External cd/dvdrom drive install?

[mmlenz]

last year before we put our pfsense cluster into production I attempted to install from an external cdrom drive (usb2 i believe) and the freebsd boot loader wanted nothing to do with it.  Its been some time and I think pfsense even uses a newer version of freebsd (or is it another varient now).  Has anyone installed the newer versions of pfsense using external usb cd/dvdrom drives recently?  the only solution i had last time was to hang a internal cdrom drive out the side of the case (not a good solution cuz the server case is highly optimized with the airflow and having the case cover unsealed decreases cooling efficiency) and had to pull the server from the rack.  Hoping the installer (boot loader) is more external install media friendly now days. :)  I could just test it myself but when it didn't work last year I just returned the drive.  If you have one that worked, whats the make and model.

[dcam]

No, I just tried to boot pfSense LiveCD 1.0 from external USB CDROM and it boots but it gets upto here and hangs:

FreeBSD/i386 bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1
(sullrich@builder.livebsd.com, Fri Oct 13 02:49:13 UTC 2006)
|

[dcam]

Boot from CD: CD Loader 1.2

Building the boot loader arguments
Looking up /BOOT/LOADER… Found
Relocating the loader and the BTX
Starting the BTX loader

BTX loader 1.00 BTX version is 1.01
Consoles: internal video/keyboard
BIOS CD is cd0
BIOS 639kB/252928kB available memory

FreeBSD/i386 bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1
(sullrich@builder.livebsd.com, Fri Oct 13 02:49:13 UTC 2006)
|
[hangs here]

[jan.gestre]

@dcam:

Boot from CD: CD Loader 1.2

Building the boot loader arguments
Looking up /BOOT/LOADER… Found
Relocating the loader and the BTX
Starting the BTX loader

BTX loader 1.00 BTX version is 1.01
Consoles: internal video/keyboard
BIOS CD is cd0
BIOS 639kB/252928kB available memory

FreeBSD/i386 bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1
(sullrich@builder.livebsd.com, Fri Oct 13 02:49:13 UTC 2006)
|
[hangs here]

did you check the md5 of the iso you're using? what about the machine, is it old or new? i've experienced something similar before although the cd boots fine it is during the hard drive install that i began to experience problems and since the machine is not the culprit, i downloaded a new pfsense iso and what do you know, the problem disappeared. :)

[hoba]

usb cdroms are not really supported and we already had reports about problems when using usbcdroms earlier. these problems seem to be related to freebsd rather than pfsense. however as we don't have any usb-cdromdrives we can't do further investigation on this.

[cmb]

I'm seeing the same thing with an external USB CD/DVD drive (Philips USB 2.0 SPD3100CC, 16X DVD +/- RW).

FreeBSD 6.2-RC1 acts the same way, so it's not a pfsense issue.

There is a FreeBSD PR related to this, kern/85257. 
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=kern/85257

Hopefully it'll get fixed in FreeBSD eventually…