OPNsense vs. pfsense on Soekris net6501 - HELP!

[kendavis]

Well, I have good news and bad news.
I've been trying for days to get OPNsense 17.7.5 to run on my Soekris net6501-50, and it never worked.
I've tried burning the USB stick using the nano image as many possible ways as I could and it simply does not work.

I downloaded pfSense 2.3.5, burned the image to the same exact USB stick using Windows 10 and rufus.  Worked perfectly the first time.  I configured it, and it now is up and running replacing M0n0wall 1.8.1 which is what was running on that hardware until yesterday.

I want to be running OPNsense...  how can this be done?  It doesn't install the way your site says that it does.

My Soekris is USB only - it does not have an mSATA hard disk installed.

--Ken

[weust]

I would advise a mSATA drive. But keep in mind the CPU is only 32 bit, and it isn't exactly fast.
Depends on what you plan to use it for, of course.

OPNsense-17.7.5-OpenSSL-serial-i386.img.bz2 is the one you want to download.
extract the img file, and with Rufus it should be usuable.

What exactly isn't working for you?
Saying "it doesn't work" isn't really helpful ;-)

[kendavis]

Mine does not have an mSATA drive, I had used it previously with m0n0wall on USB.

It has a 32GB USB made by SanDisk that I bought at the same time as the 6501-50.

I use it as my home internet security device to separate IoT devices from my LAN and Wi-Fi networks - and it's WAN port connects to my ISP.  I use the OpenVPN to connect to my computer remotely using RDP so I can get things from and put things I am working on at home on my PC at the house from work.

--Ken

[franco]

The one I inherited from weust works fine. Make sure to use the i386 image, either Serial or Nano.


Cheers,
Franco