Installing on a Firebox X700
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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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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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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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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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So i dont know what going on
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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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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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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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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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So when you boot m0n0wall you can see output on the serial console?
Steve
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Yes i can se a output with monowall!!
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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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What kind of card do you need to use?
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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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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!!!! :'( -
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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yea i checked the MD5 file after downloading everything looks great. So are you just theres no way to get pfsense on my box? i would really like to have it but if it dosnt work then i cant witch i see weird because according to the fourm there is a lot of people that have got it to work!! IS there a special compact flash card i need to use?what file did you use to to get pfsense working on your box? Anyway to get the orignal os for the firebox?
Thanks
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No there's no special card. Like I said both I tried worked fine.
It is possible that the Sandisk CF cards you are trying to use are incompatible.Have you tried m0n0wall on one of the Sandisk 4GB cards?
Are you seeing the red arm LED?
Steve
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yes i seethe red led light it beeps ones when booting up dont know if that tells much. the board has a green light on it as well
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Those things are all good signs. The beep happens after the memory test as it tries to boot an OS.
What size card is m0n0wall booting from?
Steve
