Watchguard Firebox M400/M500
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Ah, clearly been too long!
You might try a different client device. We have seen Macs that are unable to send data over serial. I assume you're not using a Mac but worth trying something else.
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@stephenw10 said in Watchguard Firebox M400/M500:
Ah, clearly been too long!
You might try a different client device. We have seen Macs that are unable to send data over serial. I assume you're not using a Mac but worth trying something else.
Nope not Mac (Windows 10) but I do have some other machines around that have hardware COM ports. Also have some Linux machines I could try.
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Hi, Does anyone know the max size of cf that can be used in the m400 ?
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An SSD is far superior in pretty much every way!
Every time I update mine I think it's failed because the CF is so slow.
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@stephenw10 I was just keeping simple as ive previously done one of these by just putting the nanobsd image on the cf and no bios mods. Ive done many of the 32bit X750e flashing bios but for the m400 seems more complex or less clear defined instructions other than picking this forum post.
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In many ways it's easier since you can just install to a CF card and then boot it. I'd be surprised if you can get a CF card that's too big. But I also wouldn't try to get anything bigger than, say, 16GB. 4GB is fine for most installs. If you're trying to run anything that needs more drive space you shouldn't be using CF. Be sure to enable RAM drives to preserve the CF write life.
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@Myst412 Did this work with Fireware OS, or did you have to flash pfsense on it?
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Did what work exactly? Unclear what post you're asking about.
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@thejames10 Not sure what your asking.
I can confirm 16GB flash did not work for me only tried one so i cant confirm it wasnt faulty but it was new.
An 8GB compact flash card worked fine with an opensource freebsd based distro. I assume pfsense will work.
4GB is too small one a few plugins are added.
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@stephenw10 Sorry, new to this!
@Myst412 said in Watchguard Firebox M400/M500:
So I wanted to add 10gb networking to a couple of PCs and I thought since there's a PCIe slot on the M400, I could just throw a card on with a female to female pcie extender and presto chango, i'd be able to get 10GBe copper on my network for a fraction of a 4 port 10GBe switch.
@Myst412 said in Watchguard Firebox M400/M500:
Worked with a 450w atx just fine. Looking for a 200-300w flexatx.
Did this work with Fireware OS, or did you have to flash pfsense on it?
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Ive picked up a Crucial MX500 SSD a while back and tried to use it on my M400 without success.. I am going to try again this next week. Any words of wisdom from anybody?
(This box is now running on a laptop drive but started life around 2.3 if I remember right. I cannot seem to build it new no matter what Ive tried in the past.)
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I have a crucial mx500 working on my m400. I did nothing special to get it to work correctly.
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Thanks. I forget my whole process but I believe as Im working on this that I could not make a USB stick write to the drive via the M400 at the time.
Ive just loaded the SSD via VMWare so will try it later when I can take it down.
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I used a PC to upload the pfsense iso onto the CF card, then used that card to install onto the SSD. Are you using the correct sata port?
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Its my production box and is on a (spinner) laptop drive now. I loaded it via USB a few years ago but after 2.5 or so I could no longer get that method to work. Ive been just upgrading ever since and really want to just refresh this thing with the new SSD.
What ever SATA port I am using is working now. I have not tried to install the drive after I wrote it tonight. Gotta wait till I can take the network down for a while.
Rack mounted PIA to move ect..
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@chpalmer said in Watchguard Firebox M400/M500:
Its my production box and is on a (spinner) laptop drive now. I loaded it via USB a few years ago but after 2.5 or so I could no longer get that method to work. Ive been just upgrading ever since and really want to just refresh this thing with the new SSD. (old drive Seagate Certified Repaired Momentus 7200.2 80GB drive. Date: 08462)
Finally got this to work. ;)
I had to reload the drive again but this time I did it with my lab XTM5 box which I could not get to load from USB before.. (finally found the correct setting in BIOS and it finally booted from the memstick..)
This morning swapped the drive over to the M400.. (replaced my fans with the much quieter Noctua fans I bought about two years ago) reloaded the backup config.. and primary network is up before anyone in the house here is out of bed..
Getting to my dashboard was taking about 60 seconds before so something was up.. now it is instant.
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Lurking as I get my M400 running... I'm trying to flash the BIOS but whatever I do I can't get FreeDOS to boot. I've flashed USB keys, CF cards... pretty much every device I have. The devices will boot other machines, but not the M400.
I hooked up a VGA port and it's complaining that there's no bootable Device ("Insert bootable medium"). I wanted to try the FreeDOSBIOS2.img file linked to here, but the Google Site is down and I can't access the file. Does anyone have a copy or know why I can't get FreeDOS to boot?
Thanks!
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stephenw10 Netgate Administratorlast edited by stephenw10 Apr 13, 2024, 2:06 PM Apr 13, 2024, 2:04 PM
Should be here.
Though interestingly I failed to boot that myself on an M500 recently. Been too long since I last did it.
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@stephenw10 Awesome, thanks - I'll see if I can get my M400 to boot from it tonight. If not, looks like I'll be trying the SPI method - if I can find my SPI programmer!
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@gilphilbert Woohoo! I'm up and running with v6. This was the only FreeDOS version that booted. I tried my own 64G CF card but it wouldn't boot from that - only the one that came with the unit.
Interestingly, FreeDOS couldn't open the serial port so I had to use a VGA cable. The message on boot was "unable to write to COM1", so I had to use a VGA cable.
I did have a moment of panic when the box rebooted then the VGA monitor stayed dark... I thought I'd bricked it until I realized the three beeps were FreeDOS booting. Attached a serial cable and relaxed again!