Installation

I have used M0n0wall for around a decade on a Soekris 4801.
Due to throughput limitations on our glass 100Mbit/100Mbit line I ordered a Soekris 6501-50, hoping to also run M0n0wall on it with more or less the same configuration I already used on the Soekris 4801.

Since the CFcard of the 4801 can't be installed on the 6501-50, I simply installed a new M0n0wall 1.8.1 image on a 2GB Sd card in an SD to USB drive to see if I could get things running.

It starts, and the LEDs show that the 6501 machine responds to cables being connected to the machine.
However, using PuTTy on Windows7 with my USB to serial cable gets me a nice black screen with blinking green cursor (no response to keyboard input) and it looks like I can't access M0n0wall through the network (webbrowser) interface either until I have it setup (catch 22).

So my first question is:
-Is it possible to rip an image of m0n0wall 1.8.1. from my 4801 that has all the settings I need (including access through/to the web interface) and put that on the SD card/USB in the 6501?

Question 2: If that first question's idea does not work, are there any other options I haven't thought about that allow me to get m0n0wall running and accessible on the 6501?

Question 3: has anyone managed to succesfully get m0n0wall with a Soekris 6501 running on an msata SSD that is (obviously going to be) larger than 16GB?

Thank you kindly for thinking along and hopefully giving me a tip for getting me out of this mess.

See this thread for some tips.

http://forum.m0n0.ch/index.php/topic,5948.0.html

Thanks, Fred.

I had seen that thread (and several other threads mentioning both the Soekris and some specifically mentioning the 6501) and read all of it before posting here.

Unfortunately that 540b image seems to be old and no longer available and the other tips mentioned there I couldn't use to work around my issues.

The the most recent of these images.

http://m0n0.ch/wall/snapshots/

But from what I remember of these problems, it was related to using large drives, well beyond the 32MB required to hold an image.

Any chance I can evade those problems by ripping an image of m0n0wall 1.8.1. from my 4801 that has all the settings I need (including access through/to the web interface) and put that on the (2GB) SD card/USB in the 6501?

The CFcard in that 4801 is also 2GB in size and that works flawlessly.

Can you just try booting the 2GB card from the 4801 in the 6501? The network card selection is likely wrong but that only shows up once booted.

I wish that was possible.

Unfortunately the Soekris 6501 only has a USB slot, and I have several USB-to-microSDcard USB sticks, but nothing to attach the CF-card from the Soekris 4801 to the USB slot in the 6501. :-(

Well then, if you have to write the image to a USB stick it probably isn't going to make a difference whether it comes from a copy of a CF card or from the image download from the m0n0wall site.

I have a CF (as well as SD/microSD) card to USB converter, but I don't know if it is bootable. I paid $2US for it from ebay but I only use it to write CF cards.

I'm out of suggestions.

The only issue I have is that I need to make sure that the image from the 4801 CF-card contains the settings (LAN IP and Subnet mask). Otherwise it won't do me any good: I am unable to access the 6501 image through the serial port or through the network port (web access).

With the correct settings in the image from the 4801 that should be solved.
If those settings are not on the image I want to rip from the 4801 (as is the case with the blank image from the download on this site) but stored elsewhere, I am out of options.

Boot the new image in a different computer.  Configure the nics.  Now upload a save file configured the way you want it, including the nic names.  Shut down, and more the CF to the new system.

You should be able to use the serial port. What image are you using? Try the other one.

I have hardware here that needs to be using the generic-PC image for the serial port to work. The serial image will not work. It's exactly counterintuitive, but that's the way it was here on that hardware GB-1000 by GTA.