Successful Install on Watchguard Firebox X700!
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With thanks to all the contributors to this thread, I have pfSense running on my X700 (embedded copy on CF card, with memory upgrade and quieter fans).
I have a 50Mbps cable broadband connection. When I connect the modem direct to a PC I get 45-48Mbps downloads. When I connect the PC to the LAN port of the X700 and the cable modem to a WAN port, I get 14-15Mpbs download speeds. Speedtests all done at the same time with a speedtest approved by the ISP (VirginMedia) for testing these connections.
Is this a result of limits on the WAN=>LAN throughput of the X700 or a lack of horsepower?
I have tried the same test with a Draytek 3300v router and get speeds of 27-30Mbps (although the published throughput limit on this device is 50Mbps).
The router provided by the ISP is a Netgear WNR2000, but this does not have multi-WAN support (I have two additional ADSL2+ connections).
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
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Reading this topic has helped me understand the firebox a bit more! We use these at work and have acquired one for experimental purposes.
I'm a bit confused to where the keyboard connector is however. It was pretty obvious on the Firebox II.
Anyone able to give me a photo or something of their board diagramming it ?
Cheers
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I have found the answer to the problem of the WAN=>LAN throughput.
I disabled all the traffic shaping and immediately got 50Mbps download speeds.
I re-enabled traffic shaping but only to give VoIP priority to the VoIP adapter on the network, and still got the higher speed.
So, the problem seems to lie in the extra workload involved in traffic shaping.
Also, in response to an earlier question as to whether you need to do adjust any settings to upgrade the CPU, I have just installed a PIII 1.4GHz and it worked fine without changing anything else.
In answer to the immediately previous post about the keyboard connector, I think there are some earlier posts in this thread on this subject that provide the wiring diagram for the keyboard.
Now, all I need is a beginner's guide to getting the LCD to work on an embedded CF install and I can move on to the next project!
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I have a ps2 header that I can move the main board pins around on.
Pin 1 +DATA Data
Pin 2 Not connected Not connected*
Pin 3 GND Ground
Pin 4 Vcc +5 V DC at 275 mA
Pin 5 +CLK Clock
Pin 6 Not connected Not connected**Following that, which pins there do I connect to which pins on the board…. its driving me up the wall trying to get my head around this as I can't make sense of that ascii drawing.
Is this a non-standard keyboard connector?
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Thanks for this info, just got hold of left hand side u2 riser card from old server. Have the U connector ready but this is what I need to understand
–----------------------
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : FDFireBox x500 motherboard
X X -- p1
X X X X |
|_________________________________________
| 6no Cables
|
| This is the underside of old motherboard
p6 X X --
X X X XFront face of PS2
Have you soldered the cables in this patterns "1 > 1" - "2 > 2" - "3 > 3" - "4 > 4" - ditto
Any ideas in response the the above quoted post and my previous post? I really want to get going with this project I have lined up but can't as the keyboard when connected following the two guides on this topic cause the keyboard to act as if its got a stuck key (which it hasn't as I've tried two working keyboards)
And following this example here is what causes the "stuck key issue"
1 NC \_ . ._/ . . . . / | | \ / | | 4 / | NC / 3 2 NC 1__. .__/ 2__. | .__NC 3__. .__4 Braided bare wire, which is connected to the outer ring on a male PS2 connector, is chassis ground. NC == no connection -
2. Hooked up a notebook drive to my machine, booted from Live CD (1.2 RC3)
8. Couldn't mount drive(since installed on different machine), so it asks what you want to mount enter: ufs:ad2s1a
9. Boots up into pfSense just fine!
10. Get into the web interface, "Diagnostics", "Edit File"
11. Load "/etc/fstab"
12. Change the old drive information to the correct one(ad2s1a & ad2s1b).The mini ide connector on the X700's MB is the secondary ide controller. If you hook up the hard drive as secondary master, these steps will not be nessessary. ;D
On my install system, I connected the hard drive to the secondary controller on the motherboard and installed from the Live CD which was plugged into the primary controller. pfSense booted without issue first time when the drive was plugged into the X700!
ad1s1a = Primary Master
ad2s1a = Secondary MasterI finally made use of this box which has been lying around for over a year!!! Thanks…
I've got a number of mini-PCI wireless cards out of dead notebooks which I will try tonight. I post my results :)
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I am attempting to do this on an X700 now, I've modified the drive tray so I can mount a laptop IDE drive in it, installed to it as secondary master in another machine, and now attached the drive to the onboard header. I am using an 80GB WD scorpio blue drive.
I'm attempting to attach to the system via serial to watch it boot and perhaps configure it, however, I can't see any output.
Do I need a straight through or null modem serial cable? the cable I am attempting to use at the moment has part number 5184-1894 on it.
I get random garbled text via the serial connection when using 9600 8-n-1-hardware via hyperterminal when booting the watchguard CF card. Do I need to boot the HD installation and configure the serial console option before installing the drive in the firebox?
UPDATE: I think I may have located the issue, I selected the Single-proc kernel while installing instead of embedded. I will re-try the installation using the embedded kernel and update the thread with results.
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Another successful firebox conversion here!
Installed the laptop drive in a desktop as secondary master, installed pfsense full version with EMBEDDED kernel.
Just finished watching the console bootup successfully without an issue at all detecting and booting from the transplanted HD.I will upload some pictures of how I modified the drive cage to hold the laptop drive.
Now just to get the LCD to work and display useful information!
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Another successful firebox conversion here!
Installed the laptop drive in a desktop as secondary master, installed pfsense full version with EMBEDDED kernel.
Just finished watching the console bootup successfully without an issue at all detecting and booting from the transplanted HD.I will upload some pictures of how I modified the drive cage to hold the laptop drive.
Now just to get the LCD to work and display useful information!
Pleased to hear this, i have one my self running now with lcd proc and it has not failed me Once. Waiting for delivery of a x500 today or tomorrow so that i can play with carp =) :D ;D
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A friend of mine has 2 WG X700 for sale…
If anyone is interested, just mail me...
He wants 30€ for one... -
Another WatchGuard turned to the Bright side ;D
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No more watchguards left, sorry..
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I am looking to do this to my x700 after i realised it doesnt do what I want it to do
I have put a hd into a laptop and tried to install but I am getting an error message about not enough network interfaces to setup
so I will try in a pc with multiple network cards in however when I then put it into the watchguard will it auto detect the drivers for the watchguard ethernet ports?
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Is the watchdog timeouts issue still ongoing.
Looking to replace my VM of pfSense with either an X700 or an Alix solution.
Does anyone know what the relative performance of the X700 (Celeron 1.2GHz I understand) vs the 500MHz AMD Geode CPU.
Thanks,
Dean
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Hi everyone,
I was given an X700 and I decided to put pfSense on it. But I can't connect my laptop to the Guard using serial. Here's my setup :
- Null modem cable + USB > serial adapter
- Putty
- 115200 bits/s, 8-n-1 (I also tried lower bit-rate)
Putty's window is blacker than black ???
Anyone got an idea on this ? -
- 115200 bits/s, 8-n-1 (I also tried lower bit-rate)
I had the same problem, and discovered that i was using a wrong cable.
And the serial settings should be : 9600 bits/s, 8-n-1 -
Does anyone know if these will take ECC ram? A lot easier and cheaper to find 512mb ECC ram sticks then non ecc where i am
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I have a 512MB PC100 ECC which I was going to try in it
Can let you know tonight
Just wanted to say how great this guide was for setting up my x700
I have been taking photos, so will do my own mini write up to aid future x700 modders :)
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Does anyone know if these will take ECC ram? A lot easier and cheaper to find 512mb ECC ram sticks then non ecc where i am
I belive normal ECC should work but registered ECC will most likely not. Haven't tested tho.
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Has any one made embedded image with LCDproc included for x700?