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Install on a virtual machine or hardware

On hardware​

  1. Uncompress the image and write it to the target disk. On Linux, replace /dev/sdX with the correct disk. Double check the name, because this erases the disk:

    gunzip -k nexwall-<version>-x86-64-generic-squashfs-combined-efi.img.gz
    sudo dd if=nexwall-<version>-x86-64-generic-squashfs-combined-efi.img of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress conv=fsync

    On Windows, use a disk writing tool such as Rufus or balenaEtcher with the uncompressed image.

  2. If the disk is larger than the image, the free space is used for data.

  3. Boot the machine with UEFI. In the firmware setup make sure the boot order starts with the new disk and that Secure Boot is disabled.

  4. Connect the LAN cable to the interface that will be the LAN and continue with the Quick start.

In VMware Workstation, Fusion or ESXi​

VMware cannot boot a raw image directly, so convert it to a VMDK disk first. On any Linux machine with qemu-utils:

gunzip -k nexwall-<version>-x86-64-generic-squashfs-combined-efi.img.gz
qemu-img resize -f raw nexwall-<version>-x86-64-generic-squashfs-combined-efi.img 32G
qemu-img convert -f raw -O vmdk -o subformat=monolithicSparse \
  nexwall-<version>-x86-64-generic-squashfs-combined-efi.img nexwall.vmdk

The resize step gives the unit a 32 GB disk. Without it the disk would be only as large as the image.

Create the virtual machine:

  1. Choose a custom configuration, Linux, version Other Linux 6.x kernel 64-bit.
  2. Give it 2 CPUs and 4 GB of memory.
  3. When asked for a disk, choose Use an existing virtual disk and select nexwall.vmdk. Use a SATA controller.
  4. Add two network adapters: the first is the LAN, the second is the WAN. Connect each to the virtual network that matches its role.
  5. Before the first boot, open the machine settings and set the firmware type to UEFI. Turn Secure Boot off.

On ESXi, upload the VMDK to a datastore and convert it with vmkfstools -i nexwall.vmdk nexwall-esx.vmdk -d thin, then attach the converted disk to a VM with UEFI firmware.

:::tip If the network adapters are not detected Change the adapter type to E1000E in the machine settings. :::

In KVM, libvirt or Proxmox​

These platforms use raw or qcow2 disks directly:

  1. Uncompress the image and, if you want more space, resize it: qemu-img resize -f raw <image> 32G.
  2. Create a VM with UEFI (OVMF) firmware, two or more vCPUs and 4 GB of memory.
  3. Import the image as the VM disk (qm importdisk on Proxmox, or point the libvirt disk to the file).
  4. Add two network devices and set the boot order to the imported disk.

After the first boot​

The console shows a login prompt. The unit is reachable on 192.168.1.1 from the LAN. If the web interface does not answer:

  • Check that your computer is on the LAN side and has an address in 192.168.1.0/24.
  • Log in on the console as root and check the address with ip -4 addr.
  • See Troubleshooting.

Continue with the Quick start.