Unable to install pfsense as virtualbox guest

[operativo]

Hi folks, I'm trying to install pfsense 1.2.2 (both liveCD and developers iso) but i'm unable to do this. When I arrive to kernel installation it always gives me an error like this (see attachment too):

Execution of the command
tar xzpf /kernels/kernel_uniprocessor.gz -C /mnt/boot
FAILED with a return code of 1

in log i see:

./kernels/kernel.gz decompression failed (and no other errors)

The error is the same with all other kernels.

I'm using virtualbox 2.1.4 on debian lenny amd64

[wonslung]

i am having this EXACT same problem….it's driving me nuts...any help would be greatly appreciated

[wonslung]

ok, i figured this out after some playing around
the EASIEST thing to do is download the vmware image from here
http://files.pfsense.org/vmware/pfSense-1.2.2-VM.zip

unzip it, then in the folder it's in run this command

sudo apt-get install qemu

then
cd  into the new folder
then

sudo qemu-img convert pfSense-1.2.2-VM.vmdk raw-file.bin

then finally

VBoxManage convertdd raw-file.bin PfSense.vdi

after that, create a new virtual machine and when it asked for a harddrive browse to your new PfSense.vdi

mount the cd image as well, boot under the cd, choose your interfaces and when you get to the menu choose the option that gives you a shell (i think it's 8 )
at this point you need to fsck /dev/ad0s1a  (this is what it was on MY machine, i'm assuming it's the same, an easy way to know for sure is to boot from the harddrive before you boot from the cd and when it fails to boot it'll ask for the file system hit ? and see what's listed, mine was acd0 (the cdrom) ad0s1c (i'm guessing that's probably the swap) ad0s1b (i'm guessing this is a logical partition) ad0s1 (this is the hard drive you want, but it didn't work for me till i fsck'd it, hense these instructions) and ad0 which is the entire device
when it's done, exit virtual machine, unmount the cd, boot normally

be sure to edit your /etc/fstab (i think the reason it doesn't boot is because it's got the a and d transposed, so instead of /dev/ad0s1a it's /dev/da0s1a and that causes it not to boot)

[xanthra]

This worked great for me, except I didn't bother with the cd image.  I just setup the VM with two nics and used the converted hard disk image.
Mounting root will fail and you have to manually mount ad0s1a  as described above.  Then get into a shell (option 8) and use vi to update /etc/fstab.
Viola!

[jimp]

I have very few problems booting pfSense ISOs or installing to a virtual hard drive from within Virtualbox on Windows.

The only quirk was having to select the PCNet II network cards, the others didn't work for me.

This was with recent 1.2.3-RC1 and 2.0 snapshots, so there may be an issue with 1.2.2 and earlier.

[bahattin]

this pc use AMD cpu?

[jimp]

I found something interesting today with VirtualBox on my desktop system, which has given me errors in the past (including the original error here):

Try putting the virtual hard drive and virtual CD drive on different 'controllers'

For example, I put the CD drive on PIIX3, and the hard drive on Sata 0, and I was finally, for the first time, able to get a full install of pfSense going on my desktop.

My laptop runs pfSense VMs all the time with no trouble, but it appears to have issues on certain combinations of hardware.