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Anyone have any clue what I should be doing here? I

You can also search for DEC740/DEC750 and serial port configuration, they seem to use the same hardware (serial mmio at address 0xfedc9000).

What settings did you try so far? And do you get any output at all when booting Linux? Are you booting using grub and 'console=ttyS0,115200' was added to the 'linux' line in grub?

This blog post [Proxmox on DEC740](https://loganmarchione.com/2025/10/proxmox-backup-server-on-the-opnsense-dec740/) doesn't mention any special steps.

LLM suggests:

"Before you can get a Debian installer's serial output to appear, you must enable legacy UART in the BIOS,

At the UEFI/BIOS prompt, navigate to:

Setup Utility → AMD CBS → FCH Common Options → Uart Configuration Options
and enable the legacy UART features."


_But_ the OPNsense documentation recommends the opposite for OPNsense:

https://docs.opnsense.org/hardware/serial_connectivity.html#legacy-uart-vs-uefi-serial

"... support for EFI serial has changed, which requires EFI based systems to disable legacy support to prevent confusing the operating system"

It's probably worth changing this setting and give it a go.

Addition: I remember using clonezilla to make a complete backup of my DEC740. And adding 'console=ttyS0,115200n81' to the grub commandline (and some clonezilla specific stuff) was enough to make it work. But I'm not sure about the BIOS UART setting, I lent the DEC740 to someone and haven't got it right now.

Yep, I think you and Patrick nailed it. I cannot tell you how long I've been f***ing with this. I'll check it out and report back.

The ig4iic0 device is IMHO not related to the serial device. ig4iic0/Designware is an SMBus/I2C controller. There must be a way to force that uart2 to behave. Did you go into the BIOS/firmware setup and check the "legacy serial console" or some such setting?

I had forgotten all about this. I bet that's it. I'll check it and report back

Thanks Patrick, but we've tried ttyS0, ttyS2, mapping to the memory block, earlycon, etc etc. The bots don't know what else to try. I thought there might have been some OPNsense magic to work around the broken FCR, but no joy over here.

Not sure you're understanding. I'm unable to get a serial console on this box working with anything other than OPNsense. I need it to work with Linux.

Hi, I have a 5 year old DEC-850 that I would like to repurpose. This box has no VGA, only serial. The serial console works great on FreeBSD and OPNsense, but I am looking to deploy Proxmox and Debian on it. We think the controller is a Synopsis DesignWare, that OPNsense dmesg calls out as having a broken FCR... not sure if this is real, or indicating an emulated controller?

OPNsense detects the serial like so:

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uart2: console (115384,n,8,1)IFO> iomem 0xfedc9000-0xfedc9fff,0xfedc7000-0xfedc7fff irq 3 on acpi0

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root@OPNsense:~ # dmesg | grep acpi
acpi0: <INSYDE WALLABY>
acpi0: Power Button (fixed)
cpu0: <ACPI CPU> on acpi0
hpet0: <High Precision Event Timer> iomem 0xfed00000-0xfed003ff irq 0,8 on acpi0
atrtc0: <AT realtime clock> port 0x70-0x71 on acpi0
attimer0: <AT timer> port 0x40-0x43 on acpi0
apei0: <ACPI Platform Error Interface> on acpi0
acpi_timer0: <32-bit timer at 3.579545MHz> port 0x408-0x40b on acpi0
acpi_button0: <Power Button> on acpi0
pcib0: <ACPI Host-PCI bridge> port 0xcf8-0xcff on acpi0
uart2: <16x50 with 256 byte FIFO> iomem 0xfedc9000-0xfedc9fff,0xfedc7000-0xfedc7fff irq 3 on acpi0
ig4iic0: <Designware I2C Controller> iomem 0xfedc2000-0xfedc2fff irq 10 on acpi0
ig4iic1: <Designware I2C Controller> iomem 0xfedc3000-0xfedc3fff irq 11 on acpi0
ig4iic2: <Designware I2C Controller> iomem 0xfedc4000-0xfedc4fff irq 12 on acpi0
ig4iic3: <Designware I2C Controller> iomem 0xfedc5000-0xfedc5fff irq 6 on acpi0
ig4iic4: <Designware I2C Controller> iomem 0xfedc6000-0xfedc6fff irq 14 on acpi0
ig4iic5: <Designware I2C Controller> iomem 0xfedcb000-0xfedcbfff irq 15 on acpi0
root@OPNsense:~ #
My struggle has been that I can't get any Linux kernel to properly register the serial console. I've tried 50 kernel option in the grub menu, but no joy. Grub menus all work fine, then serial console output stops once it gets passed to the kernel.

Anyone have any clue what I should be doing here? I'm stumped, and I've stumped Google Gemini and Claude. Thanks in advance.

On the Deciso DEC-850v1 (AMD Epyc 3201, Netboard A20) I'm trying to figure out which module or driver OPNsense is loading for the thermal sensors. Does anyone know? Does the plugin hwprobe have this info?

Edit, got it thanks anyway!

Hi, so this is not new information, but I am a dumbass. I was running Zenarmor, ntopng, crowdsec, etc, and logging to my m.2 SATA and NVME disks that are in a ZFS mirror. Predictably, I wrote those disks to 0% and 1% life left over about 18 months. I have now implemented ramdisk; moved all logs to local RAM or to a new remote ELK stack; and verified writes are now about 14GB/day. I am looking to install (2) new NVME disks in a ZFS mirror and ditch the SATA.

The datasheet on the Netboard A20 I have indicates that it has "2x M.2. socket (1x with SATA / PCIe x4 switchable & 1x PCIe x4)". How do I switch the first M.2 socket to be NVME? I am running the latest BIOS and I don't see an option to switch that socket between SATA/NVME.

Do I need a jumper or something? If so, is it in place already and I just need to move it, or do I need to procure one? If the latter, what jumper do I need to buy?

I'm also interested in any tips to migrate this ZFS mirror to a new one. I have recent config backups.

If this isn't the right place to ask, please point me in the right direction.

Thanks much in advance!

Solder them to the pins of the MB, maybe? Add some heat shrink tubing - done.

My soldering is primitive and I'm afraid that I'd end up de-soldering the pins instead.

I reached out to Deciso and they are Fedexing a replacement cable assembly free of charge, even though my appliance is out of warranty.

Shout out for great customer service! Support OPNsense!

Hi, I have a Deciso DEC-850v1, and I was doing some surgery to add a second SSD so I could implement ZFS, and I borked the A20 board's power connector. The wires pulled out of the connector, and I can't get them to stay back in. Anyone know what kind of 2-pin connector this is, and how to crimp on a new one?

https://imgur.com/a/ANmEwQk

Hi, this is outside the scope of OPNsense, but I've upgraded the memory and added a second disk to my DEC-850 with an eye towards moving to ZFS, and got to thinking that it would be awesome to install Proxmox VE as a host with OPNsense as a guest (I've done this on other machines, and it works pretty great, but those machines all had VGA/KB/mouse). There is a bunch of spare CPU/memory and disk capacity on this box now, and it would be great to put it to use. Proxmox shows support for serial-based installations.

Anyhow, I'm having trouble after I boot the Proxmox iso USB... on the console I see:

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Welcome to GRUB!

error: no such device: /.disk/info.
error: no such device: /.disk/mini-info.


•     I've verified the iso hash
  
•     The BIOS is UEFI, latest version
  
•     The device is not configured for secure boot
  

My googling is failing me... I don't understand these error messages, or how to resolve them. Grub hangs and I can't proceed. Not sure if there's a BIOS setting that I need to touch. I've posted on Reddit and in the Proxmox forums but no luck yet.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the interest.

The BIOS is upgraded to the latest now. One thing I have noticed is that I don't see it documented anywhere that the serial console on the DEC wants the flow control set to XON/XOFF. That took me a minute to remember from when I had to touch the BIOS last.

The ZFS install didn't happen yet. Seems I ordered the wrong type SSD. I need an NVME for slot 2 and I had purchased a SATA to match the existing in slot 1. Hopefully I'll get ZFS configured tomorrow.

Thanks again for your help Franco! Any everything you do, too!

Good thing I asked here first :) I had the USB serial console working at one point, but I'll test it again before I start tonight to make sure I can get into the BIOS that way.

Thanks Franco!

Hi, I purchased a DEC-850v1 before ZFS installation was supported, I have upgraded to 24.7.9 and now I'm ready to add a second SSD and move from UFS to ZFS.

I see in the documentation that I can invoke the opnsense-installer from a root shell via SSH. I checked, and it presents me with the option to do a ZFS install. Is this possible (or wise) to try do this via SSH and import the existing configuration?

I have daily FW backups, so if the installation fails I can definitely recover.

Thanks in advance.

zabbix 7 agent and proxy are there now.

Hi, sorry to jump on your post, but how did you create the zabbix_proxy database? I can't get the proxy to connect to the server, and in the logs I see:

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92056:20240423:144220.197 using configuration file: /usr/local/etc/zabbix64/zabbix_proxy.conf
92056:20240423:144220.198 cannot open database file "zabbix_proxy": [2] No such file or directory
92056:20240423:144220.198 creating database ...
92056:20240423:144220.198 [Z3002] cannot create database 'zabbix_proxy': [0] unable to open database file
92056:20240423:144220.198 cannot initialize database: cannot open database