pfSense on Watchguard M370
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Hi all, i hope you're doing great.
@HangmansNoose001380 @stephenw10 @soupman @all in the post.What a great accomplishment have been made here, this is terrific!!! Thanks for the update info and hard work.
The fact that you can flash a generic image to the units brings more opportunities to improve computing capabilities and also made the units more Software Friendly.With standard limitations i have manage to install, pFSense (obviously) and some Hypervisors (Proxmox, VMWare Esxi), also some routing software (VyOS, Mikrotik RouterOS, OpenWRT) and Debian, just checking what could be a good a way to take advantage more efficiently and effective on the units.
I have only tested some i3 6100 with up to 32Gb Ram plus Some SATA SSD, but can assure you that on M370 Neither e3-1225v5 or e3-1240v5 or e3-1275v3 will work in the units, this looks like a Chipset limitations, as comments above.
Right now, i have 5 units (M370) brand new that were sitting on my office shelf. Actually 6, that one is running our beloved pFSense.
This updates give me hopes to prepare them and take advantage to build, maybe a Small VM cluster or how knows, some kind off weird project.
I have some CPUs (i5 6th and 7th gen, also a i7 7700 that maybe would work, using the Generic BIOS.
I'll be following up and help in anything I can, let's take this units to the next level.
Thanks all for your hard work.
Regards.
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@nicknitro I can tell you that when I modded the bios I updated the Microcodes and the modules for video and network and I am currently running an i5-7500:
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Hi,
hast anyone a watchguard t70 or t30 running pfsense? I can get one of these and plan to start with pfsense on it.
Mathias
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The T30 is an ARM device so nope. The T70 can be used but there is no driver for the switch interfaces so it requires hardware mods to use those ports. Significant risk of destroying it!
https://forum.netgate.com/topic/151470/watchguard-firebox-t70Steve
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I recovered the bios of the m370 and it is indeed unlocked.
My experience.
Laptop
usb-c (3.0 and 3.1) ---usb-c to usb a adapter---ch341A did not work. Drivers had to be installed manually. Still asprogrammer did not see the ch341aDesktop
usb 3.0 -- ch341A worked, drivers loaded automatically after install.
recovery done with the desktop.The ch341a is a risky board because of the 3.3v fault on it.
Thanks to all for the hard work and insights. -
HangmansNoose001380last edited by HangmansNoose001380 Mar 23, 2022, 12:47 PM Mar 23, 2022, 12:47 PM
@soupman Thanks for the feedback. The earlier Ch341a's had a 3.3v issue that was corrected in the newer versions. It could also be possible to pull the 3.3v power connector (leave the ground) and just plug power into the box and program it with the it powered down, but I have not fully tested that method.
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@stephenw10 Thanks a lot for your Feedback, than i will try the T70
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@hangmansnoose001380
Can you tell me how to change the password in BIOS? I have an m470, which may be different from the m370 motherboard. I want to modify the BIOS myself. Is there a tutorial? -
@qinghua907 As stated above I don't have a method for removing the password as the Aptio V bios will regen it even if it is removed. The only way I have found to have an unlocked bios is to reflash a bios that doesn't have the password enabled (Lanner original/modified bios). I can't confirm this as I don't have a M470 but I believe the bios I used on the M370 is the same for the M470. I make no promises on this as it has not been tested. If you would like to test and validate if the same bios works or not pm me and I can send you a link to the bios I used. The instructions above should be the same but I take no responsibility for a bricked device. I would highly recommend following the section above to make a backup of the current bios and verifying it's valid before flashing the new bios. If you have a successful back you should always be able to revert to the default bios using the same methods.
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@hangmansnoose001380 OK, please send me your BIOS download link, thank you
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Just got a M470. I'm going to start testing to see if the same bios & process works for the M470.
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Current testing:
Mod bios does indeed work for the M470. I assume this means it will also work with the 5 & 670. Xeon does work on the M470, currently running a Xeon E3-1260L v5. PCI-e works in the M470, won't run on the 370 as it requires the C236 chipset that is only in the M470+ models. Currently testing to make sure that all ports are working including the add-in card. Getting an E3-1240 v6 Xeon to test with as well as the microcode should allow any Skylake/Kabylake (5th/6th gen) processor. -
@hangmansnoose001380
Great. Xeon (R) CPU e3-1260l V5 is used on my m470. Can this CPU work in turbo boost mode on your m470? Look forward to your good news -
@qinghua907 I currently have turbo & speedstep enabled and it's booting fine. Haven't checked yet if turbo is functioning correctly as I've been dealing with an issue of pfsense loading the i350 addin module ports first (ports 0-7) and the onboard second (ports 8-15) and the ports on the module don't seem to be working correctly.
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I'd say it's not completely running right:
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@hangmansnoose001380
I suggest you modify it on the original BIOS of m470. Maybe it's better -
That looks correct. 2901MHz indicates turbo is active. It will never actually show the turbo speed since it's dynamic per core and dependent on thermal performance.
Steve
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So the M470 is now up with an E3-1245 v6 processor with turbo on with no issues with the CPU, still looking into the module ports not communicating:
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Thanks @stephenw10 for the info on the ports. For anyone else with an 8 port add on module the ports are not in the order they are labeled on the physical device. Add on module ports are as follows:
Top row: 4 5 6 7
Bottom row: 0 1 2 3 -
@hangmansnoose001380 Is the test finished?