Install Official Realtek Network Interface Driver. Here we go, navigate to the command line of any client on the network, please make sure that you know the IP address of the target pfSense router device which is 172.16.1.1 in my case. If you do not have any client that can run command line shell, you can use Putty SSH Client for Windows instead. Install man on FreeBSD 10.1 based pfsense 2.2. I'm running a pfsense 2.2 router. While not required most of the time, sometimes using the console is the way to go. Unfortunately pfsense doesn't come with. I was able to run. Start by logging in the shell of your FreeBSD system. In OpnSense you press “8”. Install the open vm tools package. If you have a graphical interface: pkg install open-vm-tools. If you don’t: pkg install open-vm-tools-nox11. The package is now installed but it doesn’t start automatically. This is the preferred means of running pfSense software. The entire hard drive will be overwritten, dual booting with another OS is not supported. DVD Image (ISO) The DVD Image (ISO) Installer is used to create a DVD version used to install on virtual machines or systems with a DVD drive. In this section let’s introduce the most secure way to install a package in pfSense, we should remember that we’re not dealing with a pure FreeBSD, so it’s needed to be careful installing packages from the underlaying OS because we can break our current dependencies, these are the steps I have to follow, this could change depending.

balanga

Son of Beastie

Reaction score: 217
Messages: 4,015

I'd like to install mc on pfSense but this is a big no-no as far as pfSense goes, but since pfSense is based on FreeBSD, I would have thought there may be a way round it. I'm not all that familiar with the pkg() environment, but suspect that it works pretty much the same on pfSense as on FreeBSD, except the repositories must have been changed to pfSense approved ones. Just wondering if I could edit a few files to be able to pkg install some of the apps I'd like which are not pfSense authorised..

Part 1 of this article series was about why you want to build your own router, and how to assemble the APU2 that I chose as the hardware to build this on. Part 2 gave some Unix history and explained what a serial console is. Part 3 demonstrated serial access to the APU and showed how to update its firmware.

This post is about the serial installation of pfSense, one of two FreeBSD-based router/firewall operating systems that we’re going to explore in this series (the other being OPNsense). As pfSense is the older and more established product, we’re beginning with that one.

Preparation

We’re just doing the installation here. A closer look at using pfSense or a comparison with OPNsense will be another post. Getting pfSense up and running is really easy, even when you’re using the serial console. The first step is the actual installation. In a second step you need to configure the LAN interface and then you can use the WebGUI to do the final setup.

The first thing to do, however, is getting preparing an installation medium. Head over to pfSense’s Download site. What you want is an install image for amd64. Then select USB Memstick Installer which let’s you choose the console type – obviously get the serial one!

Then get a USB stick that you can spare and dd the image on it. Once you have that ready, plug it into the APU. Next attach the serial cable to your APU and to another computer. Then connect to the console (how to do that was described in the previous post). Now power on the APU.

Step 1: Installation

Even if there’s already an OS installed on your mSATA drive, the memstick should take precedence when it comes to boot order. So you can probably just wait until the installer comes up.

pfSense’s loader menu: screwed up over the serial console…

Don’t be scared when you see garbage displayed on the screen. This is just the bootloader that’s screwed up badly when used over a serial connection (they’ve already fixed that in the beta version for the upcoming pfSense 2.4). Either just wait 10 seconds for it to boot automatically or press enter to boot right now (if you need any other options, you might want to get an ISO for pfSense, too, and test it in a VM or get a VGA image, put that on a stick and try it out on hardware that provides a local console over a screen and keyboard).

…but once the kernel loads, text is fine

As you can see, it’s only the loader. As soon as the kernel takes over, the text is displayed correctly. That means you can actually read the messages in case anything goes wrong here. If you don’t do anything, the installer will eventually come up automatically.

First screen of the installer

In the first screen of the installer you can configure the console. Most likely the defaults will be fine, though.

Selecting the installation method

Then you need to choose the installation method. We will do a quick installation but you could also do a custom installation or setup gmirror (mirrored software RAID).

The usual “this will erase your data” warning

Since installing pfSense means destroying any data that might currently be on the drive, the installer warns you that it will erase it.

Installation progress bar

If you confirmed the warning, the actual installation starts (but the progress meter is kind of useless as it seems… It remained at 5% for a while and then jumped to 100% for me).

Kernel selection

The next thing to do is to select the right kernel. Since our APU2 is a headless device, make sure that you select the embedded kernel! Otherwise you won’t be able to use the serial console with it.

Another progress bar

After the kernel is installed, the installer runs a script to do some final tasks.

Reboot message

When all is done, it’s time to reboot the system.

pfSense rebooting after installation

Just before it reboots, pfSense prints some important information on the screen, telling how to log into the WebGUI. Remove the memstick now or the APU will boot off of it once more an you’ll just see the installer again.

Step 2: Text mode configuration

The OS has been successfully installed, but leave your serial console attached for now.

pfSense’s text mode management menu

How to install black ops 3 for free. Once the system has booted, you will see the management menu. It offers a lot of tools including going to a shell (option 8) and doing everything you like. We want to configure the IP address for our LAN interface (option 2):

Configuring the LAN interface

I’m assigning 192.168.2.1 since my modem/router (yes, I’m not replacing it just yet and will operate the new router between that box and my actual network for now) has already taken 192.168.1.1. It’s not like I need a full /24 subnet for my network, but I go with that subnet mask for now.

Configuring DHCP for the LAN interface

Since I intend to use DHCP for my network, I enable a DHCP server for the LAN interface. The range of DHCP addresses that I use here is just an example for this test installation. I will cut it down to about 10 when I do my final setup. The reserved addresses before the DHCP range serve a purpose, though – more on that in a separate future post.

Back at the menu

As soon as everything is ready, you can now end the serial connection and remove the cable. We have a valid IP address on the LAN interface now after all.

Step 3: WebGUI configuration

So now we can access the WebGUI simply by entering the IP address in the URL bar of any browser. Of course the computer that runs the browser have an IP address that is on the same subnet. So you might want to change your address if that is not the case – or fire up the dhclient, it should get an address in the range that you specified (or simply reboot if your computer is configured for DHCP).

Self-signed certification warning

It’s a good thing that pfSense uses TLS so you can access the router securely via https. However the certificate it uses is self-signed and thus unknown to your browser which will display a warning. That doesn’t mean that it’s useless. In our case it’s just necessary to create an exce

Free Bsd Pfsense Install