Installation

I am a bit confused and feel I am missing something.  It seems to me that there must be a way to install MonoWall directly from CD to a PC's HD. 

After which it can be booted from HD to be configured and ran from HD. 

Can this be done.  BTW, I have read through the FAQs and most of the Docs before posting this question.

Thanks in advance,

William...

http://m0n0.ch/wall/screencasts/Writing%20the%20Flash%20card

Will also apply to HD if so instructed...   Watching is sometimes easier than reading...

Sure, this is possible. All you need is some sort of bootable CD that contains an operating system environment that runs from the CD itself and system RAM, has the network and disk writing tools needed, and doesn't need to write to disk itself.

With that you can boot it up, download the m0n0wall image (into RAM disk) and then write it out to the HD.

It's even possible to do this from a bootable floppy instead of a CD. Any of the micro Linux or BSDs will work.

Did you look here yet?

http://m0n0.ch/wall/installation_generic.php

Alternative installation methods:

    * with Damn Small Linux (CD-ROM)
    * with tomsrtbt (floppy disk)

One thing to keep in mind is that when writing the m0nowall image to disk, it will use the whole disk, not just the amount of room it needs.

http://m0n0.ch/wall/installation_generic.php

Alternative installation methods:

    * with Damn Small Linux (CD-ROM)
    * with tomsrtbt (floppy disk)

One thing to keep in mind is that when writing the m0nowall image to disk, it will use the whole disk, not just the amount of room it needs.

That's exactly the information I was looking for.  Yes, I was expecting it to take over the whole HD and that is what I wanted, but it is good that you point this out as I am sure someone will run across this question.

Initially I was expecting a deployment method similar to that that  Smoothwall Express http://smoothwall.org/ uses.  i.e. Boot from CD and install to hard drive on a dedicated machine.

I can understand why Monowall doesn't do it this way, but was surprised that this wasn't a common deployment method.  When using an install from CD method it would be useful to have this option integrated, but I am not complaining!   

I use BartPE and UBCD4Win http://www.ubcd4win.com/ either of those should do the trick as well as your excellent suggestions.

William...

The problem with coming up with a bootable CD that does this is that there is a huge number of variables that have to be accounted for and accommodated. Things like all sorts of different network cards, video cards, etc. Very much like an entire OS distribution that is expected to work on everybody's hardware having never seen the exact combination of hardware it's being installed to.

That's why the current install scheme as provided by the project is used. It assumes you have some sort of computer that is capable of running one of the disk writing tools and that you can plug a drive of some sort into it for long enough to write the image. AKA the "least common denominator" approach.

If you didn't have such a machine, you wouldn't need a m0nowall in the first place, eh?