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Table of Contents
PFSense - Install pfSense - Installation of pfSense
Download pfSense image
Go to https://www.pfsense.org/download/ and select the USB Memstick Installer.
NOTE: The options here are what I use.
- Architecture: AMD64 (64-bit). As I use an AMD or Intel device as the router.
- Installer: USB Memstick Installer. As I will install from a USB.
- Console: VGA. As I will plug a Keyboard and Monitor into the router; and will not be setting this up via a Serial cable.
Choose different options as required.
Burn the pfSense image on to a USB drive
sudo dd if=pfSense-CE-memstick-2.4.5-RELEASE-amd64.img of=/dev/sdb
ALERT: Make sure that if= specifies the exact location of the downloaded file and of= specifies your USB device.
If you make a mistake here, you might overwrite your hard drive!
There are many ways to check which device is connected to the USB including:
dmesg
returns:
... [411849.265872] usb 3-2: new high-speed USB device number 6 using xhci_hcd [411849.418209] usb 3-2: New USB device found, idVendor=048d, idProduct=1234 [411849.418210] usb 3-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3 [411849.418211] usb 3-2: Product: Disk 2.0 [411849.418212] usb 3-2: Manufacturer: USB [411849.418212] usb 3-2: SerialNumber: 2146711134684684 [411849.418481] usb-storage 3-2:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected [411849.418603] scsi host12: usb-storage 3-2:1.0 [411850.422697] scsi 12:0:0:0: Direct-Access VendorCo ProductCode 2.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4 [411850.422989] sd 12:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0 [411850.423703] sd 12:0:0:0: [sdb] 3891200 512-byte logical blocks: (1.99 GB/1.86 GiB) [411850.423817] sd 12:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off [411850.423819] sd 12:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00 [411850.423936] sd 12:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found [411850.423941] sd 12:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through [411850.426796] sdb: sdb1 sdb2 sdb3 sdb2: <bsd: sdb5 > [411850.427528] sd 12:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
In this example, the device is shown as sdb.
NOTE: If you are using Windows, use Rufus: https://rufus.akeo.ie/.
For creating a bootable USB with a Mac, try Etcher: https://etcher.io/,
Verify the BIOS settings
Ensure BIOS is set to boot from USB.
While powering up the device, press the DEL key and verify that it boots to the BIOS.
NOTE: If DEL does not boot into the BIOS, try other keys such as F2, F11, F12.
Alternatively connect using Screen
sudo screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200
NOTE: If the command above fails, try a different device for the serial console.
Other values could be /dev/ttyUSBx or /dev/ttySx (where x is a number, starting from 0).
Boot from the USB
Connect USB drive.
Start the router device.
NOTE: This menu will time out after a few seconds and option 1 will be used by default.
NOTE: An alternative to booting up from USB is to connect using a Console Cable.
Determine Networks
By default, only 2 networks will be set up. WAN and LAN.
WAN (wan) -> igb0 -> DHCP LAN (lan) -> igb1 -> v4: 192.168.1.1/24
NOTE: By default, the installer configures the first hardware NIC as the WAN port obtaining an address via DHCP from your modem.
The second NIC will be configured as your local LAN interface at 192.168.1.1.
TIP: You may want to leave the WAN connection modem disconnected until the configuration is finished.
There’s a DHCP server running on the LAN interface so if you connect your PC to this port, you should be able to obtain an IP address which will allow you to access the pfSense web configurator to continue the configuration process.