What could be said more truthfully of Xen than: optimizing new domUs requires a measure of patience. This image is a ready-to-roll, fully xen-system-tool'd up and xen console-wranglified minimal installation with but a few minor cosmetic enhancements and some blow-away initial configuration, complete with an olde-timey xl config flatfile. I blew a night so you don't have to - and neither shall I blow another so long as it remains fully automatically upgradable from this point and, given their track record at thoughtful upgrades, I am in fact anticipating a worthwhile remuneration in life's most precious resource.

Download the image from our Telegram downloads channel at https://t.me/foxpaws_downloads/17

The process covered in Xen HVM Configuration for Installing Guest DomU from ISOs was used to bootstrap from the latest vga installation ISO and retroactively de-vga'd then en-console'd to ensure a Xen compatible administrative console; if a redux is called for some time I might roll the dice on the serial installer image. Nano looks great for embedded but I'm wrangling weapons grade amd64 carrier gateways and I feel confident that I'll be sticking with OpenWRT wherever WiFi is concerned.

An example config for your consideration:
name = "opnsense-foxpaws" builder = "hvm" vcpus = 2 memory = 2048 serial = 'pty' disk = ['file:/var/xen/opnsense-23.7.9-xen/opnsense-23.7.9-xen.hdd,hda,w'] vif = [ 'bridge=wanbr0', 'bridge=lanbr0', 'bridge=dmzbr0' ] #vga = "stdvga" #videoram = 64 #vnc = 1 #vnclisten = "192.168.10.20" #vncdisplay = 0 #vncpasswd = "securepass"

If you run into trouble try uncommenting the graphical and vnc directives as you may gain insights into the bootstrap and vgaconsole (more fully available via a bootloader option if you catch it fast enough) not otherwise possible. Try to be quick on the draw with your vnc client (i.e. have your command line or host already configured) as the first moments can be the most critical. If you are not a casual vnc user grab RealVNC Viewer from my vast and always updated free windows software recommendations list. It made the cut because it's well designed, widely compatible, performant and isn't fraught with intellectual property issues.

Uncompressed, the image stands ~7GB tall within its 20GB (sparse allocated) limit. The following configuration has been performed in the interest of a speedy launch and must be upended to some extent:

• root (console, webconfig) password is foxpaws
• WAN interface is set to 192.168.222.66/24 gw 192.168.222.1 and block private networks has been unchecked.
• LAN (webconfig, ssh) is 192.168.10.1/24
• Primary console: Serial, secondary console: EFI. Enabled vt driver.
• DNS resolvers set to 1.1.1.1, 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4, 9.9.9.9
• os-xen and os-qemu-agent plugins installed
• nano and screen packages installed
• os-theme-cicada (dark) theme installed and enabled
• Webconfig, SSH as root and with password authentication listening on LAN interface only