4 ms·

I have an old Soekris Net6501 which I would love to use OpenBSD on. However, they don't have any support for the Sierra WWAN modem I have. Unfortunately these

I have an old Soekris Net6501 which I would love to use OpenBSD on. However, they don't have any support for the Sierra WWAN modem I have. Unfortunately these days finding an alternative Linux distro which supports an installation process which uses the serial terminal interface is really, really hard these days. So the device sits unused in one of my desk drawers.

bartvanH 6y ago
I don't know the specifics of the Net6501, but can't you do a foreign debootstrap where you let debootstrap copy all files on a machine that is already installed, then boot it up on the Soekris itself and let it do the rest of its install work over the serial connection?
- Quequau 6y ago
  If you could direct me to a how-to, I would appreciate it.
nix23 6y ago
PFsense that's whats running on my Net6501.
- Quequau 6y ago
  Was it easy to install and configure?
  - TheWickerMan 6y ago
    I’ve used pfsense on some soekris 5505s (i think its been a while). It was sort of a pain, at first, to get pfsense on them. Its been a while since I’ve done it, but heres the short version. 1. I found a version of linux (voyage maybe?) that had some pxe boot stuff setup automatically. I just had to set the dhcp range and a few other options. Any distro with pxe boot works but I’m lazy. 2. Plugged the soekris box into my laptops ethernet port. The linux distro was just a vm. Set up the vm so its nic could communicate with the physical laptop ethernet port. 3. Hooked a serial cable up to the soekris and set it to pxe boot. I had to find the manual to figure out what speed i needed for the serial port. I want to say default was 9600, but double check. Then it got the image from the linux vm and was enough to get me a cmd line via serial port. 4. I copied the pfsense cf (i think its called that) to a exfat USB flash drive and plugged it into the USB port on the soekris. 5. I mounted the USB flash drive on the soekris and used dd to copy the image to the internal cf card. 6. Reboot the soekris when done, change boot order on it, if applicable, and from there plug the soekris into the network or somewhere where it can get a dhcp address so you can finish setup from a web browser. If you’re interested i might be able to find my notes on it, but its probably been 5+ years.
  - nix23 6y ago
    Absolutely no problem, you just need a serial cable.
jlgaddis 6y ago
You might have to PXE boot to launch the installation with non-default parameters but you should have little problem doing so (and both PXELINUX and iPXE support serial console).

bartvanH 6y ago

I don't know the specifics of the Net6501, but can't you do a foreign debootstrap where you let debootstrap copy all files on a machine that is already installed, then boot it up on the Soekris itself and let it do the rest of its install work over the serial connection?

Quequau 6y ago
If you could direct me to a how-to, I would appreciate it.

nix23 6y ago

PFsense that's whats running on my Net6501.

Quequau 6y ago
Was it easy to install and configure?
- TheWickerMan 6y ago
  I’ve used pfsense on some soekris 5505s (i think its been a while). It was sort of a pain, at first, to get pfsense on them. Its been a while since I’ve done it, but heres the short version. 1. I found a version of linux (voyage maybe?) that had some pxe boot stuff setup automatically. I just had to set the dhcp range and a few other options. Any distro with pxe boot works but I’m lazy. 2. Plugged the soekris box into my laptops ethernet port. The linux distro was just a vm. Set up the vm so its nic could communicate with the physical laptop ethernet port. 3. Hooked a serial cable up to the soekris and set it to pxe boot. I had to find the manual to figure out what speed i needed for the serial port. I want to say default was 9600, but double check. Then it got the image from the linux vm and was enough to get me a cmd line via serial port. 4. I copied the pfsense cf (i think its called that) to a exfat USB flash drive and plugged it into the USB port on the soekris. 5. I mounted the USB flash drive on the soekris and used dd to copy the image to the internal cf card. 6. Reboot the soekris when done, change boot order on it, if applicable, and from there plug the soekris into the network or somewhere where it can get a dhcp address so you can finish setup from a web browser. If you’re interested i might be able to find my notes on it, but its probably been 5+ years.
- nix23 6y ago
  Absolutely no problem, you just need a serial cable.

jlgaddis 6y ago

You might have to PXE boot to launch the installation with non-default parameters but you should have little problem doing so (and both PXELINUX and iPXE support serial console).