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Create PfSense.md #13

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Create PfSense.md
pkubaj Aug 30, 2017
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PfSense ISO is cd9660
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In order to boot PfSense via PXE,
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PXE or iPXE? They're not exactly the same

you need to do the following:

1. Download ISO from https://nyifiles.pfsense.org/mirror/downloads/pfSense-CE-2.3.4-RELEASE-amd64.iso.gz

2. Extract the ISO contents to a directory called
`images/pfsense` in TFTP root:
`gzip -d pfSense-CE-2.3.4-RELEASE-amd64.iso.gz`

In order to extract the contents, you need to mount
the ISO with following commands (example from FreeBSD):
`mount_cd9660 /dev/$(mdconfig -a -t vnode -f pfSense-CE-2.3.4-RELEASE-amd64.iso) /mnt`
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@pkubaj on Debian like systems it would be easier to use this:
mount -o loop pfSense-CE-2.3.4-RELEASE-amd64.iso /mnt and then rsync.
It also mounts an ISO image to target directory and creates a device node with name loopX.
I do not have mount_cd9660 command.
I got some errors when running rsync:

rsync error: some files/attrs were not transferred (see previous errors) (code 23) at main.c(1183) [sender=3.1.1]

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Considering that most of our target audience (and our validation team) use Linux, please provide examples using some modern, popular distro (e.g. Debian). FreeBSD examples are also welcome, but shouldn't be the only one - sorry :)

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@miczyg1 it looks that rsync couldn't transfer some files attributes exactly (like read/write/execute permissions).

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@mek-x is right and this shouldn't really matter.

Then:
`rsync -avvP /mnt/ /srv/tftp/images/pfsense/`
You need to have `rsync` installed.

2. Relevant entry in DHCP server config:
`option root-path /srv/tftp/images/pfsense;`
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@pkubaj I would appreciate to prepare a solution for a network without running DHCP server on linux machine. Please provide necessary kernel command line with nfs options if possible. I will be able then to reproduce it

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Sorry, this time you must adjust to the standard :)
https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/network-diskless.html
"In order to provide the files needed for an operating system to boot over the network, a PXE setup also requires properly configured DHCP, TFTP, and NFS servers"

`/srv/tftp/images/pfsense` is the path to the extracted ISO.

3. Relevant entries in PXELINUX config:
```
label PfSense
menu label PfSense
pxe images/pfsense/boot/pxeboot
```
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@pkubaj why don't you add this entry to our configuation of PXE server ?

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sure


The path `images/pfsense/boot/pxeboot` is relative to TFTP root directory.
It's a path to the PXE loader in the extracted PfSense installation image.

Unfortunately, there's no mechanism for unattended installation of PfSense.
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@pkubaj any reference about that ?

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There's just no reference to unattended installation in the docs or in the official forum. It's possible though too install with Foreman.
https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Installing_pfSense - nothing here
Other people also ask about it:
https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=87212.0
https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=61112.0
https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=66024.0

Also, OPNSense, which forked from PfSense, also doesn't support it.

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@pkubaj please add this information as note to documentation. It would be very helpful for future developers.

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Done.