Given I am currently uncertain whether to continue with the new Business edition or switch back to Community, I thought I had better familiarise myself with possible serial installation on the DEC697, having done only VGA before. I am aware I can switch between current editions via the GUI, and have already tested that. This exploration is in case of need for a clean install.
When I booted into the BIOS I saw this:
Press ESC for boot menu.
Select boot device:
1. NVMe NS 1: 244198 MiB (500118192 512-byte blocks + 0-byte metadata)
2. USB MSC Drive Verbatim 1100
3. Payload [memtest]
4. Payload [coreinfo]
Booting from Hard Disk...
BIOS drive C: is disk0
BIOS drive D: is disk1
|␈/␈-␈\␈
/boot/config: -S115200 -h
FreeBSD/x86 boot
Default: zfs:yes/ROOT/default:/boot/zfsloader
boot: 1
Can't find 1
There is no Setup menu as described at the bottom here (https://docs.opnsense.org/hardware/serial_connectivity.html) or under Installation Instructions here. (https://docs.opnsense.org/hardware/bios.html#dec600-and-dec2600-2-5gbe-series)
Further, selecting a number of an option results in "Can't find 1" (or whatever I try) as shown above, nor could I find any random-adjacent route out other than pulling the plug.
How would I find a Setup menu on this box, and how might one navigate even the limited options above, please?
You need to press option 1-4 very quickly before the FreeBSD boot loader starts. The prompt you see is the latter, so the system already booted from option 1. The setup utility is option 4.
Thank you. I'll give it a whirl.