Successful Install on Watchguard Firebox X700!
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Steve, kinda off topic, but where is the first place I can run WGXepc to turn off the LCD backlight? I currently have it in /etc/rc but if there is a sooner place to run it please let us know :) Thanks!
Back to topic, I got my TP-Link 802.11n card in today and installed it on my X700! Bridged it with my LAN as stated here and I have all working. I can now ditch my Belkin wireless router! WOOT! For all of you that wish to do this you will need a pci 32-bit riser (done with ribbon cable),the TL-WN851N adapter and 2 x 50cm RP-SMA cable extensions (all from eBay)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/350261953704 http://www.ebay.com/itm/260816216698 http://www.ebay.com/itm/400182656252Took about 5 days to get adapter and pci riser but extensions come from Hong Kong, still waiting on the extension cables, but worth it, specially when pfSense upgrades to FreeBSD 9 (which should support 802.11n)
Watchguard Firebox X700
512mb PC133 REG ECC
2gb CF card
pfSense 2.0.1
TP-Link TL-WN851N 802.11n
(still looking for drive that plugs into X700!) -
Back to topic, I got my TP-Link 802.11n card in today and installed it on my X700! Bridged it with my LAN as stated here and I have all working. I can now ditch my Belkin wireless router! WOOT! For all of you that wish to do this you will need a pci 32-bit riser (done with ribbon cable),the TL-WN851N adapter and 2 x 50cm RP-SMA cable extensions (all from eBay)
Watchguard Firebox X700
512mb PC133 REG ECC
2gb CF card
pfSense 2.0.1
TP-Link TL-WN851N 802.11n
(still looking for drive that plugs into X700!)1. Do you think a generic PCI riser card from a standard 1U chassis would work?
2. Do you know if the unit supports larger 512 MB/1 GB/2 GB PC133 ECC memory modules? -
@Kr^PacMan:
1. Do you think a generic PCI riser card from a standard 1U chassis would work?
2. Do you know if the unit supports larger 512 MB/1 GB/2 GB PC133 ECC memory modules?1.Aren't generic PCI risers to the right of the case looking at it from the front of the firebox? The PCI is towards the front in the FB instead of towards the back, you would also have to remove the hd carrier cage if using a 90 deg. riser card that turns the opposite direction.
2. Unfortunately it is a hit/miss situation on the memory but my 512mb posted, maybe we should start a thread with compatible memory sticks (and maybe include pic?)
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The 815 chipset supports a maximum of 512MB per DIMM slot. Since the X-Core only has one slot that's the limit.
As mentioned the PCI slot is reversed to the direction you might expect. Though you could argue the whole board is reversed since the connections are all on the front.
Steve
Edit: Actually it looks like 512MB is the limit no matter how many slots you have:
http://download.intel.com/design/chipsets/datashts/29068801.pdf
Though it also says in there that 256MB DIMMs are the maximum but we know 512MB works. -
Interesting. It didn't cross my mind to check depending on the chipset, it does post the chipset when you do dmesg… :)
Thanks for the info, I will stop testing every 1GB stick I find... LOL Funny thing is this 512MB stick I first tried on it worked... :)
BTW, did you see the message about where to run WGXepc the soonest? A few msgs back..
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Yes and promptly forgot about it. ::)
You could try the <earlyshellcmd></earlyshellcmd>option.
By the way you mentioned accesing the bios, are you using a PCI graphics card to do that? The serial port settings that can be accessed via the LCD at boot are only uploading Watchguard firmware if it got corrupted.
I have been playing about with bios options for using console redirect and have had no problem activating it so that I can see the POST on the serial port but I can't access the BIOS because you can't send DEL via serial. I'm sure there is an alternative key or key sequence to enter setup but I can't find it.Steve
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Yes and promptly forgot about it. ::)
You could try the <earlyshellcmd></earlyshellcmd>option.
By the way you mentioned accesing the bios, are you using a PCI graphics card to do that? The serial port settings that can be accessed via the LCD at boot are only uploading Watchguard firmware if it got corrupted.
I have been playing about with bios options for using console redirect and have had no problem activating it so that I can see the POST on the serial port but I can't access the BIOS because you can't send DEL via serial. I'm sure there is an alternative key or key sequence to enter setup but I can't find it.Steve
Thanks for the info.
You are correct about the BIOS, I am doing it by switching the (I call it the IDE jumper) jumper that's next to the IDE cable plug and when it can't load from the IDE it sends me to the BIOS on the LCD and I then can set the console speed and a few other BIOS things there. Maybe you can do this and also do other stuff via the console with your mentioned method? Let us know, it would be nice to be able to do other stuff..
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Hey does anyone know what cpu socket a x700 uses? I'm guessing the 370. I am looking for a cpu cooler that is a little less noisy http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835230002
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Yes it's a socket 370. There is very limited space though, that's why Watchguard used a radial fan.
I have thought about using a heatpipe style cooling solution from a laptop perhaps?Steve
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Finished product, working 802.11g Access Point (FreeBSD 8.1) and hopefully 802.11n on FreeBSD 9 if it's ever released.
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My X-Core box is failing, when I switch it on the arm/disarm led flashes green and it doesn't post.
While looking for any information on what it might be trying to tell me I cam across a couple of interesting things.
Firstly the X-Core box is pretty much identical to the fw-6650, an appliance that is marketed by various companies, e.g.
www.delvingware.com/webservices/medialibrary/media/datasheets/FW-6650-1.pdfSecondly the motherboard in that box is the MB-X66 (the X-Core board is labled WG-X66A) but I can't find anything about that. However there is some information available on the MB-X67. A user manual is available here:
http://wenku.baidu.com/view/e04f207831b765ce05081465.html
It is an almost identical board but uses Intel NICs instead of Realtek. All the pinouts are listed and all the jumpers explained.
It looks like it might be possible to download the pdf from there but my Chinese is very bad!No help with my led though. ::)
Steve
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My X-Core box is failing, when I switch it on the arm/disarm led flashes green and it doesn't post.
While looking for any information on what it might be trying to tell me I cam across a couple of interesting things.
Firstly the X-Core box is pretty much identical to the fw-6650, an appliance that is marketed by various companies, e.g.
www.delvingware.com/webservices/medialibrary/media/datasheets/FW-6650-1.pdfSecondly the motherboard in that box is the MB-X66 (the X-Core board is labled WG-X66A) but I can't find anything about that. However there is some information available on the MB-X67. A user manual is available here:
http://wenku.baidu.com/view/e04f207831b765ce05081465.html
It is an almost identical board but uses Intel NICs instead of Realtek. All the pinouts are listed and all the jumpers explained.
It looks like it might be possible to download the pdf from there but my Chinese is very bad!No help with my led though. ::)
Steve
Yeah, I saw some of those units on eBay and as soon as I saw the drive-tray clips I was like… "Damn, Lanner made all the Fireboxes..."
I really think though if someone was aiming to build new units, you might as well go for the Lanner FW-7565, but I don't know if the LCD/LCM is usable. : /
I wanted to start selling new with warranty pfSense boxes, but people are so picky about the LCDs, it's unreal.
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Hey hopefully some one may be able to shed some light on this issue.
when i connect to teh serial port (9600 8-n-1) i can see the boot just fine but when it asks if i want to set vlan if i say no it just skips the wan configuration and loops back to vlan… if i say yes configure vlan it takes me to the wan configuration when it asks to enter my wan port and i enter re0 it just skips over the lan line and asks if i want to procede
Enter the WAN interface name or 'a' for auto-detection: re0 Enter the LAN interface name or 'a' for auto-detection NOTE: this enables full Firewalling/NAT mode. (or nothing if finished): The interfaces will be assigned as follows: WAN -> re0 . Do you want to proceed [y|n]?in the past i have only upgraded from 1.2.3 but I can no longer find a download for it so im trying a fresh 2.0.1 install
hope someone can shed some light on this issue!
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Hmm, weird. As though it can only detect one interface. Are you still seeing all the other interfaces probed during the boot?
What if you select a different interface for WAN?If, for whatever reason, it thinks you only have one interface I believe it will bring up the webgui on WAN so you should be able to then assign the other NICs that way.
You can still get old releases: http://files.chi.pfsense.org/mirror/downloads/old/
Steve
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Hmm, weird. As though it can only detect one interface. Are you still seeing all the other interfaces probed during the boot?
What if you select a different interface for WAN?If, for whatever reason, it thinks you only have one interface I believe it will bring up the webgui on WAN so you should be able to then assign the other NICs that way.
You can still get old releases: http://files.chi.pfsense.org/mirror/downloads/old/
Steve
Sorry i should have given more info it does display all interfaces and will do the same thing if I enter a different interface for wan
its as if the terminal sends an extra enter or something and then skips configuring the lan interfaceI tried just allowing it to configure wan and was planning to modify it after but forgot the lack of terminal after "bootup complete"
EDIT:
Well after trying the same thing for about the 100th time it seems to have just worked :-S
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That sort of thing, that can have you pulling your hair out for hours, can be caused by something really simple like a loose console cable. I was once completely stumped by a computer showing all sorts of bizarre symptoms that turned out to be a sticky key on the keyboard! ::)
Steve
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That sort of thing, that can have you pulling your hair out for hours, can be caused by something really simple like a loose console cable. I was once completely stumped by a computer showing all sorts of bizarre symptoms that turned out to be a sticky key on the keyboard! ::)
Steve
because it was driving me nuts i kept playing and could reproduce the issue almost every time when using putty so i switched to using screen on my mac and cant reproduce the issue there so it must be something with my putty app
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Hi I finally got a chance to test pfsense on our firebox x500, and I'm seeing the dreaded watchdog timeout on re0. So far it doesnt appear to be affecting traffic but I haven't had it booted for that long. I thought 2.0.1 was supposed to have fixed that problem? I disabled gateway monitoring as we only have one gateway anyway but didn't help.
PS re0 is connected directly to a Cisco IAD2430 T-1 router.
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Unfortunately there seems to be no easy explanation for this.
I have a box here that I am running purely for testing and have yet so see any timeouts. It's connected to a cheap unmanaged SMC 10/100 switch.
2.0.1 is still based on FreeBSD 8.1 and the driver hasn't changed. 2.1 is based on 8.3 so has newer drivers. However it currently has other issues with Nano mounting the filesystem. I had to go back to 2.0.1 for testing, the delay probably wouldn't be problem in a system you're not constantly fiddling with. ::)Steve
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Since 2.0 I have less to none watchdog timeouts compared to 1.2.3. My re0 is directly connected to my (bridged) cable modem. The re1 is connected to a small and simple HP ProCurve 1400-8G Switch. Only problem is Skype: during calls (with or without video) there are watchdog timeouts on re1 (I have a Skype port forward in the ruleset). Using Skype is therefore no option. SIP based phonecalls are no problem.
