Howto install NanoBSD images - newbies

[DeCex]

Hi all veterans out thare, as usual id like to say "i dont get it" + "i cant get the damn thing to run"  ;D

Well, my system crasched last week and i thought what ta heck, lets try flashing my CF card with the nano build and see if it runs. Did it, boot it up, seems to be running, but cant get to webinterface. That to me mean it dont work. My questtion are;

• Can i flash it on a 8GB CF card ? (4gb build)
• Would it run on a on a regular PC with a CF-IDE convertor and a CF card attach to it.
• Would it be like a generic-pc version of nano version laster on? (like monowall)

[dotdash]

@DeCex:

Did it, boot it up, seems to be running, but cant get to webinterface.

It defaults to vr0 and vr1 for interfaces. Connect to the serial console and see if it's at the assign interfaces prompt.
@DeCex:

• Can i flash it on a 8GB CF card ? (4gb build)

Yes, you can fit a smaller image on a larger card. It will just not use the rest of the space.
@DeCex:

• Would it run on a on a regular PC with a CF-IDE convertor and a CF card attach to it.
• Would it be like a generic-pc version of nano version laster on? (like monowall)

Yes, it should be able to run on a supported PC with a supported CF adapter. The images are 'generic-pc' versions. There is no hardware specific version.

[FooFighter]

I have got a question regarding the update procedure.

I currently use a 1 GB CF card with a 1 GB nanoimage on my Alix - works perfectly.
To be able to update pfSense via WebUI in the future I think that I have to flash my CF manually with a 512 MB image - hopefully for the last time :) This would leave enough room for further stageX online flashes. Do I get this right?

Best regard,

Foo

[dotdash]

If I understand this correctly, the images contain two partitions. So the 1GB image has two 512MB partitions, so you can keep your running image when you upgrade.

[FooFighter]

thank you for the information. I just gave it a try to see if it really works. I used manual update from the WebUI and selected the following 512 MB image.

pfSense-1.2.3-512mb-20090714-0308-nanobsd-upgrade.img.bz2

The upload works fine and a top via ssh shows gzip using most of the CPU. After that the WebUI shows

An upgrade is currently in progress.
The firewall will reboot when the operation is complete.

so far so good …but this really lasts for ever... 30 minutes and counting

there are no errors in dmesg/system logs. is there a way to check via ssh whats going on / going wrong?

Best regards,

Foo

UPDATE

I manually rebootet the system and checked the Diagnotics -> NanoBSD -> View upgrade log

NanoBSD Firmware upgrade in progress…

Installing /root/firmware.tgz.
Installing /root/firmware.tgz.
SLICE 2
OLDSLICE 1
TOFLASH ad0s2
COMPLETE_PATH ad0s2a
GLABEL_SLICE pfsense1

File list:

Warning: file_get_contents(/conf/file_upgrade_log.txt): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /usr/local/www/diag_nanobsd.php on line 235

Misc log:

gzip: no -l with bzip2 files
/etc/rc.firmware: arithmetic expression: syntax error: " / 1024 / 1024"

fdisk/bsdlabel log:

[dotdash]

I think you should have used a -1G upgrade on your 1G image, but I tried that and got a similar error.