Watchguard XTM 5 Series

22213w · May 31, 2015, 9:16 PM

Thanks for your input about the power usage of the watchguard shipped with 65w CPU. I guess going over 65w may overheat. So I did some research and found this person on ebay selling a watchguad 510 with pfsense on it that he upgraded the cpu to xeon L5410 lga 771. The xeon L5410 is rated at 50w so that is within spec but I would need to do a Mod. to the CPU and mother board socket.

I won the bid for the Watchguard xtm so I should be getting it by this Tuesday and I order the xeon L5410 with conversion sticker to lga 775. 4 gb of LD ddr2 of ram.(I can't afford 2x4gb of ddr ram it cost like $140). I hope everything works when I put it together. I will leave the stock BIOS for now. But I may want to flash it if I feel risky.

Here is the link for LGA 771 to 775 MOD
http://www.overclock.net/t/1384920/good-news-for-the-lga775-now-771-is-available-to-convert-to-775-motherboard

gharris · Jun 5, 2015, 7:53 PM

Just finished installing on a XTM 505 and a XTM 515. I put the pfsense-memstick-serial image on the 1 GB CF cards that were in the boxes, after making a backup image of the cards for safety sake. Plugged in a SATA SSD in each box, then booted, reading via serial connection at 115200 baud, till the BIOS finished loading. I then quickly reconnected at 9600 baud to get to the install screens. (You could skip watching at 115200, and just wait until the 9600 baud took over.) I did the Serial Kernel rather than the Standard Kernel, (or is it Custom?), so that I could get to the boxes after it rebooted without having to remove the SSDs and add the serial config info to the /cf/config/config.xml file. After the successful install, I removed the CF cards and booted up without a hitch.

If you are moving configs from an older setup to a new setup, the Ethernet ports are FXP0 for the 10/100 port, and then EM0 through EM5 for the gigabit ports. And remember to watch out for find and replace replacing parts of your certificates! :o

stephenw10 · Jun 6, 2015, 2:52 PM

Yeah, don't use find and replace for converting interface names. That is the road to errors and confusion! ;)
I'm surprised you had to use 9600 for the memstick-serial images. Everything should be at 115200 from 2.2 on.

Steve

22213w · Jun 6, 2015, 3:27 PM

Hi All,

Well got my Watchguard 505 in yesterday and had trobule installing and booting of a sata hard drive. It so happens @gharris sent out a message on what procedure gharris did and it worked like a charm.

Now I tough I can upgrade the CPU so looking around this forum some people said they where able to get a xeon lga771 to 775 up and running with stock bios. Well I did the procedure put the sticker on the CPU and cut out the tabs. Place 2 different xeon lga771 chips in and nothing. I will not boot.

So I decided to flashrom the bios which is pretty easy and that didn't help. Do I need to upgrade the bios? if so where can I get it.

If any one that did this conversion please let me know how you did it. I really would like to get ithe watchguard up and running with the xeon cpu

many thanks!

stephenw10 · Jun 7, 2015, 4:36 PM

Have you proven the CPU in a 771 board? Perhaps it's dead. I assume that when you try to boot it you are seeing nothing at all, the same as if you boot with no CPU in it?
I haven't attempted this conversion but it looks like the placement of the adapter is critical and requires a fair degree of precision.

Steve

22213w · Jun 7, 2015, 8:25 PM

Thanks for getting back to me. No I can't prove the CPU works because I don't have any 771 motherboards. But I purchased 2 CPU's for that reason and both don't work. Yes when I boot it is blank just like as if there is no CPU in the xtm5. The adapters took a lot of time to put on and on both CPU's I did my best putting them on. So I assume it is on correctly on each CPU.

There are a few amount of people in this thread said that they did the conversion but did not leave instruction on how they did it. Can someone that was successful on doing the 771 to 775 conversion please share what they did.

Many Thanks!

22213w · Jun 8, 2015, 1:22 PM

@ScottMcNaught:

Hey guys,

I have some exciting news! After some research, I tried an experiment.

I have successfully achieved a Watchguard XTM 505 running a Quad Core Xeon L5420 CPU on pfSense!

The LGA 771 to 775 pin mod works! See: http://www.delidded.com/lga-771-to-775-adapter/

I bought this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/291073902038

You need to be very careful putting the sticker onto the CPU, and then ultra careful cutting the tabs off the motherboard. I did this with a Stanley knife.

Cheers,

Scott McNaught
http://www.synergy8.com/

I am trying to do the same a you I purchased the same Xeon CPU L5420 and a L5410 got the adapters 771-775 and when I put it it into the xtm5 all I get is a blank screen. Did you upgraded your bios what if any modification you did to get this working. I have unlocked my bios with flashrom and still will not work. Any help would be grateful

thanks

willrun4fun · Jun 18, 2015, 6:18 PM

Has anyone just gone the hacky way and put on a quiet fan like http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0039P998M/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2T6N244WTLWGU and just leave the top off the case?

Mine is way nosier than I like it. XTM510

Edit:
Nevermind, just moved it to a spare room I am not in much. Need to move my whole rack in here.

chpalmer · Jun 19, 2015, 5:50 PM

@willrun4fun:

Has anyone just gone the hacky way and put on a quiet fan like http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0039P998M/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2T6N244WTLWGU and just leave the top off the case?

Mine is way nosier than I like it. XTM510

Edit:
Nevermind, just moved it to a spare room I am not in much. Need to move my whole rack in here.

Mine seriously isn't any louder than my desktop. In fact my switch in the same rack has a louder fan. But your solution is the same as mine. Moved to an almost unused room. :)

stephenw10 · Jun 20, 2015, 1:33 PM

You can try reducing the minimum fan speed with WGXepc. By default the slowest speed that the fan is allowed to run at is quite high, far higher than is necessary to hold the target temperature.
However you need to be aware that the CPU temperature may not be the limiting factor here. If you slow the fan speeds you are reducing the airflow inside the case in general which may overheat some other components.
That also very true if you remove the top. The case fans then do nothing at all, there will be parts getting almost no cooling where previously there was some air flow through the case.
That said I've run mine with no top cover for days without issue. Not much load on it though.

Steve

educatedwarrior · Jul 5, 2015, 4:32 AM

@marian3k:

@Corellon:

I've recently aquired a XTM 510 which I'm installing PFsense on, I'd like to be able to boot off a hard drive in order to utilize caching, could someone point me in the write direction if that is even possible? Without a video output it seems the standard builds wont' work and the nano builds would only give 4gb of space?

Thanks

Hi there. I run 2.1.2 on xtm 510 with 120GB SATA SSD drive. It works perfectly fine. Cache read speed for Squid is around 35MBps.

Edit:

Marion, could you please explain what you did to flash Steve's bios on to the XTM 5. Seemed so easy for you Anything I have have tried so far has not worked.

I flashed pfsense serial full install on an SDD… The console works when the bios loads up, but then when pfsense starts to load, the text goes invisible. Any suggestions?

educatedwarrior · Jul 5, 2015, 12:16 PM

@gharris:

Just finished installing on a XTM 505 and a XTM 515. I put the pfsense-memstick-serial image on the 1 GB CF cards that were in the boxes, after making a backup image of the cards for safety sake. Plugged in a SATA SSD in each box, then booted, reading via serial connection at 115200 baud, till the BIOS finished loading. I then quickly reconnected at 9600 baud to get to the install screens. (You could skip watching at 115200, and just wait until the 9600 baud took over.) I did the Serial Kernel rather than the Standard Kernel, (or is it Custom?), so that I could get to the boxes after it rebooted without having to remove the SSDs and add the serial config info to the /cf/config/config.xml file. After the successful install, I removed the CF cards and booted up without a hitch.

If you are moving configs from an older setup to a new setup, the Ethernet ports are FXP0 for the 10/100 port, and then EM0 through EM5 for the gigabit ports. And remember to watch out for find and replace replacing parts of your certificates! :o

I was able to make more progress with Gharris's method running 2.2.3. 115200 baud worked fine for me to view the bios and install screens.

The issue I'm having now is when I boot from the SSD after the install. Putty seems to print out invisible text as Pfsense boots. I installed the embedded kernal version. This was the same issue I had previously when I installed the full install directly to the SSD using a laptop. Any suggestion?

chpalmer · Jul 5, 2015, 6:21 PM

As recommended on this page-

sprechen Sie Deutsch?

http://www.triebwerk23.de/joomla/index.php/firewalls/watchguard-xtm-5-xtm-505-515-525-545-pfsense-64-bit

Advanced/Terminal Type- VT100

Ive rebooted one time after I made this change and it seemed to print out just fine for me for the first time. Before I would have to reset the terminal after the initial boot screen.

educatedwarrior · Jul 5, 2015, 6:59 PM

@chpalmer:

As recommended on this page-

sprechen Sie Deutsch?

http://www.triebwerk23.de/joomla/index.php/firewalls/watchguard-xtm-5-xtm-505-515-525-545-pfsense-64-bit

Advanced/Terminal Type- VT100

Ive rebooted one time after I made this change and it seemed to print out just fine for me for the first time. Before I would have to reset the terminal after the initial boot screen.

That did it. Thank you!

stephenw10 · Jul 25, 2015, 7:58 PM

Ah, that's interesting I'll have to try that. The invisible output problem has always been an issue for me but I put it down to my console setup. If you restart putty after booting has started it will print out normally.
Thanks.

Steve

chpalmer · Jul 13, 2015, 2:25 AM

@stephenw10:

Ah, that's interesting I'll have to try that. The invisible output problem has always been an issue for me bit I put it down to my console setup. If you restart putty after booting has started it will print out normally.
Thanks.

About time I was able to help you out with something on these boxes! :) Its usually you giving me the ah ha moments…

educatedwarrior · Jul 18, 2015, 12:08 AM

@stephenw10:

Ah, that's interesting I'll have to try that. The invisible output problem has always been an issue for me bit I put it down to my console setup. If you restart putty after booting has started it will print out normally.
Thanks.

Steve

Well, I feel much better now being the noob I am. Pfsense is up and running I love it. I got snort… Next to configure Dansguardian for the kids, squid and antivirus.

pglover19 · Aug 5, 2015, 10:39 AM

Got a weird issue. I have the latest version of pfense running on a Watchguard XTM 525 from a SSD drive. I had to unplug the CF card in order to boot from the SSD drive. The BIOS is locked down (has not been flashed). I have been running this setup for months. In pfsense, WAN port is assigned to em3 and the LAN port is assigned to em4. This corresponds to Port 5 and Port 6 on the front of the XTM 525. However, every time I reboot pfsense, the WAN and LAN port in pfsense is still assigned to em3 and em4 but it now corresponds to a different Port on the front to the XTM 525. So now I have to switch the network around on the front of the XTM 525 to get to work.

Anyone else experience this issue.. Very frustrating.

stephenw10 · Aug 5, 2015, 10:52 AM

Hmm, that's interesting in two ways.
The ports should not change between boots, they are numbered on the order they are detected but since they are on-board that should not change. It could conceivably change with a new kernel or some PCIe subsystem component but I've never seen that.
Ports 5 and 6 on the XTM5 are the last two em ports so they should be em4 and em5 not 3 and 4. Unless you have a second gen xtm5 perhaps though I thought they were the same in terms of ports.

What ports does it change to?

Steve

marian3k · Aug 5, 2015, 10:55 AM

@pglover19:

Got a weird issue. I have the latest version of pfense running on a Watchguard XTM 525 from a SSD drive. I had to unplug the CF card in order to boot from the SSD drive. The BIOS is locked down (has not been flashed). I have been running this setup for months. In pfsense, WAN port is assigned to em3 and the LAN port is assigned to em4. This corresponds to Port 5 and Port 6 on the front of the XTM 525. However, every time I reboot pfsense, the WAN and LAN port in pfsense is still assigned to em3 and em4 but it now corresponds to a different Port on the front to the XTM 525. So now I have to switch the network around on the front of the XTM 525 to get to work.

Anyone else experience this issue.. Very frustrating.

I use 515 with 128GB SSD and 4GB of RAM and Quad CPU so pretty similar setup. My firewall is running very smooth and stable and only times it gets rebooted is when new pfsense is released. Thing is that I never had to move any cables around - my settings stick and survive a reboot. I did however flash the BIOS and have full functionality on it thanks to stephenw10. It is recommended but dangerous - do it on your own risk.