The Sophos XG 115 has a VGA port and a Console port:
This method uses a console cable to connect to the firewall. The cable I used is available on Amazon, and it has not caused me any problems since I started using it months ago.
- Download Rufus
- Download the pfSense memstick image
- Install and run Rufus
- Write the pfSense memstick image to the USB drive using Rufus
- Press the Windows key and type "Device Manager", press enter
- Scroll down to Ports (COM&LPT)
- Look for "USB-SERIAL CH340", take note of the COM port
- Note: The BIOS procedure outlined here was able to successfully enable me to install pfSense. The information I got my settings from came from this post on Reddit. I cannot speak for any other settings listed in the document, as what I outline here is what worked for me.
- Download PuTTY
- Install and Run PuTTy
- Set "Serial Line" to the COM port that was noted
- In the left hand menu, go to Connection -> Serial
- Set the following options:
- Serial Line to Connect To: COM Port that was Noted
- Speed: 38400
- Data Bits: 8
- Stop Bits: 1
- Click "Open"
- Press F2 like a madman to get to the bios screen
- Go to Advanced -> USB Configuration
- Make sure "Port 60/64 Emulation" is set to "Disabled"
- Go to Boot
- Go to Boot Option #1
- Select USB Hard Disk
- Go to Save & Exit
- Select "Save Changes & Reset" and press enter
- Very quickly, manually power the firewall off by holding the power key for 5 seconds (the light will turn red) -- don't power the firewall back up until the settings for putty are tweaked)
- Power the firewall back on
- You'll soon end up at the pfSense boot screen
- Wait for pfSense to show "vt100" and select that
- Press enter to select "Accept" the license agreement
- Press enter to select "Install pfSense"
- Press enter to select "Guided Root-on-ZFS"
- Press enter to use default ZFS pool name
- Press enter to "Proceed with Installation"
- Press enter to select "Stripe - No Redundancy"
- Press the spacebar and then press enter to pick "ZFS Configuration" displayed
- Press enter to select "Yes"
- After pfSense extracts the files and reboots, remove the USB drive
- You will end up at the pfSense boot screen again
- Let pfSense run its course until you come to the configuration screen
- Press '1' to "Assign Interfaces"
- Press 'n' for "Should VLANs be set up now"
- Enter the name of your WAN interface (should be igb1 as that is the interface labeled WAN on the back of the Sophos XG 115)
- Enter the name of your LAN interface (should be igb0 as that is the interface labeled LAN on the back of the Sophos XG 115)
- Press enter to skip "Enter the Optional 1 interface name"
- Press 'y' for "Do you want to proceed?"
- pfSense will then write the configuration and reload the settings
- Press 'n' for "Configure IPv4 address"
- Enter 192.168.200.1 for the LAN IP address
- Enter 24 for the subnet bit count
- Press enter to skip IPv6 addressing
- Press 'y' to enable the DHCP server
- Enter 192.168.200.2 for the start address of the range
- Enter 192.168.200.254 for the ending address of the range
- Enter 'n' to use HTTPS for the webConfigurator protocol
- pfSense will write the changes and reload configurations
- pfSense will tell you the webConfigurator is ready to go
- Open up a web browser and go to 192.168.200.1
- Enter the default credentials -- username: admin, password: pfSense
- You will end up at the pfSense initial configuration page
- Click "next"
- Click "next" at "Netgate Global Support"
- Keep defaults for "General Information" and click "next"
- Keep defaults for "Time Server Information" and click "next"
- Keep defaults for "Configure WAN Interface" and click "next"
- Keep defaults for "Configure LAN Interface" and click "next"
- Change the password if you wish and click "next"
- Click "reload"
- From this point you should be able to connect to the Internet