Successful Install on Watchguard Firebox X700!

gsiener

Hi all,

Very excited about this Firebox, as I have loads of ISPs (don't ask). I was trying to follow the timeout thread but wasn't clear on whether the patch is in the latest RC or if I have to run the alpha 2.0 snapshots to see that.

Also, was thinking I would run this off a cf card (not microdrive) with a hdd as swap space – is this possible or am I going to make life too hard for myself? Any advice on best approach to this?

PistolPete

Got another one coming now from Ebay for £48.
Will be able to give it a go when I get back from diving on Saturday.

bruor

I'm running pfsense 1.2.2, full installation on IDE HD using embedded kernel.

I am/was getting watchdog timeouts reliably when trying to access the queue status page for the traffic shaper.

-I'm running PFsense with 2 physical connections to our switching environment.
-Carp is configured and in use on all interfaces.
-There are 3 subnets/interfaces using vlan tagging. Switching infrastructure is HP procurve.

In an attempt to fix this I did the following.

-Disabled ACPI - issue persists.
-Changed switch configuration from auto to 10/100-full - issue persists.

After some thought it seemed like the timouts would happen when a "lot" (burst) of traffic would try to come through, so on a whim I enabled "device polling" in system->advanced to see what would happen.

The firewall reloaded states and a test showed that the issue persisted. Since I didn't see any mention of polling under status->interfaces I went to ifconfig to see what was happening.

ifconfig output showed no mention of polling at all. I verified that freebsd 7 supports polling on the re driver and issued this command for each physically connected interface on the system:

ifconfig INT_NAME polling

ifconfig output then showed "polling" under the "options" section for the interface.

A quick test of status->queues worked and I can see queue status without issues. I beat on the web interface for awhile and only caused a single watchdog timeout to happen in the last 20 minutes at the status -> queues page (used to happen reliably every time)

I'm hoping that I won't see random watchdog timeouts pop up during the day anymore when the gui isn't in use but only time will tell.

If anyone has had success in resolvign these issues PLEASE let us know, I'm almost ready to virtualize pfsense on vmware to fix this permanently but would rather use the cool red boxes!

teh

Nice to see more watchguards being converted!

I'm still trying to get a keyboard to work on mine to do a bit more of an advanced project.

I've had one guy email me with some great information but this hasn't worked.

Can anyone give an exact pinout of the keyboard header?

Thanks

Andy

jjgoessens

Hi,

i have done it, i connected a keyboard and it works, i opened a new topic here :
http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,20242.0.html

I also improved the lcdproc sdeclcd from ridnhard19 bay adding a keyboard support here:
http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,7920.30.html

Jean Jacques :)

teh

@jjgoessens:

Hi,

i have done it, i connected a keyboard and it works, i opened a new topic here :
http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,20242.0.html

I also improved the lcdproc sdeclcd from ridnhard19 bay adding a keyboard support here:
http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,7920.30.html

Jean Jacques :)

You are a super star! Thank you very much.

I will give this a try tonight! Thanks!

boblmartens

Great read this thread is.

Currently I have an extra X700 at work that I am trying to get to work with pfSense and I would like to use a 2GB Compact Flash card because it seems the easiest to do some testing before I think about modding the drive carrier.

I am wondering if there is anything special I have to be aware of when installing to a Compact Flash card to use with the X700. I tried loading pfSense onto it in another machine using the 1.2.2 release. I keep hearing the embedded kernel option … do I need a different download to get that option?

Thanks in advance for the help!

jmcentire

I finally got around to taking a picture(sorry just cell phone pics) of how I have my hdd mounted…it doesn't look solid but it actually is(i can't move the drive at all):

I just angled the drive and put a single screw in, give it a try it will surprise you how solid it is.

pf-hdd1.jpg_thumb

pf-hdd2.jpg_thumb

boblmartens

Was able to get it up and running today after scrounging an old/ancient 5GB IDE drive from one of the dead laptops in the office. After I had it working I decided to reload the 2GB CF card and then try it again … with no luck.

I am using a Kingston 2GB CF card and while I can get it to load on the machine that I originally installed it on, I cannot get it to load in the Firebox for the life of me. BSD starts up so that I can open up Hyperterminal and take a look at what is coming back to me, but when it starts to load the root partition, it doesn't seem to want to load off of the CF card even though I go ahead and choose ad0 as the mount device.

Any help or ideas would be appreciated. Could it be the Kingston card I am using? Any ideas?

boblmartens

I got it working, just had to read on how to install to a CF card .. I glossed over a couple of things.

Now to try and clean some stuff up and get some other things working! Really impressed so far and looking forward to seeing what can be done with it. I now need to try and find a better CF card to use in the box … probably something a little bit faster.

secure.boy

i have for sale Watchguard x700 (1.2GHz celeron, 256MB SDRAM, 512MB CF)
contact me at secure[dot]boy[at]hotmail[dot]com or pm

gpapaiko

Hi,

I have a watchguard x1000 and got pfsense 1.2.2 working on it (on hard disk).
Since this boxes have a LCD display and 4 button I was wondreing if anyone manged to ge the LCD diaply and buttons working.
If so how.

Also it has a encryption safe net card - what command can i run to see if it has been picked and reccoginsed by pfsense.

Thansk
George.

jjgoessens

Hi,

Here it is :
http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,7920.45.html#lastPost

i installed it on a pf 1.2.3, but it should work with 1.2.2.

ridnhard19 wrote the display driver, i just added keybord & backlight functions.

JJ

emigrating

Has anyone tried installing pfSense on one of the later model X550e or X750e Fireboxes?
My X700 is still going strong, but I'm really starting to feel the need for a GbE firewall.

Unubtanium

@emigrating:

Has anyone tried installing pfSense on one of the later model X550e or X750e Fireboxes?
My X700 is still going strong, but I'm really starting to feel the need for a GbE firewall.

Have not yet, but as soon as my hands land on one of this i WILL give it a go. ;D

whaskes

hi all! sorry my englisgh…. ::)

i installed the FreeBSD whaskes.homedns.org 7.2-RELEASE-p5 FreeBSD 7.2-RELEASE-p5 #0: Sun Dec 6 23:20:31 EST 2009 sullrich@FreeBSD_7.2_pfSense_1.2.3_snaps.pfsense.org:/usr/obj.pfSense/usr/pfSensesrc/src/sys/pfSense_SMP.7 i386

i have a problem. when the system is booting, this messages wrote.

Dec 27 11:11:56 whaskes kernel: ad0: TIMEOUT - READ_DMA retrying (1 retry left) LBA=38416719
Dec 27 11:12:01 whaskes kernel: ad0: TIMEOUT - READ_DMA retrying (0 retries left) LBA=38416719
Dec 27 11:12:06 whaskes kernel: ad0: FAILURE - READ_DMA timed out LBA=38416719
Dec 27 11:12:06 whaskes kernel: g_vfs_done():ad0s1a[READ(offset=19669319680, length=114688)]error = 5

the system is working. how shall I remove the messages?

intel stl-2 mainboard
2x512mb sdram ecc-reg
2x1ghz pentium cpu
maxtor 40gb winchester

wallabybob

It is not uncommon to see messages about disk errors during startup.

I'd be inclined to check if your hard drive has a bad spot around the block reported. If so, it might be time to replace the hard drive. Alternatively, if you are a bit more adventurous, you might be able to adjust the partitions to remove the bad block(s) out of any active partition. This would allow you to fairly safely continue using the drive until further bad blocks show up. As best I know, the startup doesn't methodically read the hard drive at startup so I suspect the reported block is in or close to some significant directory or home block.

tehtrk

@Dayblade:

@Sifter:

Again, has anyone upgraded the memory on these boxes and gotten it to see the additional? I placed a 512meg module in the box, and it still registers at 256meg. I tried 2 separate sticks.

Perhaps jumper settings somewhere on the board?

Upgraded it to 512 MB just this week:

Kingston KVR100x64C2/512 512MB PC100 CL2

Also changed out the heatsink and fan - that is the MAJORITY of the noise factor in the x700 - they use a fan designed by Y.S. Tech (?) that was pushing 7200+ RPM's. I switched and installed a lower/larger fan combo @ 5500 RPM's and temps dropped by 10C and the noise is SUBJECTIVELY quieter.
(Granted I did not test decibel levels prior to the fan switch out)

Hope that helps - <3 pfSense on my WatchGuard btw - still working on getting the LCD to do its thang…otherwise, it works like a champ.

Dayblade

Thanks for the detailed info man. I'm looking to upgrade both ram and heatsink. I think I'll just play it safe and go with the ram you mentioned. Do you have the model number for that YS tech HSF? Sounds like it's performing well.

Apart from low ram (when running snort lol) and that whine I'm loving this WG pfsense box!

lilrichie

Hey Everyone,

I am new here been looking into pfsense for some time now and getting a hombrew modification or something pre-built but then i ran accross this thread, is their a guide to installing pfsense on a firebox? if their is i am going to buy one.

Richard

hlouie

Now I got myself a WatchGuard x500 and would like to install m0n0 or pfsense. I see some are using CF (Compact Flash), Microdrives in the CF slot, DOM (Disk on modules), IDE Hard Drive, IDE SSD (Solid State Drive).

I want to start off with m0n0 because it a small load but I want to grow in to using pfsense and use the full complete load. I've read somewhere CF have limited writeback due to the bandwidth so it uses a ramdisk. Does this apply to the Microdrive in the CF slot? I really don't want to use a IDE Hard Drive due to noise and heat. In the IDE, I might use a DOM or SSD.

Because I'm starting fresh with this new firewall, what is the best media to use so I expand in to?