Watchguard Firebox X Peak platform

neotec_de

No other components. Just the connectors.
Trying to boot from is the next step.
Stay tuned….

Alex

mmiller

Does anyone know the name of the connector that serves as a conversion between the 2.5 44 pin interface to the swap able caddy interface. It has to have a name.

mmiller

After winning my X8000 on ebay I did some searching for the SafeXcel 1841 and found this PDF. I think someone might have already posted it. In the PDF SafeNet states they have FreeBSD OS support. I.E. They have drivers for FreeBSD. I was a little shocked that it was not covered under the safe(4) driver. If I don't hear from them in a few more days I am going to send another e-mail asking for a update. It looks like OpenBSD has the documentation for the SafeNet 1840 chip. http://www.openbsd.org/crypto.html

http://www.safenet-inc.com/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=8589938686

stephenw10

I have never found a name for the adapter, although I'm sure the interface has a name.
I found it by using Google Image search. ::)

I have spent far too much time Googling the Safenet 1841, don't let me put you off though. I believe that Safenet will only allow you access to their driver support if you've bought their SDK at vast expense. You probably have to sign a NDA. The resulting driver wouldn't be free so unlikely to make it into FreeBSD. OpenBSD have had that message on their crypto page for a long time (at least 2006) which is a shame. I guess there's a more drive to support newer hardware and the 1841 is now quite old. It's way more powerful than the 1141 and 1171 supported by safe(4) though.

Steve

mmiller

I noticed that someone in another thread had said the connector was the same as a "Dell Inspiron 5000 5000E HDD Adapter". So I ordered one to see if it would work out. I guess I'll have to figure out a way of making some rails for the drive.

I'm hoping that safenet will give me a binary blob. I might also ping a openbsd dev I know to see if they know the status of the safenet 1841 driver. I'll have to see how they respond when I send them a follow up e-mail on June 6th.

mmiller

Has anyone has any watchdog timing errors pop up on 2.0 RC2? or any other version? I know some of the x700 people complained about them. It looks like all the checksum offloading is turn on currently.

stephenw10

If you can get any sort of driver working it would be great. :)
It's a powerful and relatively expensive (for the time) chip and at the moment it just sits there consuming 3W and getting hot.

I've never had any problem with any of the interfaces on the X-peak. They are all Intel so I wouldn't expect to. The X-core has Realtek NICs and they are far more troublesome, especially the 10/100 type.

Steve

mmiller

That is what I figured. I'm looking to replace the fan's and I've founds some that look like they will work. The only issue is it would be nice if I could get variable speed fans. I think I saw someone say that they require 4 pin connectors vs 3. How many pins are on the board? Am I stuck getting non-variable speed fans because the mother board only has a three pin connector?

I'm thinking about the following.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835119050

Do you think a 40x40x28mm fan would fit?

stephenw10

They are three pin connectors on the board and they aren't controllable via software (as far as I know). Four pin connectors are usually for PWM fans, where the speed controller is in the fan, but you can get speed control on three pin fans, the X-E boxes can do that.
You could use a manual speed controller but you'd have to do some modding, it's a bit of a speeze in the fan casing anyway.

I only replaced the fans in my box after I had replaced the CPU with one that drew a lot less power. The original P4 2.8 gets quite hot.

Steve

fastcon68

I just bought a x6000. I waiting for it to get here. I want to add a either sata or ide drive. Can I connect a usb drive and boot from that. I am going to use the encrypt card from my x500.

Has everyone tried the gb interface.
RC

stephenw10

The gigabit interfaces work fine.
I've never managed to get it to boot from USB directly. USB drives can be mounted under pfSense though. Perhaps it could be chain loaded by FreeBSD's bootloader or one of the other bootloaders available.

Steve

mmiller

I'll also second that the em gige interfaces work fine. I tried using a 1 gig CF card and it wouldn't boot from it. I'm currently booting off a 512 mb CF card. I'm thinking I can move some of the storage off to a hard drive. What success has everyone had with that option? I would really like to get a 4 gig CF card working with out having to load a new bios image. Does anyone have a list of known working CF cards?

fastcon68

I am using sandisk CF cards. I have not had any issues.
RC

mmiller

What side of sandisk CF?

mmiller

Steve,

I'm interested to know which firebox platforms you are running. Also what is the max amount of ram that you think I could stick into my X8000?

stephenw10

Already answered that. ;)
@stephenw10:

The 875p chipset supports up to 4GB in 4 dimm slots. However the X-peak motherboard only has two slots (although it has space for 4 if you're feeling brave with a soldering iron!) so I would say 2GB.
Reference: here.
Steve

I have 512MB in my X-Peak box and it's more than enough.

I use the X6000 as my main router and experiment with the others, X750E and now X5500E.

Steve

fastcon68

I am using a Ultra Compact Flash 30/s 4GB SANDISK.
RC

fastcon68

I was looking at a picture that stephenw10 posted. It shows a ide laptop drive installed in the hard drive bay on a x6/7/8 000 unit. Not sure which model he has. what adapter did he use to connect the ide laptop drive to the use hard drive bay.
RC

stephenw10

The adapter came with the caddy but they are available separately. I just searched for 'laptop hard disk adapter' on Ebay until I found something that looked right.
That image is labelled compaq-hp adapter but I have seen them in Acer laptops too.

I have used 2GB Sony and, currently, 4GB Transend CF cards. Cheapest I could get! ;) There is no point is buying a super fast UDMA card.

Steve

Edit: The X-Peak will boot a 4GB card with the default bios settings. No need to access the bios.

mmiller

Steve,

Thanks I'll try looking for dirt cheap 4 gig CF card. I tried one that I thought was not a UDMA one and it didn't work. Now I need to find a cheap 20 Gig laptop hard drive.