PFsense on a Velocloud Edge 510 (watchdog)

stephenw10

That looks like you're only updating the DMI info not actually flashing the BIOS. Is that your intent?

TheBeag

@stephenw10
Apologies for my ignorance. I assumed it was one in the same, Apparently I was only updating the DMI. My intention is to load PFsense with the watchdog disabled, and subsequent reboots boot into PFsense. I see a 2017-4-12-pic.hex in the firmware directory of the openwrt USB, although the README.txt doesn't mention how to apply it.

root@vc:~/firmware# cat README.txt
The files here are different for the Edge 520/540 ("5x0") and the Edge 510.

Edge 510:
Coreboot image: 510/2017-4-10-coreboot.rom
PIC image:      510/2017-4-12-pic.hex

Edge 520/540:
Coreboot image: 5x0/vc5x0-cb-01-bootorder.rom

Thanks for your question, and information.

stephenw10

Well I have no idea what those images are. I would expect to have to flash the full coreboot.rom file using something like flashrom. But you have to be very sure that's a compatible file. There's a pretty good chance you end up with an unbootable brick if the flash fails or the image is wrong.
You would need a rom image where the default watchbug state has been changed to disabled.
Alternatively you need to load the appropropiate watchdog driver in pfSense so it can be reset there.
I'm pretty sure that was discussed in the original thread though it's been a while!

TheBeag

Thanks again.
I dont see flashrom on the openwrt USB iso, even though the command is listed in the README.
I don't really see anyone modifying the boot parameters in PFsense. I do see people doing this with Linux:

modprobe i2c-i801
modprobe i2c-smbus
modprobe iTCO-wdt

I do see some of these modules in the openwrt USB iso:

root@vc:~# lsmod | grep i2c
i2c_dev                 4854  0
i2c_i801                9214  0
i2c_ismt                5519  0
i2c_ltc4266            13749  0

I guess at this point I'm hoping someone with more knowledge picks up a 510 and visits this thread.

stephenw10

Mmm, still too rare and expensive in the UK for my 'fun' budget!

TheBeag

@stephenw10
Well, I have a few on hand, and if I get desperate, I may just ship you one so I can get this figured out

stephenw10

Well I will say that in that last thread there was discussion of the on-board switch which requires a driver not in FreeBSD or OpenWRT. If the 510 is a model that has that switch it could be a show-stopper. It looks like it just has 4 ports though so that could just be the 4 NICs in the C2K SoC.

TheBeag

For that brief moment I have PFSense loaded, I can see all 4 NICs and I was able to access the web interface before the reboot. After that reboot, PFSense doesn't boot again... I am also able to get it to pull DHCP on the WAN port from my internal network. So the NICs seem to work.

Also in the boot messages, I see all 4 NICs

igb0: <Intel(R) I354 (SGMII)> port 0x1000-0x101f mem 0xdfda0000-0xdfdbffff,0xdfe24000-0xdfe27fff irq 18 at device 20.0 on pci0
igb0: EEPROM V1.8-0 eTrack 0x80000bec
igb0: Using 1024 TX descriptors and 1024 RX descriptors
igb0: Using 2 RX queues 2 TX queues
igb0: Using MSI-X interrupts with 3 vectors
igb0: Ethernet address: f0:8e:db:10:ff:c4
igb0: netmap queues/slots: TX 2/1024, RX 2/1024
igb1: <Intel(R) I354 (SGMII)> port 0x1020-0x103f mem 0xdfdc0000-0xdfddffff,0xdfe28000-0xdfe2bfff irq 19 at device 20.1 on pci0
igb1: EEPROM V1.8-0 eTrack 0x80000bec
igb1: Using 1024 TX descriptors and 1024 RX descriptors
igb1: Using 2 RX queues 2 TX queues
igb1: Using MSI-X interrupts with 3 vectors
igb1: Ethernet address: f0:8e:db:10:ff:c5
igb1: netmap queues/slots: TX 2/1024, RX 2/1024
igb2: <Intel(R) I354 (SGMII)> port 0x1040-0x105f mem 0xdfde0000-0xdfdfffff,0xdfe2c000-0xdfe2ffff irq 20 at device 20.2 on pci0
igb2: EEPROM V1.8-0 eTrack 0x80000bec
igb2: Using 1024 TX descriptors and 1024 RX descriptors
igb2: Using 2 RX queues 2 TX queues
igb2: Using MSI-X interrupts with 3 vectors
igb2: Ethernet address: f0:8e:db:10:ff:c6
igb2: netmap queues/slots: TX 2/1024, RX 2/1024
igb3: <Intel(R) I354 (SGMII)> port 0x1060-0x107f mem 0xdfe00000-0xdfe1ffff,0xdfe30000-0xdfe33fff irq 21 at device 20.3 on pci0
igb3: EEPROM V1.8-0 eTrack 0x80000bec
igb3: Using 1024 TX descriptors and 1024 RX descriptors
igb3: Using 2 RX queues 2 TX queues
igb3: Using MSI-X interrupts with 3 vectors
igb3: Ethernet address: f0:8e:db:10:ff:c7
igb3: netmap queues/slots: TX 2/1024, RX 2/1024

More fun

lo0: link state changed to UP
Starting Network: lo0 igb0 igb1 igb2 igb3 enc0.
lo0: flags=1008049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST,LOWER_UP> metric 0 mtu 16384
        options=680003<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,LINKSTATE,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6>
        inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
        inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
        inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x6
        groups: lo
        nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
igb0: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        options=4e527bb<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,TSO6,LRO,WOL_MAGIC,VLAN_HWFILTER,VLAN_HWTSO,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6,HWSTATS,MEXTPG>
        ether f0:8e:db:10:ff:c4
        media: Ethernet autoselect
        status: no carrier
        nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
igb1: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        options=4e527bb<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,TSO6,LRO,WOL_MAGIC,VLAN_HWFILTER,VLAN_HWTSO,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6,HWSTATS,MEXTPG>
        ether f0:8e:db:10:ff:c5
        media: Ethernet autoselect
        status: no carrier
        nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
igb2: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        options=4e527bb<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,TSO6,LRO,WOL_MAGIC,VLAN_HWFILTER,VLAN_HWTSO,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6,HWSTATS,MEXTPG>
        ether f0:8e:db:10:ff:c6
        media: Ethernet autoselect
        status: no carrier
        nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
igb3: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        options=4e527bb<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,TSO6,LRO,WOL_MAGIC,VLAN_HWFILTER,VLAN_HWTSO,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6,HWSTATS,MEXTPG>
        ether f0:8e:db:10:ff:c7
        media: Ethernet autoselect
        status: no carrier
        nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
enc0: flags=0 metric 0 mtu 1536
        options=0
        groups: enc
        nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
Starting devd.
Starting Network: igb0.
igb0: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        options=4e527bb<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,TSO6,LRO,WOL_MAGIC,VLAN_HWFILTER,VLAN_HWTSO,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6,HWSTATS,MEXTPG>
        ether f0:8e:db:10:ff:c4
        media: Ethernet autoselect
        status: no carrier
        nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
Starting Network: igb1.
igb1: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        options=4e527bb<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,TSO6,LRO,WOL_MAGIC,VLAN_HWFILTER,VLAN_HWTSO,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6,HWSTATS,MEXTPG>
        ether f0:8e:db:10:ff:c5
        media: Ethernet autoselect
        status: no carrier
        nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
Starting Network: igb2.
igb2: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        options=4e527bb<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,TSO6,LRO,WOL_MAGIC,VLAN_HWFILTER,VLAN_HWTSO,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6,HWSTATS,MEXTPG>
        ether f0:8e:db:10:ff:c6
        media: Ethernet autoselect
        status: no carrier
        nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
Starting Network: igb3.
igb3: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        options=4e527bb<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,TSO6,LRO,WOL_MAGIC,VLAN_HWFILTER,VLAN_HWTSO,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6,HWSTATS,MEXTPG>
        ether f0:8e:db:10:ff:c7
        media: Ethernet autoselect
        status: no carrier
        nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
Starting Network: enc0.
enc0: flags=0 metric 0 mtu 1536
        options=0
        groups: enc
        nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
add host 127.0.0.1: gateway lo0 fib 0: route already in table
add host ::1: gateway lo0 fib 0: route already in table
add net fe80::: gateway ::1
add net ff02::: gateway ::1
add net ::ffff:0.0.0.0: gateway ::1
add net ::0.0.0.0: gateway ::1

stephenw10

Ah nice. Then I'd probably try installing 2.6 because it has all the kernel modules available easily. Then load some watchdog drivers and see what happens.

If you find the right driver you can copy it into a 2.7.2 install form the installer.

TheBeag

To be honest, I really don't know how to do that. I did try to install 2.6 and I get better results. After installation, I am able to get the PFsense bootloader on subsequent reboots! But the boot fails at:

Loading kernel...
/boot/kernel/kernel text=0x1a5f37c data=0x140 data=0x1b63940 syms=[0x8+0x1c1370/
+0x8+0x1c7bb8]
Loading configured modules...
/boot/kernel/zfs.ko size 0x39adb0 at 0x3cee000
loading required module 'opensolaris'
/boot/kernel/opensolaris.ko size 0x9860 at 0x4089000
can't find '/etc/hostid'
/boot/entropy size=0x1000

As before, the first boot after the install does boot into PFsense. I entered the console and added nmi_watchdog=0 to the end of the /boot/loader.conf.
Although, the reboot just after that gets me stuck in the same place...

stephenw10

Hmm, yeah that's a loader issue. Is it booting uefi?

Where did you get that nmi_watchdog line? I don't think that applies here.

There is something moire than just the watchdog though f it only ever boots once.

TheBeag

I got that line from the original post. I was just trying anything
Not sure what mode it's booting in, I don't have a VGA monitor plugged in. I agree its a separate issue next to the watchdog. I have two issues, the watchdog, and reboots after the first boot into PFsense.

stephenw10

Ah OK. Well I would try loading some of the watchdog drivers from 2.6 and see if any of them attach to hardware:
kldload wbwd

Also try ichwd itwd ftwd viawd. It depends what superio chip it has. Or if they use the watchdog in the ich.

tiago.fgm

Did the installation go well? I'm interested in installing it too and would like to know if it worked.

TheBeag

@tiago-fgm
I have successfully killed the watchdog. I am still having issues with reboots after the installation. I can only assume it has something to do with UEFI, partition format, or something along those lines.

Here is what I used to disable the timer:

i2cset -y 1 0x24 0x00 0x00
i2cset -y 1 0x24 0x01 0x00

I am happy to collaborate here if you start working on it.