UPDATE: finally got pfsense to boot. I had to choose the ZFS/root option, and that made the USB drive a UEFI bootable device and the system booted up fine. Choosing UFS resulted in a "legacy" bootable device, but it would not boot at all. @nezach was able to boot with UFS though, but I can't explain why.
As seen in this other thread:
https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...-machines-for-network-appliance-builds.21014/
I got myself a HP T620 Plus thin client machine. Although my intent is to use Linux on it, I wanted to try out pfsense and opnsense on this machine, but so far having zero luck getting it going. I would appreciate it if anyone can give me a few hints here...
Details:
[pfsense]
- downloaded the latest 2.4.3 pfsense memstick w/ vga and made a bootable USB drive installer
- i have a 16GB Ultra Fit USB stick inside the T620+ that I plan to use as boot drive
- I boot the pfsense installer usb drive and tried to install on the internal 16gb ultra fit
====> when I booted the usb installer on any of the USB 3.0 external ports, i got erratic behavior like syslogd seg faulting and other spontaneous reboots. i then tried one of the USB 2.0 external ports and finally was able to install pfsense.
- for the install options, i just chose the guided install, GPT, and it completed, then asked me if I wanted a shell to make any manual changes, i said no. then it asked me if i wanted to reboot, so I enter yes, remove the usb installer stick, but when it tries to boot, it says no boot drive.
- i repeated the above a few times, same results. not sure what's going on...
- i then try again, but instead pick MSDOS instead of GPT. the installer warns that on this system that option isn't bootable, but neither was the GPT, so I chose to try it anyway. unfortunately, same result upon reboot says no boot drive.
[opnsense]
- i had the same problems as pfsense when booting the installer usb on a USB 3.0 port. although, this was really bad as it would spontaneously reboot several times or it would show I/O issues itself.
- I then tried the USB 2.0 port, and that was better, but not great. At least it got me to the login prompt, where I login as "installer" and it launches the installer program. but from this point forward, it was all downhill. at random points during the installer program, it would just crash and kick me back out to the login prompt. i tried several things to try to "avoid" triggering a crash, but no dice. I could never get it to install.
Keep in mind, there is also a M.2 SATA SSD in this system that has HP's Thin Pro installed. I don't want to install on that M.2 SSD as I think the USB drives are just a lot easier to replace when they fail and need replacing. So far, I haven't tried installing on the M.2 SSD at all, but that's not something I want to do right now. I didn't think it would be such a problem installing pfsense or opnsense on a USB drive. everything just seems very unstable.
Being concerned that maybe something was wrong with the hardware, I did a clean install of CentOS 7 from a usb installer and it completed smoothly and booted up just fine. I then moved the boot drive to different ports to see if maybe I just had a bad USB port, but CentOS 7 booted up quickly and without any issues on all internal USB ports and even the external USB 3.0 ports. So, at least, this gives me a little comfort that I think the hardware is fine.
Any suggestions? As for the pfsense install, since I can at least complete the install process (it just won't boot it), is there something I can do or check on at the end of the install process at the shell?
As seen in this other thread:
https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...-machines-for-network-appliance-builds.21014/
I got myself a HP T620 Plus thin client machine. Although my intent is to use Linux on it, I wanted to try out pfsense and opnsense on this machine, but so far having zero luck getting it going. I would appreciate it if anyone can give me a few hints here...
Details:
[pfsense]
- downloaded the latest 2.4.3 pfsense memstick w/ vga and made a bootable USB drive installer
- i have a 16GB Ultra Fit USB stick inside the T620+ that I plan to use as boot drive
- I boot the pfsense installer usb drive and tried to install on the internal 16gb ultra fit
====> when I booted the usb installer on any of the USB 3.0 external ports, i got erratic behavior like syslogd seg faulting and other spontaneous reboots. i then tried one of the USB 2.0 external ports and finally was able to install pfsense.
- for the install options, i just chose the guided install, GPT, and it completed, then asked me if I wanted a shell to make any manual changes, i said no. then it asked me if i wanted to reboot, so I enter yes, remove the usb installer stick, but when it tries to boot, it says no boot drive.
- i repeated the above a few times, same results. not sure what's going on...
- i then try again, but instead pick MSDOS instead of GPT. the installer warns that on this system that option isn't bootable, but neither was the GPT, so I chose to try it anyway. unfortunately, same result upon reboot says no boot drive.
[opnsense]
- i had the same problems as pfsense when booting the installer usb on a USB 3.0 port. although, this was really bad as it would spontaneously reboot several times or it would show I/O issues itself.
- I then tried the USB 2.0 port, and that was better, but not great. At least it got me to the login prompt, where I login as "installer" and it launches the installer program. but from this point forward, it was all downhill. at random points during the installer program, it would just crash and kick me back out to the login prompt. i tried several things to try to "avoid" triggering a crash, but no dice. I could never get it to install.
Keep in mind, there is also a M.2 SATA SSD in this system that has HP's Thin Pro installed. I don't want to install on that M.2 SSD as I think the USB drives are just a lot easier to replace when they fail and need replacing. So far, I haven't tried installing on the M.2 SSD at all, but that's not something I want to do right now. I didn't think it would be such a problem installing pfsense or opnsense on a USB drive. everything just seems very unstable.
Being concerned that maybe something was wrong with the hardware, I did a clean install of CentOS 7 from a usb installer and it completed smoothly and booted up just fine. I then moved the boot drive to different ports to see if maybe I just had a bad USB port, but CentOS 7 booted up quickly and without any issues on all internal USB ports and even the external USB 3.0 ports. So, at least, this gives me a little comfort that I think the hardware is fine.
Any suggestions? As for the pfsense install, since I can at least complete the install process (it just won't boot it), is there something I can do or check on at the end of the install process at the shell?
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