Barracuda 310 NICs

stephenw10 · Jun 6, 2015, 6:20 PM

So all good then? Glad you got it working. :)

You should be able to use the BCHW program rather than using writeIO to set the bits directly.

Steve

22213w · Jun 7, 2015, 9:35 PM

Once again Stephenw10 you are the man. I didn't see the post for BCHW. I just set it on the barracuda 310 and it works like a charm.

Thanks for letting me know and getting back to me so fast.

Many tanks!

muddy9069 · Nov 18, 2015, 5:13 PM

Steven,

Sorry I know this is an old post but your the only person I can find that seems to have figured out the barracuda nic issue. Your programs work great for pfSense but I am trying to use them in Debian and apparently they are not compatible.. Is this something you could possibly recompile for debian/ubuntu?

Or point me in the direction of a comparable program to do the same?? I know nothing of programming or I would attempt to do it myself..

Thanks

stephenw10 · Nov 24, 2015, 11:42 AM

Hi, sorry for the delay.
The source code for BCHW is listed above, you can probably try just compiling it in Debian. It's all pretty basic C libraries etc.
Alternatively the entire thing only sets bits on the parallel port for which there are many programs available. I'd be very surprised if there wasn't already code to do it, possibly even already on your box.

Steve

jmccaf77 · Dec 3, 2015, 12:04 AM

Thank you everybody! Especially Stephenw10…
I got pretty much everything I needed from this thread to repurpose a long-out-of-warranty Barracuda Web Filter 410... Only slightly different than the 310 (one PCIe slot controls both NICs instead of 2 PCI slots)... After getting FreeBSD to see the Lib32 libraries, by adding the path with ldconfig, I was able to successfully run ./BCHW32 bypass off, which clicked the relays and activated the front NICs... When it rebooted, the command had to be run again. To remedy this, I put BCHW32 in / , added the following to a file, named BypassOff.sh, and placed the file in /usr/local/etc/rc.d:

cd /
./BCHW32 bypass off
./BCHW32 red off
./BCHW32 yellow off
./BCHW32 green off

Now, when the power is lost, the NICs go to Bypass Mode, and when power is restored and pfsense loads, the script runs and the NICs light up...
Now, we can start configuring, testing, using, the various packages available for use with pfsense...

roccor · Jan 8, 2016, 7:20 PM

<resurrecting_very_old_thread>I, like the last poster, has hard a very hard time finding anyone else online whose re-purposed a 310 for Pf. I have one sitting behind me, it has the watchdog/relay type front nic board.

I don't have Pf loaded as of yet, but I read through most of the thread here and I'm left still wondering.. what are you all doing so that the nics are enabled after a power cycle/loss? It is some sort of Pf/cron jobs addon thing?

Thanks!</resurrecting_very_old_thread>

roccor · Jan 8, 2016, 9:34 PM

Working my way down this thread on my test pf box.. first halting issue: a lack of an ELF interpreter.

ELF interpreter /libexec/ld-elf.so.1 not found

Except that file does exist in libexec.

-r-xr-xr-x 1 root wheel 267288 Dec 21 16:16 ld-elf.so.1

I've googled and found this: https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/4670

Which was utterly useless as my pkg was a 64-bit file. I did try moving it so running pkg would prompt me to reinstall but just like that guy.. 'its already installed'

Anyone know how I can make my ld-elf.so.1 file work or get another?

stephenw10 · Jan 30, 2016, 8:08 PM

Sorry for the (extremely) late reply here.
Did you see that error after trying to run the program? The compiled version is 32bit, what pfSense version are you running?

Steve

thcassio · Mar 29, 2016, 2:31 PM

Hi guys, nice piece of software there, but I just made a jumper on the parallel port wiring that activates / deactivates the the 2 frontal ports, no software interaction is needed and now they stay active all the time. I can post pictures if anyone is interested in doing so, it's really easy.

I really don't care for the lights so all is fine now, pfSense running with 80MBPS throughput on Barracuda 410 Web Filter (Sempron 3200 + 1Gb RAM)

I also replaced the HDD disk with a diskonchip IDE module, so I disabled that annoying loud fan next to the HDD, which probably saves a lot of energy and ear capillaries…

I was wondering if those realtek network cards could be replaced with gigabit low profile cards to allow better throughputs, this device has odd ethernet cables wiring running inside it coming from the rear of those cards..

w3bghost · Apr 10, 2016, 2:26 PM

@thcassio:

Hi guys, nice piece of software there, but I just made a jumper on the parallel port wiring that activates / deactivates the the 2 frontal ports, no software interaction is needed and now they stay active all the time. I can post pictures if anyone is interested in doing so, it's really easy.

I really don't care for the lights so all is fine now, pfSense running with 80MBPS throughput on Barracuda 410 Web Filter (Sempron 3200 + 1Gb RAM)

I also replaced the HDD disk with a diskonchip IDE module, so I disabled that annoying loud fan next to the HDD, which probably saves a lot of energy and ear capillaries…

I was wondering if those realtek network cards could be replaced with gigabit low profile cards to allow better throughputs, this device has odd ethernet cables wiring running inside it coming from the rear of those cards..

I would like to know. I am repurposing a 410 web filter also with pfsense.

thcassio · Apr 12, 2016, 3:02 PM

@w3bghost:

@thcassio:

Hi guys, nice piece of software there, but I just made a jumper on the parallel port wiring that activates / deactivates the the 2 frontal ports, no software interaction is needed and now they stay active all the time. I can post pictures if anyone is interested in doing so, it's really easy.

I really don't care for the lights so all is fine now, pfSense running with 80MBPS throughput on Barracuda 410 Web Filter (Sempron 3200 + 1Gb RAM)

I also replaced the HDD disk with a diskonchip IDE module, so I disabled that annoying loud fan next to the HDD, which probably saves a lot of energy and ear capillaries…

I was wondering if those realtek network cards could be replaced with gigabit low profile cards to allow better throughputs, this device has odd ethernet cables wiring running inside it coming from the rear of those cards..

I would like to know. I am repurposing a 410 web filter also with pfsense.

It's the two wires that comes out from the parallel port and connects to the frontal network daughterboard, just remove the connector and place a jumper where they go connected to.

Please give it a try, leave me a message if you can't find it and I'll open up the server and take some pictures.

Regards

Cassio

firefox · Aug 26, 2016, 1:01 PM

i have the same problem
the front connections do not respond

It's the two wires that comes out from the parallel port and connects to the frontal network daughterboard, just remove the connector and place a jumper where they go connected to.

Please give it a try, leave me a message if you can't find it and I'll open up the server and take some pictures.

is it the two wires color Yellow and green ?

Just unplug them and put a jumper instead ?

stephenw10 · Nov 14, 2016, 11:46 AM

Very late reply here again. :-[

That looks to be wired identically to the first box we looked at. The BCHW program should work on that. If not it will be possible to probe the registers as we did originally.

The program may need re-compiling for 64bit but you can test a 32bit install to confirm it.

Steve

tsquareweb72 · Apr 2, 2018, 9:25 PM

I know this is an old post, but I am trying to get a Barracuda Webfilter 210 to work as a pfsense 2.4.3 64 bit.
I found writeio64 and readio64, which works for the lights (0x88, 0x48, 0x28), but the Nics don't turn on using 0x08.

I tried the BCHW32, but get "ELF interpreter /libexec/ld-elf.so.1 not found". I assume because I'm 64 bit and this is 32 bit.

stephenw10 · Apr 2, 2018, 10:44 PM

Does it look the same internally? Wired to the parallel port?

You're right that BCHW32 doesn't do anything more than writeio64 so if it doesn't work there you would need to investigate why not.

Steve

tsquareweb72 · Apr 3, 2018, 6:47 PM

The parallel port wires look exactly the same, I just have one card handling the two ports though.

To be honest, I don't really follow what the writeio64 is doing when you writeio 378 0x08 (0x28,0x48,0x88). Is that changing voltage on those pins to flip lights (and the relay) off/on? If so, I'll grab the volt meter and see what is going on. If not, what should I be looking for?

Thank you for any help in understanding this.

tsquareweb72 · Apr 3, 2018, 7:05 PM

Sorry…I just noticed the first picture showing the parallel port. I don't have the black and blue wire going to the NICs.

I guess that is why the lights work, but the NIC doesn't. The only wires on the PCI card are two sets of two going to the connectors at the front. I guess something in Barracuda's programming turns it on via the PCI board. There is a relay on the PCI board...looking into that.

stephenw10 · Apr 4, 2018, 12:06 AM

The parallel port pins are binary so you're turning them on or off by writing 1s or 0s to the appropriate input/output space.

The IO address is hex value 378. The parallel port actually has more pins than that so exists on 378, 379 and 37a but the pins addressed at 378 are what we''re interested in.

So when you write 0x08 to 378 you are setting that 8 bit values to hex 08 which is binary 0000 1000. So it set's bit 3 high. That enables the relay(s) on the other boards.

Similarly the oher values set the pins for the LEDs:

0x28 0010 1000
0x48 0100 1000
0x88 1000 1000

Can we see a photo of the board in the 210? It will be more difficult to find but may still be controllable. The parallel port is a classicly easy way to interface with hardware.

You might check the BIOS for bypass-lan settings if you can get into it.

Steve

tsquareweb72 · Apr 5, 2018, 9:43 PM

On the Webfilter 210 (at least my 4 year old version) four wires go from the parallel port to a board on the front where the LEDs are. The picture in the original post had two more wires going to the NIC card. I added a picture of the parallel port, the NIC card with all of the wires going to the front board with the two ports (no other wires connect to it…it only connects to the motherboard in a PCI slot) and lastly a picture of the BIOS under On board Device. I didn't see anything else the may "by-pass LAN" settings (but I might have missed it). The BIOS password is bcndk1

There is a jumper on the PCI board. When it is closed (how it was when I opened the case) the orange light is solid on when a cable is plugged in. If I take the jumper off (open) then nothing happens when a cable is plugged in.

stephenw10 · Apr 6, 2018, 10:33 PM

Hmm, OK I'm not sure that has LAN-bypass at all. That looks like just the magnetics, not a relay.

Which orange light are you referring to? The link LED? If that lights then there not any lan-bypass relays. That would prevent link at all as it disconnects the Ethernet port entirely.

How do the interfaces appear?

Do you see a link reported by 'ifconfig' when you connect a cable?

Edit: Yeah the 210 did not have LAN bypass. Looks like those might be rl NICs :(

Steve