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    Using a hard-disk in a Watchguard Firebox X750e for cache/log storage

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    • stephenw10S
      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
      last edited by

      Haven't you alread set ata0 to PIO4 only though?
      The HD and CF are on the same IDE channel right?

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      • S
        Steve Evans
        last edited by

        Hi Stephen,

        This is what I'm trying to get my head round at the moment, reading the FreeBSD documentation to better understand the nomenclature.

        If I boot without specifying

        hint.ata.0.mode=PIO4

        I see the following on the console

        ada0 at ata0 bus 0 scbus0 target 0 lun 0
ada0: <sandisk sdcfh-004g="" hdx="" 6.02=""> CFA-0 device
ada0: Serial Number ABZ042211193008
ada0: 66.700MB/s transfers (UDMA4, PIO 512bytes)
ada0: 3815MB (7813120 512 byte sectors: 16H 63S/T 7751C)
ada0: Previously was known as ad0
ada1 at ata0 bus 0 scbus0 target 1 lun 0
ada1: <st9402115a 3.01=""> ATA-6 device
ada1: Serial Number 5PV09ZED
ada1: 100.000MB/s transfers (UDMA5, PIO 8192bytes)
ada1: 38154MB (78140160 512 byte sectors: 16H 63S/T 16383C)
ada1: Previously was known as ad1</st9402115a></sandisk>

        Rather than

        ada0 at ata0 bus 0 scbus0 target 0 lun 0
ada0: <sandisk sdcfh-004g="" hdx="" 6.02=""> CFA-0 device
ada0: Serial Number ABZ042211193008
ada0: 16.700MB/s transfers (PIO4, PIO 512bytes)
ada0: 3815MB (7813120 512 byte sectors: 16H 63S/T 7751C)
ada0: Previously was known as ad0
ada1 at ata0 bus 0 scbus0 target 1 lun 0
ada1: <st9402115a 3.01=""> ATA-6 device
ada1: Serial Number 5PV09ZED
ada1: 16.700MB/s transfers (PIO4, PIO 8192bytes)
ada1: 38154MB (78140160 512 byte sectors: 16H 63S/T 16383C)
ada1: Previously was known as ad1</st9402115a></sandisk>

        As you point out, this setting affects them both. I've been trying to understand what granularity of control the driver gives me. From the ata man page there's the following which suggests per device control, but I don't currently understand what "specified device" means exactly.

        @https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ata(4)&sektion=:

        hint.ata.X.devX.mode
            limits the initial ATA mode for the specified device on the specified channel.

        hint.ata.X.mode
            limits the initial ATA mode for every device on the specified channel.

        I'm not sure how the master/slave IDE arrangement maps onto the above. Any pointers much appreciated!

        Thanks,

        Steve

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        • stephenw10S
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by

          Pretty sure the CF slot is always master if a CF card is in it so I would think it's dev0.

          On my test box here which I haven't set loader.conf.local on it will boot if I use:

          Hit [Enter] to boot immediately, or any other key for command prompt.
Booting [/boot/kernel/kernel] in 4 seconds...

Type '?' for a list of commands, 'help' for more detailed help.
OK set hint.ata.0.dev0.mode=PIO4
OK boot
Booting...

          So I'd say you're good with that.

          Steve

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          • S
            Steve Evans
            last edited by

            Thank you sir, you're a scholar and a gentleman!  :)

            Your suggestion works a treat. I clearly had a bit of a mental block on what "devX" could be. I'd tried "0", but it hadn't occurred to me to used "dev0".  :-[ I'm clearly not familiar enough with FreeBSD naming conventions.

            [code]ada0 at ata0 bus 0 scbus0 target 0 lun 0
            ada0: <sandisk sdcfh-004g="" hdx="" 6.02="">CFA-0 device
            ada0: Serial Number ABZ042211193008
            ada0: 16.700MB/s transfers (PIO4, PIO 512bytes)
            ada0: 3815MB (7813120 512 byte sectors: 16H 63S/T 7751C)
            ada0: Previously was known as ad0
            ada1 at ata0 bus 0 scbus0 target 1 lun 0
            ada1: <st9402115a 3.01="">ATA-6 device
            ada1: Serial Number 5PV09ZED
            ada1: 100.000MB/s transfers (UDMA5, PIO 8192bytes)
            ada1: 38154MB (78140160 512 byte sectors: 16H 63S/T 16383C)
            ada1: Previously was known as ad1

            I'm now getting the performance I need for my disk used for logs and caching.

            diskinfo -tv /dev/ad1
/dev/ad1
        512             # sectorsize
        40007761920     # mediasize in bytes (37G)
        78140160        # mediasize in sectors
        0               # stripesize
        0               # stripeoffset
        77520           # Cylinders according to firmware.
        16              # Heads according to firmware.
        63              # Sectors according to firmware.
        5PV09ZED        # Disk ident.

Seek times:
        Full stroke:      250 iter in   7.926598 sec =   31.706 msec
        Half stroke:      250 iter in   6.203416 sec =   24.814 msec
        Quarter stroke:   500 iter in   9.877891 sec =   19.756 msec
        Short forward:    400 iter in   3.476113 sec =    8.690 msec
        Short backward:   400 iter in   2.381591 sec =    5.954 msec
        Seq outer:       2048 iter in   0.197696 sec =    0.097 msec
        Seq inner:       2048 iter in   0.179296 sec =    0.088 msec
Transfer rates:
        outside:       102400 kbytes in   3.135350 sec =    32660 kbytes/sec
        middle:        102400 kbytes in   3.745807 sec =    27337 kbytes/sec
        inside:        102400 kbytes in   5.382397 sec =    19025 kbytes/sec

            Steve</st9402115a></sandisk>

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            • stephenw10S
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              Nice! I'm going to have to try that sometime.  :)

              Steve

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              • stephenw10S
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by

                In testing the HD issue I ran that benchmark. Thought my result might ammuse you:

                [2.2-RELEASE][root@pfSense.localdomain]/root: diskinfo -tv /dev/ada0
/dev/ada0
        512             # sectorsize
        20003880960     # mediasize in bytes (19G)
        39070080        # mediasize in sectors
        0               # stripesize
        0               # stripeoffset
        38760           # Cylinders according to firmware.
        16              # Heads according to firmware.
        63              # Sectors according to firmware.
        32K60131T       # Disk ident.

Seek times:
        Full stroke:      250 iter in  11.840086 sec =   47.360 msec
        Half stroke:      250 iter in   8.878876 sec =   35.516 msec
        Quarter stroke:   500 iter in  15.334866 sec =   30.670 msec
        Short forward:    400 iter in   8.639504 sec =   21.599 msec
        Short backward:   400 iter in   7.131472 sec =   17.829 msec
        Seq outer:       2048 iter in   0.282496 sec =    0.138 msec
        Seq inner:       2048 iter in   1.086055 sec =    0.530 msec
Transfer rates:
        outside:       102400 kbytes in  23.521335 sec =     4353 kbytes/sec
        middle:        102400 kbytes in  20.436978 sec =     5011 kbytes/sec
        inside:        102400 kbytes in  48.862760 sec =     2096 kbytes/sec

                Something not right.  ::) Yet:

                [2.2-RELEASE][root@pfSense.localdomain]/root: dmesg | grep ada
ada0 at ata0 bus 0 scbus0 target 0 lun 0
ada0: <toshiba mk2018gap="" m1.42="" a="">ATA-5 device
ada0: Serial Number 32K60131T
ada0: 100.000MB/s transfers (UDMA5, PIO 8192bytes)
ada0: 19077MB (39070080 512 byte sectors: 16H 63S/T 16383C)
ada0: Previously was known as ad0
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ada0s1a [rw]...</toshiba>

                Just a knackered old drive? Works fine though, as long as you're not in a hurry!

                Steve

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                • S
                  Steve Evans
                  last edited by

                  Ouch. Not much use as a cache though as it's no faster than fiber broadband!

                  Steve

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                  • M
                    MacUsers
                    last edited by

                    @stephenw10:

                    [2.2-RELEASE][root@pfSense.localdomain]/root: dmesg | grep ada
ada0 at ata0 bus 0 scbus0 target 0 lun 0
ada0: <toshiba mk2018gap="" m1.42="" a="">ATA-5 device
ada0: Serial Number 32K60131T
ada0: 100.000MB/s transfers (UDMA5, PIO 8192bytes)
ada0: 19077MB (39070080 512 byte sectors: 16H 63S/T 16383C)
ada0: Previously was known as ad0
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ada0s1a [rw]...</toshiba>

                    I was just looking in some old posts - Does it mean you have TRIM enabled on your TOSHIBA MK2018GAP drive?

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                    • stephenw10S
                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                      last edited by

                      No. I'm pretty sure that device is way too old to support TRIM
                      TRIM only applies to SSDs anyway.

                      Steve

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                      • M
                        MacUsers
                        last edited by

                        That's what I knew as well but this line in your dmesg:

                        ada0: 100.000MB/s transfers (UDMA5, PIO 8192bytes)

                        made me think otherwise.

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                        • stephenw10S
                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                          last edited by

                          What part of that implies TRIM?
                          That's the maximum speed on the interface, which is far, far faster than the drive can manage in this case.  ;)

                          Steve

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                          • M
                            MacUsers
                            last edited by

                            Nothing in particular, to be honest. I see Ultra ATA/33 on my x750e as opposed to ATA/100 on yours:

                            [2.2.2-RELEASE][root@wg550.home]/root: dmesg|grep ada1
ada1 at ata0 bus 0 scbus0 target 1 lun 0
ada1: <toshiba mk4026gax="" pa102d=""> ATA-6 device
ada1: Serial Number 65IF3453T
ada1: 33.300MB/s transfers (UDMA2, PIO 8192bytes)
ada1: 38154MB (78140160 512 byte sectors: 16H 63S/T 16383C)
ada1: Previously was known as ad1</toshiba>

                            It says ATA-6 device, so I was hoping to see UDMA5 in the next line but UDMA2 is the ATA-4, IIRC. I'm out of sys-admin business for while now, so may be talking rubbish as well.  ;)

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                            • M
                              MacUsers
                              last edited by

                              On a separate note, a really silly question (maybe): Is it worth putting a SSD in in WatchGuard/pfSense? Apart from speedy-boot, what added benefit over an PATA drive?

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • ?
                                Guest
                                last edited by

                                @MacUsers:

                                On a separate note, a really silly question (maybe): Is it worth putting a SSD in in WatchGuard/pfSense? Apart from speedy-boot, what added benefit over an PATA drive?

                                There are many IDE SSDs out to install inside and I really would go more with a SSD
                                rather then a IDE HDD because of less power, faster and not so hot.

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • stephenw10S
                                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                  last edited by

                                  They are massively faster so if you're using it as a squid cache it will help a lot. Someone recently posted some numbers from one in the main Xe thread.

                                  https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=20095.msg501388#msg501388

                                  Steve

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                                  • N
                                    NozeDive
                                    last edited by

                                    Steve,

                                    I know this is a really old post, but I'm hoping you were subscribed to it, and that this post reaches you.

                                    I was hoping that you could go in to some more detail on the /etc/rc.embedded section of your post.

                                    I followed your steps, modifying the device names to match my own set-up (i.e. using /dev/ada1s1a instead of /dev/ad1s1a) except I missed this in a few places. The end result was a system that would not boot correctly, and a file system that could not be re-mounted as read/write, so I ended up having to nuke the CF card and starting over.

                                    That was totally my fault, but I'd like to try it again, which is why I'm hoping that you could go into a little more detail about what each section of the script in /etc/rc.embedded does.

                                    In any case, I may end up using a spare 8GB USB flash drive rather than this 250GB SATA spinning rust drive i'm trying to use since that seems like overkill, but I'd really like to get this set-up to work too for academic reasons.

                                    Again, I know this is an old topic, so if this does reach you, thanks for revisiting this post.

                                    »Tony

                                    (BTW I'm using a WatchGuard Firebox XTM 515)

                                    Best Regards,

                                    Tony Scardina

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • S
                                      Steve Evans
                                      last edited by

                                      @NozeDive:

                                      Steve,

                                      I know this is a really old post, but I'm hoping you were subscribed to it, and that this post reaches you.

                                      I was hoping that you could go in to some more detail on the /etc/rc.embedded section of your post.

                                      I followed your steps, modifying the device names to match my own set-up (i.e. using /dev/ada1s1a instead of /dev/ad1s1a) except I missed this in a few places. The end result was a system that would not boot correctly, and a file system that could not be re-mounted as read/write, so I ended up having to nuke the CF card and starting over.

                                      That was totally my fault, but I'd like to try it again, which is why I'm hoping that you could go into a little more detail about what each section of the script in /etc/rc.embedded does.

                                      In any case, I may end up using a spare 8GB USB flash drive rather than this 250GB SATA spinning rust drive i'm trying to use since that seems like overkill, but I'd really like to get this set-up to work too for academic reasons.

                                      Again, I know this is an old topic, so if this does reach you, thanks for revisiting this post.

                                      »Tony

                                      (BTW I'm using a WatchGuard Firebox XTM 515)

                                      Hi Tony,

                                      The code section of interest is below:

                                      # If a hard disk is installed then mount that on /var
# otherwise use a ramdisk
harddisk="/dev/ad1s1a"
if [ -c $harddisk ]
then

                                      This checks that /dev/ad1s1a exists as a character device.

                                      
        echo -n "Using /var physical disk..."
        mount -o noatime $harddisk /var

                                      This mounts the partition (in this case partition 'a') on /var.

                                      
        # Ensure /var/run is removed on boot before daemons are started
        # It should arguably be a tmpfs, but this works fine
        rm -r /var/run

                                      Remove the /var/run directory as nanobsd expects this to not persist across reboots, and whilst that would be true for a RAM disk, the rotating rust remembers.

                                      
        # sshd won't start if /var/empty exists on boot
        rm -r /var/empty

                                      Similarly remove /var/empty.

                                      
else

                                      The following is the original code which creates a RAM disk for /var..

                                              echo -n "Using /var memory disk..."
        mdmfs -S -M -s ${varsize} md /var

        # Create some needed directories
        /bin/mkdir -p /var/db

        # Ensure vi's recover directory is present
        /bin/mkdir -p /var/tmp/vi.recover/
fi

                                      Steve

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                                      • N
                                        NozeDive
                                        last edited by

                                        :)

                                        Steve!

                                        Thank you very much for taking the time to reply! I'm not sure how I missed your reply (I must have my email settings wrong) but I didn't  see it until just now, and I wanted to make sure I thanked you for replying!

                                        I did end up going with the 8GB thumb drive, FYI, but I used basically this same method to get it to work, and it's working well.

                                        Thanks again!

                                        –Tony

                                        Best Regards,

                                        Tony Scardina

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • L
                                          Love.IT.Again
                                          last edited by

                                          I just installed a 120GB IDE HDD (Samsung) in my X1250e.  It is currently running fine without the SD card.  My problem now is how to fit the HDD inside?  I can't find any tiny rails to use.  Any suggestions and tips will be much appreciated.  I am also planning to upgrade the memory which is currently 256MB.  What's the maximum memory capacity can I install?  Thanks a lot.

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                                          • ?
                                            Guest
                                            last edited by

                                            @Love.IT.Again

                                            I just installed a 120GB IDE HDD (Samsung) in my X1250e.

                                            If you want to use Squid as a caching proxy I suggest you to go with a IDE SSD drive that is
                                            speeding up much and many things. Something like a "OWC Mercury Legacy Pro 120 GB SSD"
                                            You will need an adapter from 3,5" to 2,5" for this, in the original version of the X1250e such
                                            an adapter was selld together with this box. So you might be able with ease and for cheap one
                                            of them over the Internet. (See the linked tutorial PDF document at the end of this post)

                                            My problem now is how to fit the HDD inside?  I can't find any tiny rails to use.  Any suggestions and tips will be much appreciated.

                                            I was only found one Blog where they talk about, if not really helpful please open or download
                                            the Watchguard pfSense guide from the end of this post there is a caddy shown inside and
                                            how to mount him into the X1250e series box.

                                            I am also planning to upgrade the memory which is currently 256MB.
                                            What's the maximum memory capacity can I install?  Thanks a lot.

                                            DDR2 533MHz 2GB modul, greater single modules of this ram are not on the market
                                            able to get so I assume this might be than also the maximum in a single RAM module system.

                                            A last if VPN becomes a really urgent part of your pfSense you could install or insert a Soekris vpn1411
                                            miniPCI card that is supported under pfSense. Link

                                            Watchguard pfSense guide

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