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    Installing on a Firebox X700

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Problems Installing or Upgrading pfSense Software
    108 Posts 7 Posters 45.5k Views
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    • stephenw10S Offline
      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
      last edited by

      The serial port should work without any further action. You have to have putty set to 9600 8 N 1.

      If you boot the Watchguard CF card the serial port runs at 115200 instead.

      Or do you mean after the initial setup?

      Steve

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      • G Offline
        GOBIGRED
        last edited by

        So i got the file to transfer to CF, Then i go and try to connect using putty, hyperterminal and dont see anything on the the screen, the lcd light is on but showing nothing and the power light is orange and the arm button is red! Dont know what else to do any help would be great.

        Thanks

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        • stephenw10S Offline
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by

          Do you know this box is fully functional?
          Does it boot the Watchguard CF card successfully?
          Can you see the Watchguard OS boot sequence at 115200?

          Steve

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          • G Offline
            GOBIGRED
            last edited by

            yes the box works, i had M0no0wall on it and wanted to try something new!

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            • G Offline
              GOBIGRED
              last edited by

              ive tried connecting with a 9 pin male cable to the port on my computer with a male 9 min and a keyspan to the db9 cable and get nothing, is theere a special cable firebox wants you to use?

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              • stephenw10S Offline
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by

                No it's a standard serial port with a standard null modem cable.
                Did the serial port work with m0n0wall? Have you changed any other part of the setup? Different computer, different putty version etc?
                If it worked with m0n0wall it should work with pfSense.

                Steve

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                • G Offline
                  GOBIGRED
                  last edited by

                  nope i couldnt get it work using windows 7 so i went to a xp pc and wrote the files to the card, put th card back in and tried to use putty and nothing shows up!!

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                  • stephenw10S Offline
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    Well one of two things is happening here, assuming the firebox is working correctly:

                    1. The image is not writing to the card correctly.

                    2. Your serial cable setup is not working.

                    If the image doesn't write properly then physdiskwrite will show errors. Possibly the image was corrupted during download. Did you check the md5?
                    Have you proved your serial cable setup with something else? What do you mean by 'keyspan'?

                    Steve

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                    • G Offline
                      GOBIGRED
                      last edited by

                      So i dont know what going on

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                      • stephenw10S Offline
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        I'm sure we can get this working, many other users have.  :)
                        However in order to troubleshoot the problem you need to answer my questions as best you can.
                        If I'm asking you something you don't understand then please ask me to clarify it.

                        Did you check the MD5 sum of the downloaded image file against the one provided?

                        Have you tested your serial cable setup successfully with any OS?

                        Steve

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                        • G Offline
                          GOBIGRED
                          last edited by

                          A keyspan is just a serial to usb adapter. And yes i i can use the same serial cable on a cisco device

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                          • stephenw10S Offline
                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                            last edited by

                            Ah OK,
                            Next thing then is to check that your serial connection on the firebox is working.
                            Boot the firebox either to m0n0wall (if you are sure that is working) or with the original Watchguard OS. Both should provide output on the serial port, m0n0wall at 9600 and the Watchguard OS at 115200.
                            If you can see some output from either of those then the pfSense card is not booting for some reason.

                            Steve

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                            • G Offline
                              GOBIGRED
                              last edited by

                              Looks like i dont have a copy of the WG os (moran me thought i did on the file server) is there anyway to get a couple? But m0nowall works. So there has to be something im doing wrong? Im new to this im use to using cisco firewall so trying out something new as a side project and would like to get it up LOL.

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                              • stephenw10S Offline
                                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                last edited by

                                So when you boot m0n0wall you can see output on the serial console?

                                Steve

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                                • G Offline
                                  GOBIGRED
                                  last edited by

                                  Yes i can se a output with monowall!!

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                                  • stephenw10S Offline
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by

                                    Ok, so the serial connection is proven working.
                                    In that case the box is not booting the CF card for some reason.
                                    1. The image is not being correctly written to the card.
                                    2. The card is somehow incompatible with the box.

                                    To confirm the card is compatible you can try writing the m0n0wall image to it.

                                    Steve

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                                    • G Offline
                                      GOBIGRED
                                      last edited by

                                      What kind of card do you need to use?

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                                      • G Offline
                                        GOBIGRED
                                        last edited by

                                        I can hold down the down arrow on the FB and i get a menu it says boot failed? Any idea why im getting that?

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                                        • G Offline
                                          GOBIGRED
                                          last edited by

                                          steve,
                                          You seem to be the only one trying to help me do you have pfsense running on a firebox? This is bugging the heck out of me, how monowall works and not pfsense!!!! :'(

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                                          • stephenw10S Offline
                                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                            last edited by

                                            I was suggesting you flash m0n0wall on to one of your 4GB Sandisk cards. Since you have been able to get m0n0wall running, with serial output, it should verify the compatibility of the card with the Watchguard hardware. I can't see why it wouldn't work but you never know!

                                            What card are you using for m0n0wall?

                                            I have an X700 here running pfSense. I have booted it from a Sony 2GB 300X card and a Transend 4GB 133X card.

                                            The bios in the X-Core includes funtions not in a normal desktop bios. It can write to the LCD for example. Watchguard provided enough functionality in the bios to rewrite their software using only the serial port if it became corrupt. We can't use that though. That's what you are seeing on the lcd.

                                            My own box here was damaged in shipping, it was bent in half!, I managed to resurrect it but it is tempromental at best. Sometimes it powers up to the arm/disarm led flashing green in which case it won't boot. That LED should be red.

                                            Did you ever check the MD5 sum of your downloaded image? Or just try downloading it again?
                                            I haven't seen it for a while but old versions of Internet Explorer used to be notorious for corrupting compressed image formats.

                                            Steve

                                            Steve

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