I am unable to complete the install of Nethserver on my hardware. I tested multiple installs in a VMware virtual lab and had no issues. When I tried to install it on my hardware it all goes very smoothly until I get to “Post Installation Setup Tasks”. It hangs there and never completes. I left it for an hour. I am unable to leave it for longer as everyone in my house needs Internet so had to swap back in the drive with my Untangle install. I tried both interactive and unattended installs. I also tried different USB sticks and created them with both Rufus and Etcher in case they were causing issues but I don’t think this is the issue, I believe its something to do with the hardware I am trying to install too.
My hardware is the following with 8GB RAM and 250GB mSATA SSD.
I am new to using Nethserver but not new to firewalls. At home, over the last 4 years I have used Pfsense, OPNSense, Sophos XG and more recently Untangle. All these install and run fine on this hardware.
I am really excited to try Nethserver as I really liked what I saw in testing over the last few days. Any help to get this installed will be really appreciated.
For the hardware there are few performance declarations
And instal guides. But no explicit CentOS 7 compatibility which is mandatory for using NethServer 7.
Mind you ask to the dealer/producer?
I will try the base CentOS 7 install with CLI install after and report back. If it does work what is the difference between the two different install methods. Is the CentOS 7 install somehow missing any optimisations or anything else?
I will also message the dealer to see if the hardware is CentOS 7 compatible. I am most familiar with Debian based distros and I know Untangle is based on Debian.
I contacted the manufacturer and they said the hardware does support CentOS 7. However when I tried a minimal install on CentOS 7, I ran into the same issue. Maybe I am just not waiting long enough? That step in a VM takes a couple of minutes, what is the longest it could possibly take? If I drop out of Anaconda to a terminal and I run top I can see the CPU working and the processes using CPU are gzip and some anaconda related processes.
Alternatively what is a good box for running Nethserver as a firewall for home use? I have 1Gbps FTTP internet (speedtest results are 900Mbps up and down) so the hardware needs to be capable of pushing that. Preferably with IPS (not essential) enabled as my current hardware can do that.
Its very odd that a VM install takes minutes but physical hardware can take so long. Something is not working well with the CentOS 7 setup as that’s not normal.
Thanks for both the links, both of these have been very useful.
I recently bought the same device as you have. I have downloaded CentOS 7 on it but not with VM. I bought it with these specs: AC wifi, 8GB RAM and 128GB mSATA. I created its USB via Rufus and installed it. It took around 40-45 mins approx. It got stuck while installing where it says “performing post-installation setup tasks” for around 15-20 mins but afterwards it finished setup and all done!
Thanks all, I finally managed to get this installed. I tried it again but this time left it even longer and finally it did complete. I should have just been more patient before. I just cant understand why an install that takes 10 minutes on in VM should take 80 minutes on this hardware, its not that much slower than the pc I am running the VM on. I guess we will never know.
