Installing on a Firebox X700
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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
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Its booting from the 4g scandisk!! i went out and got another CF aits a lexar 4 g 200x works with m0nowall not with pfsense
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Hmm, well that's very odd.
Are you using the 4GB image?Try using a 1GB image instead. It's possible the image doesn't fit on the card.
E.g. http://files.chi.pfsense.org/mirror/downloads/pfSense-2.0.1-RELEASE-1g-i386-nanobsd.img.gzSteve
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ok tryed that image, when i turn it on the 0-5 blinks green power is orange and arm/ disarm is red it beep the lcd is lite up after it beeps the lcd goes black a few moments later lcd lights up i open putty speed 9600 data bits 8 stop bits 1 parity none flow control xdn.xoff and still nothing anyway you could send me the image your using since it works?
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The actual image I'm using is:
http://mirror.qubenet.net/mirror/pfsense/downloads/pfSense-2.0.1-RELEASE-1g-i386-nanobsd.img.gzTry setting flow control: none.
Also make sure you have putty open before you boot the box.What baudrate does m0n0wall use?
Steve
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I tried setting it to none and still get nothing i dont know whats going on!!
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Hmm, this is odd behaviour. I'm now starting to imagine crazy scenarios to explain it.
It still seems to me most likely that the image is simply not writing to the card correctly. Are you using the same method for the m0n0wall image?
Although it should make no difference there is a possibility that an older pfSense image may work. Try:
http://files.chi.pfsense.org/mirror/downloads/old/pfSense-1.2.3-RELEASE-1g-nanobsd.img.gzSteve
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Update i still cant get the firebox to run pfsense!!! i have ordered a new one and will give updates about how the process is with that one? is there any other suggestions on what to do to get the one i have now to work?
thanks
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Well I think I'm out. ???
Let's review what you have tried.
Try to list everything you have tried and I'll see if I can see anything we've overlooked.It shouldn't be this difficult! ::)
Steve
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so i first tried using windows 7 to use phydiskwrite to flash a four gig cp and nothing worked, i tried many diffrent images still
then i load a windows xp box ran everything with admin rights and still get nowhere, tried four diffrent cp all 4 gigs still nothing, trying to find a store around that sells a 2 gig,List of card i tried
-scandisk
-kingston
-lexar
-cannonStill no luck sucks big time really wanted to throw a pfsense box in to the network soon
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Steve i think its writting to CF. The only reason i think that is after i try it in the FB and i go to flash it again to try another one it makes me format the card agin because windows cant read it. I think its there DB9 but i dont see how its brand new i went out and got it cuz i dont use them with cisco products and thats what i deal with the most so im a little confused, You said there is no special serial cable needed right?
Thanks for helping as much as you have!!!
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Even if the image was not correctly written to the card it would still over write the fat32 format that Windows uses. It would still ask you to reformat it even if the image was corrupt. I have never had a physdiskwrite give any trouble with Windows XP and a USB card adapter. The only time it has failed to write the image was when the card was too small for the image but then it gives an error to tell you that.
Even so you might as well try using Win32 Image Writer instead. Unlike physdiskwrite it can't gunzip the image file so you have to do that your self first with Winrar or some similar program.
The cable required is a standard Null Modem cable. It's no different than the one required for m0n0wall so if that's working it should be fine.
Steve
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i cant figure out how to use win32 image writer lol!! I cant belive its this much of a pain!!!
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You could try this image.
It's an image of a 16MB CF card, so it will fit on almost any card, with FreeDOS loaded. It boots with its output to the serial port at 9600. It has no purpose on this box other than as a test.
When it boots just before it switches to the serial console it beeps three times so you know it has booted correctly. If you hear the beeps but don't see anything on the serial console you know you have a problem with your serial connection.Steve
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I had no success using Windows to write the image, I reverted to using a virtual machine with Ubuntu.
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Install Solved!!! IT was the cable !!
Now how do i configure the interfaces?
Is there a gui or is it all command line?And what do i do to Fix the lcd ?
Thanks
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WOOT! ;D
Did you setup the WAN and LAN initially via the serial console?
If not I suggest you re-flash the card and go through the inital setup again, that's easiest.
After that you can access the web GUI via the LAN interface on 192.168.1.1 (unless you changed it). From there you can assign the other interfaces and have fun with all the other features.
There is still something strange that affects only the X-Core box that you may find. The serial console does not spawn a menu as it should after the bootup messages. There are several workarounds, I'm using this: http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,7458.msg241783.html#msg241783Thanks to some great work by several people there is now a driver for the firebox LCD in the lcdproc-dev package which is in the pfSense package system. Not all the bugs have been squashed yet but it's functional.
Steve
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Steve,
What do you mean by this (Thanks to some great work by several people there is now a driver for the firebox LCD in the lcdproc-dev package which is in the pfSense package system)? im having trouble trying to get the lcd to work? Im running the 2.01 image!! cant seem to find anything with steps to get to work thanks
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im getting this error when trying to get the package (Unable to communicate with www.pfsense.com. Please verify DNS and interface configuration, and that pfSense has functional Internet connectivity.)
i can ping from the pfsense box
the default gateway
and many other devices that are on the network but get that error dont know why!!! -
Hmm,
That's odd. It could be that pfSense.org was down for maintenance.
The file required to generate the package list is: http://www.pfsense.org/packages/pkg_config.8.xml
If you can see the list but can't install the package then maybe it was updating at the time.Can you ping any external address from the pfSense box?
I take it you have successfully accessed the web GUI? ;)
Steve
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yes i pinged google and other outside ips and all my lan ips but could not get the install package to work
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Can you see the list of available packages?
What about the firmware upgrade?
If you go to System: Firmware: Auto Update:
does it show this:Downloading new version information...done Obtaining current version information...done You are on the latest version.
Steve