisco.ko ng_deflate.ko ng_device.ko ng_echo.ko ng_eiface.ko ng_etf.ko ng_ether.ko ng_fec.ko ng_gif_demux.ko ng_gif.ko ng_hole.ko ng_hub.ko ng_iface.ko ng_ksocket.ko OK boot boot/kernel/kernel.gz don't know how to load module 'boot/kernel/kernel.gz'So what did I screw up here? It seems like I am close to getting it right. If anyone could offer some advice on how to get a 1.2.1 BETA Full install on this ALIX board working I would be be ecstatic. Thanks!
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Try with a 1GB CF card or smaller, I had troubles with a 2GB CF card with a CF to IDE adapter and basically I was able to install pfSense but it never survived a reboot. A 256MB CF card worked fine.
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http://wiki.pfsense.com/wikka.php?wakka=BootTroubleShooting
and of course may want to jump into several othre forums such as Hardware, Installation and Upgrades, Genral Questions. There seems to be a tons of info you're looking for.
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http://wiki.pfsense.com/wikka.php?wakka=BootTroubleShooting
and of course may want to jump into several othre forums such as Hardware, Installation and Upgrades, Genral Questions. There seems to be a tons of info you're looking for.
Thanks, but that page is all for installs on non-embbeded style hardware so its sort of useless to me.
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I used VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 2 to run the pfSense-20080822-1429.iso to do a Full Install on my new CF card via a USB reader.
There seems to have been problems with the builds. There are reports (http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,11129.0.html and http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,11111.0.html) that the last known good build was 20080820-2342 for an update. In the directory of recent builds it looks as if you will need to go a bit earlier for a full build.
The problem reports I've seen don't look anything like your problem but the reports seem to have been from people doing updates rather than full installs.
I don't know that using an earlier build will fix your problem but from the reports I mentioned its likely your system wouldn't work well even if it did boot so you might as well try an earlier build.
Once you get a kernel to build you are likely to run into a minor problem: I expect the kernel will be looking for the root file system on a da device (e.g. da0) whereas its likely to be on an ad device (e.g. ad0). This is easily recovered by supplying the correct device name when prompted THEN when the system has booted, editing /etc/fstab to permanently correct the device name. (The device name da is used for "disks" connected by SCSI or USB. The device name ad is used for "disks" connected by an IDE controller.)
I've done similar things to what you describe though not through a VM.
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Yeah, I tried doing a full install using an earlier build of the 1.2.1 RC1 software after seeing the thread about the messed up 1429 build. I already had edited the /etc/fstab to reflect ad instead of da. This resulted in an ALIX board that the bootloader would start on, and then say "can't load kernel" yet from the bootloader I can traverse and read from the filesystem where the kernel and boot files are. So it seems like I am missing something, just not really apparent what it is. I have to go get a smaller CF card to see if that isnt the issue.
As an aside, just to make sure the CF card itself wasnt an issue I did a dd of my working 1.2 embedded release on a 512MB CF card and dd'ed it onto the 4GB CF. That 4GB CF works, and if I changed the /etc/platform from "embedded" to "pfSense" and it works ok, but that just leaves me with the problem of how to expand the FS from 128MB to something bigger.
I used VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 2 to run the pfSense-20080822-1429.iso to do a Full Install on my new CF card via a USB reader.
There seems to have been problems with the builds. There are reports (http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,11129.0.html and http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,11111.0.html) that the last known good build was 20080820-2342 for an update. In the directory of recent builds it looks as if you will need to go a bit earlier for a full build.
The problem reports I've seen don't look anything like your problem but the reports seem to have been from people doing updates rather than full installs.
I don't know that using an earlier build will fix your problem but from the reports I mentioned its likely your system wouldn't work well even if it did boot so you might as well try an earlier build.
Once you get a kernel to build you are likely to run into a minor problem: I expect the kernel will be looking for the root file system on a da device (e.g. da0) whereas its likely to be on an ad device (e.g. ad0). This is easily recovered by supplying the correct device name when prompted THEN when the system has booted, editing /etc/fstab to permanently correct the device name. (The device name da is used for "disks" connected by SCSI or USB. The device name ad is used for "disks" connected by an IDE controller.)
I've done similar things to what you describe though not through a VM.