15.1.6.1 not booting on Soekris net6501

[weust]

Setting the boot.conig to 19200 didn't help. Still reboots as soon as I try to boot F1.
A serial speed setting was not present in the config.xml. Only  an enableserial line.

<ssh>
                        <sshdkeyonly/>
                </ssh>
        <enableserial/></system>
        <interfaces>
                <wan>
                        <enable/>

I first tried the pfSense boot to do it all from there, but somehow couldn't mount the OPNsense root partition.
But I did saw in the config.xml of pfSense the serial settings, and the speed value.

One more thing, the config..xml start with pfsense :-)
A thing for the cleanup someday no doubt.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<pfsense>
        <version>9.9</version>
        <lastchange></lastchange>
        <theme>opnsense</theme>
        <sysctl>

[jstrebel]

Hi,
just to clarify. I set the Console Speed in the 6501 to 115200 and installed the 32bit image from USB to the internal mSATA. I did not make any changes on the OPNsense settings. This produces the screen output above.
Jakob

[exocet]

I too can confirm that opnsense (and pfsense 2.2) will not boot on the Soekris 6501.

FreeBSD 10.1-STABLE will, however, install and boot just fine.

My behavior is exactly as jstrebel describes.  It reboots immediately after the boot loader.

To be clear, you never get to Stage One of the FreeBSD boot process.
https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/boot-introduction.html

[weust]

My net6501-30 is with Jos and Ad right now. They are having a look at it.
I did have pfSense booting just fine. The 2.2 release in fact. Never tried the 2.2.1 though.

[franco]

FreeBSD 10.1-STABLE will, however, install and boot just fine.

Is this FreeBSD 10-STABLE (if so, which date or commit) or FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE? They are different.

[exocet]

FreeBSD 10.1-STABLE will, however, install and boot just fine.

Is this FreeBSD 10-STABLE (if so, which date or commit) or FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE? They are different.

FreeBSD 10-STABLE
FreeBSD-10.1-STABLE-i386-20150316-r280048-memstick.img

[franco]

Thanks, that will certainly help in tracking the issue down. :)

[exocet]

Any update on this?

Any additional information I can provide?

I'd really, really love to run OPNsense... running vanilla FreeBSD isn't nearly as clean... 

On a side note, I've tried to build an OPNSense image off of a functional FreeBSD 10.1-STABLE install, and the build process crashes (and causes a reboot.)

[weust]

Jos has my Soekris at his place right now to work on since a couple of weeks.
But I don't know the status on it.

[jschellevis]

Sorry.. for the silence guys.. I am still looking into this but last 2 weeks I have been busy with the proxy implementation. Still hope to fix it soon. I have some ideas on what is happening and why it does not work... but it is just a theory.. bear with me a little longer..

[exocet]

I'm happy to be a guinea pig to run dev code through the hoops on my net6501.

[jschellevis]

Last week I ran some more test..
The issue seems to be a BIOS issue having trouble to load the bootloader from disk if it is not located in the first part of the disk.

Installing  Freebsd 10.1 works fine and boots normally, but that uses GPT and placed the bootloader first on disk.
It may be possible to install FreeBSD first and then copy the opnsense files back to disk...

Alternative it should be possible to change the repo to opsense and reinstall packages and update base system..
Not sure what needs to be set for this to work but if anyone wants to try.. then these are my best ideas for a workaround.

Hope this information will help others to get OPNsense running on the Net6501.

[weust]

How, and why,  is OPNsense doing this differently then?

[franco]

The installer uses a single partition that is too big for older BIOSes to comprehend. The backwards-compatible approach is to add a tiny boot slice with minimal loader code at the beginning of the disk (512 kb?). This needs to be weaved into the installer in a non-destructive way.

[weust]

But if going back to a more basic FreeBSD with OPNsense on top of that, wouldn't this be part of it?