Please help - Firebox x750e
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Thanks for the fast help.
Putty is at default serial setting. I get a blank black screen with a green cursor after 3 beeps. I cannot type anything. No text appears as in the video. Thanks for the video.
How do I know failing to boot v. bad console connection to the device. I see 115200 baud as a connection rate above. I did fail to check the cable before I started. It is a microconnector.com 2303 chipset usb to serial which I read now has issues. Will try to borrow/buy a different connector.
So I flash one bios image after I get in. What bios am I working on if I still haven't flashed the bios? If I am working on the original bios how do I know it isn't password protected? I did remove the backup battery with power disconnected and pushed the reset button with the machine on.
I wrote the FreeDOSBios image to the CF card using physdiskwrite.
I still need to confirm the hash of the image. Will learn how and do that later today.
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Ok. So you are hearing the three beeps. That means that you have written FreeDOS to the card correctly and that it is booting successfully. The fact that can't see the prompt means you either have the wrong terminal settings or the wrong cable.
You should be using 9600bps with the FreeDOS image.
You might have the wrong null modem cable. See:
https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/PfSense_on_Watchguard_Firebox#Not_All_Null_Modem_Cables_are_Created_Equal.21The actual process of writing the modified bios image is also described on the wiki:
https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/PfSense_on_Watchguard_Firebox#Flashing_the_BIOSSteve
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As Steve said, the three beeps means it's booting successfully. Make sure you're on the correct com port (sometimes a trial and error process… a good start is to look in the device manager if you're using windows). It could be compatibility problem with your USB to serial adapter or it could also be your null modem cable. I used a Dell Latitude D620 which has a native serial port onboard with a cable from amazon, linked below.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00006B8BJ/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Since the firebox is booting, we know a password is at least not preventing it from booting. Once you get the terminal up, you should be able to flash the BIOS just fine. 9600 baud is correct for the FreeDOS image - the connection rates vary depending on what you're connecting to. The factory WatchGuard software connects at 115200 as does the BIOS console output after you flash. Both FreeDOS and pfSense connect at 9600 baud.
And yes, confirm the hash on the freedos image - even if it boots, it could be altered. You want to make 100% sure that the BIOS image is intact before you flash or you risk bricking the firebox.
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I tried 3 different USB to serial until I understood that I need a null modem cable coming out of the serial port. I have ordered that. Is there any way to get a usb serial port to act like a null modem cable? It's not hard wired so software might be able to make the goesint a goesota.
I do think I know which port com7 by using hardware manager.
Still not MD5d but will work on that Monday.
Happy Holidays.
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Not really. The serial port end is still hardwired to the USB-RS232 chip in the cable. You could potentially rewire the cable but I wouldn't even attempt that. Null modem cables are cheap and you can then use the USB adapter for other things.
One other thing that is now possible would be to modify the autoexec.bat file to automatically flash the new bios version, the latest V0.8. You could then boot the large CF card without needing a null modem cable or to access the bios at all. However I wouldn't recommend that either. You wouldn't be able to check the current bios and you might get the script wrong bricking the box. Interesting prospect though. ;)
Steve
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I got the null modem adapter in the mail and was able to get to the prompt. One of the USB to serial didn't work with the null modem adapter.
I copied the bios but didn't have the card reader with me to flash the 2g card. I'm working at two locations but down the road!!
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I am using pfSense-2.1-RELEASE-2g-i386-nanobsd-20130911-1816.img. I MD5d the gz file and unziped it. Is that an MD5 for the unpacked file. Can I run MD5 on the CF card?
The first physdiskwrite failed so I used diskpart to clean the CF card. Diskpart said the CF card had 1944 mb. Physicdiskdrive says it wrote 1989969408 bytes. Is it safe to try the CF card vis a vi briking the watchguard?
What is the difference between 1g 2g 4g versions of pfSense?
Thanks BTW I donated $25 to pfSense.
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The MD5 is for the img.gz compressed file. Physdiskwrite can write the file directly, decompressing it on the fly. If it still fails to write try using the 1GB image instead.
Steve
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I could not get serial connection or the 3 beeps with 2g or 1g. I went back to the original CF with FreeDOSBios i got the 3 beeps and serial connection.
With the 1g when I unziped the MD5 checked file I got a folder "pfSense-2.1-RELEASE-1g-i386-nanobsd.img" with only "nanobsd.full.img" inside. Is the nanobsd.full.img all that is needed for pfSense?
When I unzip the 2g file I get a folder with "pfSense-2.1-RELEASE-2g-i386-nanobsd-20130911-1816.img" inside.
I will try to get a 4g CF card.
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You will only hear the three beeps with the FreeDOS image. I put that in there initially because it was the only way I could be sure to know when FreeDOS had booted.
After you have flashed the BIOS (the LCD will then show 'pfSense B7' at boot) you should be able to access the BIOS setup via the serial terminal but at 115200bps. Then you can change the hard drive parameters to allow it to boot the larger CF cards as described in the docs.Not sure why the images are named inconsistently between the 2G and 1G files. :-\ Not to worry though, if the MD5 checks out just write the original img.gz file with physdiskwrite.
Steve