Writing Compact Flash With UTM Software
Introduction
Until Syneto 1.3.0 was released, installation of CF cards was recommended to be done using a Linux distribution. Since following each distribution creates a maintenance potential problems often not foreseeable, we decided to release the 1.3.0 UTM installation ISO’s that may be used to also install a CF connected to a virtual (or physical) machine. The new installation ISO will present a Linux command line prompt instead of halting, so that multiple compact flash cards may be preloaded using the sw-disk-install commands.Creating a new VMWare virtual machine using VMWare Fusion on MacOS X
Before creating the virtual machine, you have to download the .iso installation image. Please note that you will have to download the correct image for the intended hardware (base, viac7, etc …) Here choose to continue without disk, as the next step will give us the opportunity to select our downloaded iso image.
Here you’ll have to select the “Use operating system installation disk image file” option and browse for the .iso you have previously downloaded.
Next we will choose the operating system. The Syneto UTM as of version 1.3.0 uses Linux kernel 2.4 as the core, so you will have to select “Linux” with “Other Linux 2.4.x kernel”. Upon choosing the operating system, the VMWare Fusion wizard will have chosen typical settings for a generic Linux machine. Next we will customize this image to remove the virtual disk, as the installation iso will not be used to install Syneto UTM locally, but only on compact flash disks we will later connect.
Clicking on “Customize Settings” will open a “File Save …” dialog prompting you to save the newly created virtual machine before editing its settings.
Once saved, we will be given the opportunity to tweak various settings. Here we’ll need to remove the automatically created harddisk, by selecting the “Hard Disks” section.
Now click on the “minus” sign on the bottom of the left side panel to remove the only defined hard disk.
After selecting “Move to Trash”, there will be no hard disks left, so we may choose to close the Settings window.
This concludes the virtual machine creation, and you will now find it in the Virtual Machine Inventory that may be accessed using the Cmd+Shift+L key combination.
Running the installation procedure
Once the virtual machine is installed, this procedure is the same on all virtual (or physical) machines. The screenshots below are taken using VMWare fusion, but they are exactly the same on other types of machines.
Now it is time to start the virtual machine that already has connected the Syneto UTM installation CD-ROM. Do not worry if no USB controls are present in the status bar of the virtual machine. They will be available only when you will connect the Compact Flash writer.
You will see the above error that is due to the fact that there are no hard disks connected. Now it is time to physically connect the Compact Flash reader with the CF card connected. Since the CF reader is a hot-pluggabale device, it is possible to take some time until the card is made available to the virtual machine.
The final step is similar to installing a CF image using a general Linux distribution using the sw-disk-detect and sw-disk-install commands:
Using the <TAB> key to autocomplete is the best way to “remember” the commands. The actual commands are:
$ sw-disk-detect
$ sw-disk-install /mnt/cdrom/images/syneto-base-1.3.1-003303.tar --from-iso