Successful Install on Watchguard Firebox X700!

batteryman · Dec 7, 2011, 1:06 PM

Do you have a pci graphics card and monitor attached too?
How was the bios reset? Is it corrupt?

Steve

Hi Steve

Yes i have a really old pci video card installed. barely fits..

Bios is fine the battery just went dead so i replaced it.

i have it set to boot from other devices and still nothing.

stephenw10 · Dec 7, 2011, 1:13 PM

If the battery went flat it may have a corrupt CMOS (forgotten some settings only).
It should boot from the CF with the default settings.
Try resetting the CMOS and loading the default values from the BIOS.

Is this the same CF card that was booting fine previously? What size is it?

Steve

PowerToTheUsers · Dec 11, 2011, 4:33 PM

Hey,

a few months ago I bought a x700 which already had pfSense 1.2.3 on it, and I love it. But now I wanted to try it for myself: I found another x700, and an x550e, got myself a couple of 4GB CF-cards and I've seen pfSense 2.0 is out as well. So I was ready for some pfSense-fun and -experimenting. I started, but I was stopped quite soon after that:

I put the CF in a computer with a CF-card reader, and I used physdiskwrite (as described here, but with PhysGUI as described here) to write pfSense-1.2.3-RELEASE-4g-nanobsd.img.gz on it. I put the CF-card in my X700, connected with a serial cable, opened putty and saw it booting. Or at least trying to, as this was the output:

1 FreeBSD
2 FreeBSD

Boot: 1
/boot.config: -h
No /boot/loader

FreeBSD/i386 boot
Default: 0:ad(0,a)/boot/kernel/kernel
boot:
No /boot/kernel/kernel

FreeBSD/i386 boot
Default: 0:ad(0,a)/boot/kernel/kernel
boot:

All this output is without any input from me through putty. As I read in the startpost of this thread, I entered ufs:ad2s1a, but that doesn't bring it any further:

1 FreeBSD
2 FreeBSD

Boot: 1
/boot.config: -h
No /boot/loader

FreeBSD/i386 boot
Default: 0:ad(0,a)/boot/kernel/kernel
boot:
No /boot/kernel/kernel

FreeBSD/i386 boot
Default: 0:ad(0,a)/boot/kernel/kernel
boot: ufs:ad2s1a No ufs:ad2s1a

FreeBSD/i386 boot
Default: 0:ad(0,a)ufs:ad2s1a
boot:

When I try with the CF-card with pfSense 2.0 on it, I get a similar output:

1 pfSense
2 pfSense

F6 PXE
Boot: 1
/boot.config: -h
No /boot/loader

FreeBSD/i386 boot
Default: 0:ad(0,a)/boot/kernel/kernel
boot:
No /boot/kernel/kernel

FreeBSD/i386 boot
Default: 0:ad(0,a)/boot/kernel/kernel
boot:

As it suggest both FreeBSD-options, I assume the Firebox is trying to boot from the CF-card, so the card should be OK.

Can anyone give me a little push to get over this obstacle?

Thanks in advance!

stephenw10 · Dec 11, 2011, 5:18 PM

Did you get any errors writing the image to the card?
I'd first try using the 2GB image to be sure.

Steve

PowerToTheUsers · Dec 11, 2011, 7:29 PM

@stephenw10:

Did you get any errors writing the image to the card?
I'd first try using the 2GB image to be sure.

Steve

Aha, that seems to be the problem indeed. Now PhysDiskWrite took a lot more time :D
Put the CF-card in the Firebox, and it booted right this time, I didn't even have to configure the ufs:ad2s1a, it just works. Awesome!

Next step: putting the pfSense 2.0 card in it, play with them, and check if the x550e goes this smooth too :)

stephenw10 · Dec 11, 2011, 7:55 PM

Excellent!
The X550E will require changing some settings in the bios (due to a buggy bios). You can do this either by using a keyboard and a PCI-E graphics card (which requires some fabrication of connectors) or by re-flashing the bios. See:
http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,20095.msg190456.html#msg190456

Steve

PowerToTheUsers · Dec 11, 2011, 8:18 PM

@stephenw10:

Excellent!
The X550E will require changing some settings in the bios (due to a buggy bios). You can do this either by using a keyboard and a PCI-E graphics card (which requires some fabrication of connectors) or by re-flashing the bios. See:
http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,20095.msg190456.html#msg190456

Steve

I'm digging through that thread ;)

To me the biggest improvement in the x550e over the x700 are the gbit-interfaces as my pfSense-box does not only my WAN-loadbalncing, but also some routing/firewalling between my wireless, wired and lab-network.

Is there an info on the impact of using a bigger CF-card, using more memory or using a faster CPU (higher frequency or more cache or…) in these fireboxes?

stephenw10 · Dec 11, 2011, 11:26 PM

There's no real benefit to installing a larger CF card.
The memory can be upgraded and can help if you are running hungry packages like squid or snort. The X700 is very picky and RAM, the X550E will take any old DDR2 sticks up to 2GB total.
Processor can be upgraded. It's especially effective in the X550E since the Celeron doesn't support speedstep where as any Pentium-M you put in will. Faster and cooler! :)

Steve

MartinD · Dec 12, 2011, 2:21 PM

Hi! I have a problem with pfsense on X700.
I can install, boot, connect to webGUI - all perfect.
If I do changes like enabling Secure SSH, reboot and I got this (on serial putty):

±ÿàþÙE1Àmõâþ- ?ûù5Þþ1TÂÛ
ÿâüôðö¨ÿxzþøÀê ôéUòN)dÀGh,ý+øüQ
cÝ.ûü|E)A84þ

I thought is IDE HDD, I took another, did the same settings and bang ??? :o

Please help!!!

TIA - MartinD

stephenw10 · Dec 12, 2011, 3:27 PM

What pfSense version are you running? Embedded? Nano?
The serial connection works OK before you reboot?

Steve

MartinD · Dec 12, 2011, 4:01 PM

Hi,

It's new pfSense 2.0. Installed on IDE HDD from LiveCD (onother PC where all other devices where disconnected), embedded kernel as per advice.
Serial connection was working fine before reboot.
After I install I have changed LAN IP and restarted, reboot was fine. But when you create more complex changes like enabling SSH or putting virtual IPs.
When rebooted, then same thing - Jibberish as in my first post.
Any idea what is going wrong?
Thanks.

MArtinD

stephenw10 · Dec 12, 2011, 5:05 PM

And presumably it then fails to boot (no access via ssh or web gui)?

To be honest I have no ideas. :( I've not tried installing to HD on one of these boxes. I also haven't tried using the embedded kernel option.
Is there an 'enable serial console' option in that configuration? It could be defaulting to VGA for some reason and then failing to find any VGA hardware (that shouldn't stop it booting though).
There is no need to use the embedded kernel if you are installing to HD. However if you do a full install you will need to boot the install in another machine and select serial console in the web gui.

Steve

PowerToTheUsers · Dec 12, 2011, 10:08 PM

@MartinD:

Hi! I have a problem with pfsense on X700.
I can install, boot, connect to webGUI - all perfect.
If I do changes like enabling Secure SSH, reboot and I got this (on serial putty):

±ÿàþÙE1Àmõâþ- ?ûù5Þþ1TÂÛ
ÿâüôðö¨ÿxzþøÀê ôéUòN)dÀGh,ý+øüQ
cÝ.ûü|E)A84þ

I thought is IDE HDD, I took another, did the same settings and bang ??? :o

Please help!!!

TIA - MartinD

For what it's worth: I had a similar output when booting from the original firebox-card instead of the pfSense CF-card.

dig1234 · Dec 13, 2011, 2:12 AM

Wow this unbelievable, I came to this thread looking for hardware recommendations to put pfSense 2.0 on, to REPLACE our firebox x500 and I see you guys are talking about putting pfSense ON the firebox. That's uber cool. Can someone tell me if this will work for 2.0 on the x500, all the instructs I see are for 1.2?
I will trash that watchguard "OS" in no time.

stephenw10 · Dec 13, 2011, 11:25 AM

@dig1234:

That's uber cool

It is pretty sweet! ;D

2.0 works almost as well as 1.2.3 did. Some users have experience an odd bug where the serial console fails to come up after the bootup messages. There is work around for that though.
The NICs in the Firebox X-Core are low quality Realtek and can cause problems. You may see 'watchdog timeout' in the logs and the NICs stop responding. This seems largely dependent on what you have it connected to. A good quality switch that only sends 'nice' packets seems least problematic.
You may as well give it a go since you already have the box. :)

Steve

MartinD · Dec 14, 2011, 1:52 PM

@stephenw10:

And presumably it then fails to boot (no access via ssh or web gui)?

To be honest I have no ideas. :( I've not tried installing to HD on one of these boxes. I also haven't tried using the embedded kernel option.
Is there an 'enable serial console' option in that configuration? It could be defaulting to VGA for some reason and then failing to find any VGA hardware (that shouldn't stop it booting though).
There is no need to use the embedded kernel if you are installing to HD. However if you do a full install you will need to boot the install in another machine and select serial console in the web gui.

Steve

Hi,

I had to go with embedded kernel otherwise serial does not work when first time booted. Before first restart I edited /etc/fstab to mount after restart ad2s1a and ad2s1b partition.
So now even though I still got unreadable serial connection, webGUI works fine and SSH as well.

P.S. Steve, your LCD instructions worked perfect :)

Thank you all.

Unubtanium · Jan 10, 2012, 6:07 PM

@stephenw10:

The NICs in the Firebox X-Core are low quality Realtek and can cause problems. You may see 'watchdog timeout' in the logs and the NICs stop responding. This seems largely dependent on what you have it connected to. A good quality switch that only sends 'nice' packets seems least problematic.

I can confirm this!! Damn stupid cheap NIC's, someone did put a cheap D-link Swithc in on my opt3 and i did se this "problem", Changed it for a HP ProCurve so lets hope this fixes my "problem"…... ;D

dig1234 · Jan 10, 2012, 6:35 PM

Interesting, anybody try it with 3com Superstack III's ?

@Unubtanium:

@stephenw10:

The NICs in the Firebox X-Core are low quality Realtek and can cause problems. You may see 'watchdog timeout' in the logs and the NICs stop responding. This seems largely dependent on what you have it connected to. A good quality switch that only sends 'nice' packets seems least problematic.

I can confirm this!! Damn stupid cheap NIC's, someone did put a cheap D-link Swithc in on my opt3 and i did se this "problem", Changed it for a HP ProCurve so lets hope this fixes my "problem"…... ;D

Unubtanium · Jan 10, 2012, 8:34 PM

@dig1234:

Interesting, anybody try it with 3com Superstack III's ?

Will check tomorrow if i have one and test for u, but also let u all know if the ProCurve works fine, just changed it today so tomorrow will tell… ;D

Unubtanium · Jan 12, 2012, 9:04 AM

The HP Procurve did the trick, no more "dead" OPT3 Nic. Do not have a 3com so can not test it… But all points to Cheap shitty switches freak out the cheap realtek NIC