Symantec Security Gateway 5420

emerio · Nov 16, 2009, 8:53 PM

Thanks for the tip focalguy, I will try that. Just need to find a machine that has IDE in it :)

emerio · Nov 16, 2009, 9:51 PM

Fantastic, worked like a charm! For any others curious, it is pretty much exactly as focalguy described. I used HyperTerminal with 9600 8-N-1. Make sure you disable ACPI and have your hard drive plugged in to Primary!! I had it plugged in to Secondary and it failed.

focalguy · Nov 16, 2009, 10:13 PM

Great! That is true, I had to mess with the jumpers as well. I also got the "mountroot>" prompt. If you type "?" at the prompt it will tell you the possible partitions it sees and you can type the correct one to get it to boot. I can't find an online reference of this problem but it was in the nice new pfSense book I just purchased! After you get it to boot, you need to edit the /etc/fstab file to change the partition it looks for every time it boots.

emerio · Nov 17, 2009, 2:22 AM

One tip that I must reiterate is to disable ACPI. To do this, once you are in the Web GUI go to Diagnostic | Edit File. For Save/Load from path: enter /boot/device.hints. Hit Load.

At the bottom of the displayed file in the text area add:

hint.acpi.0.disabled="1"

Leave unmodified the other lines. Hit Save. This will allow you to boot without problem because ACPI will be disabled.

emerio · Nov 17, 2009, 2:24 AM

One odd thing I did notice was that when ACPI was not disabled and pfSense was booting (or trying to) the LCD display statistics! It gave me load information and allowed the use of the front panel. I haven't been able to get back to that point with pfSense booting but it looks promising. I have no idea where it was getting the stats from, however.

focalguy · Nov 17, 2009, 2:35 AM

Yes, that is interesting. I forgot I did the same thing with disabling ACPI but maybe I didn't look at the LCD panel before I made that change. Did you notice any problems with booting without ACPI disabled? I feel like I missed the key press once before changing the device.hints file and it still booted.

I've tried LCDproc but I still can't get it working. I'd be interested if you can get that displaying correctly. Seems like it's not choosing the correct output device.

emerio · Nov 17, 2009, 2:47 AM

Without ACPI disabled the boot failed. It would hang at disk mount.

When your box is booted does it still say Symantec 1.03 OK on the LCD?

focalguy · Nov 17, 2009, 3:09 AM

Ok. I found another one of these boxes in the back so I'll be setting it up again and I'll check out the ACPI thing again.

Yes, my box does say that exact message on the LCD screen from when the power is turned on.

Unplug the COM port cable that is located near the external com port connector – this seems to drive the external display in which trying to run a console can be a bit confusing at times

I'm also not sure about these instructions. I haven't noticed any difference when that cable is unplugged or plugged in.

emerio · Nov 17, 2009, 3:18 AM

LCD update…

I was able to write to the LCD display. The actual device (on my box anyways) is /dev/cuad1

From SSH I entered "echo "test" > /dev/cuad1" and it will show up on the bottom line of the LCD.

I also changed the LCDProc file /usr/local/pkg/lcdproc.inc. I made the change below.

case "com2":
$realport = "/dev/cuad1";
break;

So, we just need a driver that simply echos to this device statistics that we want....

emerio · Nov 17, 2009, 3:35 AM

@focalguy:

Unplug the COM port cable that is located near the external com port connector – this seems to drive the external display in which trying to run a console can be a bit confusing at times

I'm also not sure about these instructions. I haven't noticed any difference when that cable is unplugged or plugged in.

Hasn't caused me any trouble either.

focalguy · Nov 17, 2009, 3:44 AM

Good work getting LCD working! I was actually looking at that file the other day but ran out of time before I tried any changes. Have you tried all the drivers to see if one works?

Hopefully I'll have a chance to try out the LCD tomorrow.

emerio · Nov 17, 2009, 4:00 AM

I tried a few. I was looking for a simple "driver" in lcdproc.inc but none seem to do the trick. Seems like it would be incredibly easy to write a driver for this but I am out of steam for today.

focalguy · Nov 19, 2009, 12:31 AM

Any luck on the driver emerio? I haven't been able to test the LCD panel any more but I did get it to display by echoing the same command you had.

I posted some detailed instructions on my blog for this install. ~~Hoping to get it into the wiki eventually~~ It's now in the wiki here: http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Install_pfSense_on_Symantec_5420_Security_Gateway. Hope that will help someone. Only difference is a few photos on my blog.
http://blog.oliverhansen.com/index.php/2009/11/18/install-pfsense-on-symantec-5420-security-gateway/

emerio · Nov 19, 2009, 5:15 PM

Nice addition to the wiki 8) I haven't messed with the LCD since it is locked away in a room in the basement. I did hook up a pertellian x2040 USB to the box. Supposedly this uses the hd44780 which is in LCDProc. I could not get this to work, either.

emerio · Nov 25, 2009, 4:17 PM

Is anyone making use of the PCI slot?

emerio · Nov 25, 2009, 4:18 PM

Just thought I would comment on the running power usage of this. I used a kill-a-watt which reads 100 watts running usage.

jimp · Nov 28, 2009, 11:32 PM

100W? Yowza that is a lot.

I've had normal PCs (small form factor) that only ran in the mid 30s.

emerio · Nov 30, 2009, 2:15 PM

I am guessing that since we turn off ACPI in our boot up combined with any BIOS settings that would disable power management we have those results. I am not sure what is using so much juice! It is just a celeron with an HD…

emerio · Jan 14, 2010, 9:53 PM

Just to add to the versatility of this box is that I was able to load ClearOS (Linux) on this box in much the same fashion. One problem is that you'll have to use a terminal session to configure the NICs.

Tego · Jan 19, 2010, 7:30 PM

I picked up a couple of 5420s after reading this thread. THX!
After installing I re-enabled ACPI on one box. On boot the box prints out to the
LCD (Only shows up when ACPI is enabled). The box seems to run OK with ACPI
as long as I don't use the console port. When/if I get time I'll put the Symantec drive
back in and see if I can find out more about the LCD (and possibly the front "buttons").