PfSense ISO installation step-by-step

From PFSenseDocs

This article is part of the HOWTO series.

Summary

This is here to five you a quick howto for installing pfSense using an ISO.

Details

First step, install a Video card, Keyboard, a CD-ROM drive, an IDE hard Disk drive, 128MB of ram or more and at least three Network interfaces in your target machine. Do not install any unnecessary hardware like a modem because Pfsense cannot use it.

The hardware setup for the installation tested was Pentium Pro 200, 128MB EDO ram, Floppy 1.4MB, Trident VGA, 4 Realtek 8139D PCI cards, ATAPI CD_ROM 24X, 2 IDE 1GB drives. As you can see it was quite an old system but it all still worked quite well. Pfsense was also installed on a DELL Dimension 4100 800MHz without any problems.

Next, download the current Snapshot ISO from http://snapshots.pfsense.com/FreeBSD6/RELENG_1_2/iso/pfSense.iso.gz Once the download is complete uncompress the file and burn the CD.

Set up your BIOS to boot from the CD and then insert the CD into the drive. Reboot the machine and watch the FreeBSD 6.2 operating system boot up your machine. Do not worry if you cannot catch everything that is scrolling by because you can see all of it when the boot is complete by pressing the Scroll LOCK on your keyboard and using the Page UP/DN keys. The boot process should stop and ask you to configure the network interfaces. If you managed to make that far the rest of the installation, most likely, will be successful.

Answer no to the first prompt asking to setup Virtual Interface/Lan by typing n.

Now it will ask you to select the LAN interface. This is the interface that you will attach to an Ethernet switch if more than one computer will be accessing the pfsense to get to the internet. To select this interface use the automatic procedure by disconnecting all interface cables from all the network interfaces of the pfsense. Follow the instructions on the screen and then attach the computer via an Ethernet cable to the LAN port. Mark this interface as the LAN interface.

Next it will ask you to select the WAN port. In a Dual Wan configuration the Wan port is the primary wan. If you have not set up your DSL/CABLE modem/routers yet select an interface by specifying the name of the interface as shown on the display. This interface can be changed later on.

Then select the OPT1 port specifying the name of the next interface as shown on the display. The OPT1 port will become your secondary Wan port. Even if you have more interfaces to configure press enter at the next interface request to end the configuration.

Pfsense will start to load and configure itself. With a little luck, you will pass the point where pfsense configures the WAN interface. This is where the interrupts are tested and if your hardware is set up properly, or if you have a newer computer, it will breeze through and arrive at the Pfsense Console Setup page. Here you will install pfsense to your hard disk by entering 99. If you do not make it to this page you have a hardware compatibility problem with the FreeBSD operating system.

Installation is pretty painless, tell it to format and make a new partition if you want everything cleaned off, and once complete you'll see FreeBSD loading. The loading will take some time . This time can be used to determine how you will connect the pfsense wan ports to the internet.