Reduce boot time [SOLVED]
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G'day everyone,
I'm a very recent convert from IPCop, I've made the switch because all of the functionality I had to 'add' to IPCop through unsupported addons cames standard in pfSense. I look forward to using some of its more advanced capabilities, I have to admit that I'm very impressed with pfSense and its feature set straight out of the box.
The only downside I have noticed is a slightly longer downtime, and this is by no means a criticism just a comparison. I have improved mine slightly by changing the /boot/loader.conf so that it time-outs in 1 second but I think the biggest gains can be made at the beginning when it boots. I've noticed for about 15 seconds at boot time the following is displayed:
F1 FreeBSD
Boot: F1
Not knowing anything about FreeBSD, is this the bootblock menu? If so, I should be able to change the timeout value using boot0cfg the problem is I can't seem to figure out the right syntax when entering the command. I've tried boot0cfg -t 18 and variations of this without any luck, I'm hoping someone can help me with this.
Also is there a way to change this timeout during the installation of pfSense?
Thanks in advance,
Griffo
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If you press F1 does it start to boot immediately? Or does it still pause?
Usually it doesn't display that prompt very long, but I've never timed it.
Edit: Try this:
# sysctl kern.geom.debugflags=0x16 # fdisk -B ad0And answer 'y' to both prompts.
That should get rid of the F1 prompt altogether.
Edit 2: Forgot the debugflags step.
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Hmm, when I tried this, the last step got me this:
fdisk -B ad0
******* Working on device /dev/ad0 *******
parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are:
cylinders=59554 heads=16 sectors/track=63 (1008 blks/cyl)Figures below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl 1
parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are:
cylinders=59554 heads=16 sectors/track=63 (1008 blks/cyl)Media sector size is 512
Warning: BIOS sector numbering starts with sector 1
Information from DOS bootblock is:
The data for partition 1 is:
sysid 165 (0xa5),(FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD)
start 63, size 60030369 (29311 Meg), flag 80 (active)
beg: cyl 0/ head 1/ sector 1;
end: cyl 161/ head 15/ sector 63
The data for partition 2 is:
<unused>The data for partition 3 is:
<unused>The data for partition 4 is:
<unused>Do you want to change the boot code? [n] yWe haven't changed the partition table yet. This is your last chance.
parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are:
cylinders=59554 heads=16 sectors/track=63 (1008 blks/cyl)Figures below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl 1
parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are:
cylinders=59554 heads=16 sectors/track=63 (1008 blks/cyl)Information from DOS bootblock is:
1: sysid 165 (0xa5),(FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD)
start 63, size 60030369 (29311 Meg), flag 80 (active)
beg: cyl 0/ head 1/ sector 1;
end: cyl 161/ head 15/ sector 63
2: <unused>3: <unused>4: <unused>Should we write new partition table? [n] y
fdisk: Class not found <==== Problem?</unused></unused></unused></unused></unused></unused> -
Hmm, when I tried this, the last step got me this:
fdisk: Class not found <==== Problem?I got the same error but it worked for me. If you get a message like "fdisk: failed to write sector zero" then there is a problem – namely, that you need to do the debugflags sysctl first.
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Cool, thanks!
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If you press F1 does it start to boot immediately? Or does it still pause?
Usually it doesn't display that prompt very long, but I've never timed it.
It was booting 3 seconds after I pressed F1
Hmm, when I tried this, the last step got me this:
fdisk: Class not found <==== Problem?I got the same error but it worked for me. If you get a message like "fdisk: failed to write sector zero" then there is a problem – namely, that you need to do the debugflags sysctl first.
I recieved 2 errors:
fdisk: Class not found
fdisk: Failed to write sector zeroUsing the sysctl kern.geom.debugflags=0x16 command it worked a treat.
This just shaved 10 seconds off the total boot time…you are now my personal hero
NOTE TO OTHERS THAT TRY THIS:
A LOT OF DEBUG INFORMATION WILL BE DISPLAYED ON THE SCREEN WHEN YOU TYPE THE SECOND COMMAND. THE FDISK COMMAND WILL LOOK LIKE IT DISAPPEARS AS YOU TYPE IT, THIS IS NOT A PROBLEM JUST FINISH THE COMMAND AND PRESS ENTER. ALTHOUGH I'M SURE THERE IS A COMMAND TO STOP THIS DEBUG INFO, IT WILL STOP DEBUGGING WHEN YOU RESTART THE COMPUTER. -
The debug info may only display on the console, not if you do it via ssh, and even then it may only happen if you're using gmirror.
To get rid of it, use:
sysctl kern.geom.debugflags=0Or, as you noticed, a reboot will also take care of it.
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I also dropped this stuff into an FAQ entry for future reference:
http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Remove_F1_Boot_Prompt
And the debug should really be =16, not 0x16, my memory was fuzzy on that one so I looked it up again. It worked with 0x16 but that may be why the debug messages were printing, since it wasn't quite the right mode, it had more debug info turned on.
