Watchguard Firebox M400/M500

pfsense1921

Thanks everyone.

What are the benefits of going with the M400?

johnpoz

@pfsense1921 Can not think of 1 to be honest. Other than the tinker factor.. If had it laying around free - ok.. But if yoru going to spend the same amount of money as getting a new netgate appliance anyway.. I would never in a million years go that route.

stephenw10

Yeah, I didn't pay anything like that for the one I have. But I got it for fun. I enjoy poking hardware and finding out how it works.
Comparing it directly with the 3100 I guess; it's rackmount, it's potentially a lot more powerful (it's upgradable), it has SFP ports.
I personally use a 3100 as my edge device. I'll probably be swapping it out for a 6100 soon just because I can.

Steve

chpalmer

@halk8888 said in Watchguard Firebox M400/M500:

-Power consumption
-Noise
-Heat

My m400 (which was a display model I got for free.. so no hours on it when I got it)-

uses less power than any other machine on my network..
is quieter than even my primary switch which has a fan..
generates less heat than any other box on my network.

I like this box because-
I like the inline network interfaces and do use them all.. (I wish the Netgate 7100 had this configuration)
I have a need for the SFP slots.. (although I do wish they were SFP+)
It does full speed of my cable connection without breaking a sweat plus all my VPN's.

YMMV.

:)

dlucas46

Hi all,

I have finally managed to acquire one of these as an eventual upgrade of my XTM5.

Do we have a definitive list of which processors will work correctly without the reboot hang bug?

I would like a Xeon but the ones that I have seen listed as working seem expensive still for such an old processor line.

What would be the recommended i7 or i5 processors?

stephenw10

I'm not aware of a list anywhere, pretty much everything known is in this thread.

Do you actually need something that powerful? The i3-4130 is known to work, it's cheap and it's a significant upgrade over the G1820.

Steve

dlucas46

@stephenw10

Hi,

I could probably use the i3-4130 without problem, this one will be in use on a BT Openreach FTTC 80/20 line so hardly taxed at all. The Xeon L5420 in the XTM5 hardly ever goes above 30%

Just like to put something reasonable in and forget about it rather than upgrading things later.

qetesh

@stephenw10 @Deathwarror @Scorch95 and everyone else with the reboot problem with an i3 CPU: I developed an open source hardware workaround for this! It's basically a microcontroller that checks the state of the power supply and one of the SFP LEDs (since those are lit when it hangs on reboot) and uses the internal power button connector to "manually" reboot the box.
All the details, sources and gerber files for the PCB are available in a post I made on my blog today and I hope it's ok to post the link here: Firebox Rebooter

I have a few of the boards left since I couldn't order less than 5 and I would be happy to give them away to interested people if they pay for shipping (I live in Germany so outside of EU it's probably cheaper to order the boards from a PCB fab yourself)

stephenw10

Huh that's novel! I'd prefer a software solution but that's an option at least.

Steve

jutg987654321

Hello all, thanks for all this info. slight Noob here so...feel free to lecture if needed.

Happened to get an M500 and wanted to replace my aging hardware with slightly less aged hardware, but I can't seem to get FreeDOS to boot no matter what I try to get the BIOS updated.

Steps so far:

Stock M500 (literally never used) Booted up fine, console out put (115200) no issues, access CLI with default login, did a show sysinfo for giggles, then did shutdown command:
***M500 stock won't shutdown via CLI? The processes show shutting down, disk shutdown etc.., but the box just sits there and fans continue spinning (left it for 20mins). Never used Watchguard, thought I would mention it since everyone was having shutdown issues?

Replaced 2x4gig RAM with 2x8gig I had lying around. Boots fine, get into watchguard CLI, show sysinfo - verify RAM numbers, all OK. (still won't shutdown via SHUTDOWN command)

4gig Compact Flash I had handy, used Rufus to flash FreeDOS. Replaced stock CF card. No output on serial (115200, 9600 etc..). 3 Beeps, fans full speed (same beeps as if no boot media installed)

Put back Original stock CF card, boots fine, serial output (115200)

Flashed PFsense USB serial image to CF card (via Rufus). No serial output, 3 beeps again. Fans full speed (intermittently wind up or down)

Flashed PFsense USB serial image to USB stick, added SSD, removed CF card completely, BOOTS OK. Install to SSD fine, reboot to PFSENSE fine. Access WEB UI for giggles - All OK. shuts down fine via CLI and web GUI.

Flashed FREEDOS to other USB sticks (3, 4g, 8g, 16g) via Rufus, added Zanthos files, no console output at all (still 3 beeps at boot). Verified USB sticks boot fine in other PC (old workbench PC Z97 mobo set to legacy BIOS boot)

Flashed FreeDOS image from FreeDOS site (Rufus again, 3sticks, 4g, 8g, 16g), repeat of previous steps. No output via console.

So I'm stumped. FYI I have two console cables, both work on everything else I try them on - Cisco, junper, Unifi gear etc... one is an OG CISCO blue cable, one came straight out of the M500 box still in plastic bag.

Going to get VGA working hopefully this weekend, maybe will show me something when I try to boot?

Any recomnendations on WTF I'm doing wrong with flashing the FreeDOS images?

Thanks again for everyone sharing work, never get any of this done without you guys!

stephenw10

You only tried the FreeDOS image from their site? There is no serial output on that by default.
Try this. If that boots you can add the required BIOS and programmer.

You don't actually need to flash the BIOS though.

Steve

stephenw10

~~Ah actually you should be seeing some output from the BIOS, the version and password prompt.~~ If you're not seeing that you might need a different serial adapter. Been a while since I've seen that but it used to be a common issue on the older boxes.

jutg987654321

@chpalmer what did you append? (Sorry for the 2 year follow-up!!)

stephenw10

The baud rate probably. That image boots to a serial console at 9600.

autoexec.bat:

@ECHO OFF
SET NLSPATH=C:\
SET HELPPATH=C:\
SET TEMP=C:\
SET TMP=C:\
SET WATTCP.CFG=C:\
SET PATH=C:\
SET PROMPT=$P$G
SET DIRCMD=/OGN
SET LANG=EN
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330
if "%config%"=="" goto end
if "%1"=="" goto mouse
REM Shsucdx /D:?FDCD0001 /D:?FDCD0002 /D:?FDCD0003

:mouse
if exist ctmouse.exe CTMOUSE
IF "%CONFIG%" == "6" CALL .\LOADCD.BAT
goto end
:end
beep
beep 
beep
mode com1 9600 n 8 1
echo Switching Console to COM1 at 9600 8N1
ctty com1
echo Freedos on COM1:
date /d
time /t

jutg987654321

@stephenw10 yea I verified the baudrate in autoexec every time I've made a freedos boot drive.

I tried flashing the freedos image you gave me, no output at all. Just doesn't make sense.

I put the pfsense serial image in and it boots up and gives me console output every time.

I have VGA cables now and can't seem to get any VGA output at all either!

If I boot with NO boot drives connected, I should some kind of picture/boot screen from the OG locked BIOS, right???

stephenw10

Sorry too many similar boxes!

No, you get no output at all until the FreeBSD boot loader runs with the default BIOS.

Do you hear the 3 beeps when FreeDOS boots?

Steve

jutg987654321

@stephenw10 yea I do get three beeps, I even get beeps when I plug in/unplug a keyboard or mouse.

jutg987654321

Well I got VGA working (finally broke down and got the soldering iron out)

I do get the American Megatrends output up when no boot drives are attached (bios locked when trying to access as usual)

Still can't get any Freedos images to boot. The standard PFSense installers are booting up fine. Any FreeDOS image I try to use says "insert proper boot drive press any key to continue... (or close to that).

jutg987654321

So I got my M500 booted to freedos finally, and successfully flashed zanthos v6 BIOS, booting pfsense off an SSD on a SATA port, fans turned down, 16G (2x8g ECC UDIMM) of DDR3 I had laying around working without issues.

The only combination that worked for me was the freedos2 image provided here straight to the STOCK CF card. I tested both VGA and console output modifying that image and they worked. Reading back over the thread I noticed the other M500 users also had issues booting freedos from a USB - so that lines up with what I was seeing. I used Rufus and win32imager back and forth for everything and verified all the images I burned were booting fine on other devices.

M500 (my experience)
WORKED: freedos (image from you guys!) --> STOCK CF card = VGA (or serial) works OK
WORKED: PFsense serial install image --> USB (all sizes <16g)
WORKED: PFsense standard install image --> USB drive (all sizes <16g)
DID NOT WORK: freedos (custom image) --> USB drives = no serial output, no VGA output
DID NOT WORK: freedos (custom image) --> 2 random CF cards I had (both 4GB Verbatim, 2GB Transcend)

Thanks to everyone in this thread!

nd-t

Looks like this is still a pretty active thread on the Watchguard Firebox.

My work is throwing out a Firebox M400 so I took it. From some brief reading, it seems the CPU and RAM can be upgraded and pfSense might be able to installed on an SSD too!

I'm currently running my pfSense on a VM and it's been fantastic.. but of course I'd prefer my firewall to baremetal. My biggest concern is going to be performance.

Would anyone have any results from PPPoE testing? Running it in a VM, I get a max speed of 500-600MBPS, so I have opted to use the ISP's DMZ solution instead. Not ideal, but it's the only way I could get the symmetrical Gigabit speeds I pay for. So yeah, I don't mind buying another CPU for the upgrade, as long as it can perform well.

Thoughts?