Watchguard XTM 5 Series
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I have the last year converted many XTM 5 boxes to run pfSense on a SSD, cpu updated to a Core2Duo,add extra ram
and all use the original Bios.
I don't see the benefits of a unlocked Bios, if everythings works with the original.For the precious X-Core E series i have a programmer and extra spare Bios chips,
so a bad flash is easy to fix.
But since the XTM 5 series have a soldered Bios chip, the recovery from a bad flash is more hassle,
then with a X-Core E, i don't want to take the risk for ending with a red brick or a red door stop.I'm from the principe, don't fix it, if it aint broken :-)
Grtz
DeLorean -
I don't see the benefits of a unlocked Bios, if everythings works with the original.
Grtz
DeLoreanIm a control freak! ;D ;D
There is some advantage but not a show stopper for sure.
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But… but... red LED. :P
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Turns out there is a full motherboard manual available from Lanner.
Inclusing the PINOUTs for all jumper blocks :)
It is for the 7581 and we have a 7580 in the XTM 5 series, but only minor differences.
Basically the same motherboard, just upgraded to DDR3 support.http://www.lannerinc.com/phocadownload/user-manuals/FW-7581%20User%20Manual.pdf
entire folder is browsable;
http://www.lannerinc.com/phocadownload/user-manuals
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Nice. Yeah the 7580 manual used to be available at their old site. Not sure why they took it down. I might have a copy of it somewhere.
Steve
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Thanx Jwh for the manual.
The pinouts are very handy.
Only minor detail, under chapter 2 they have used a picture from another box
with a totally different mainboard.
On the picture with the HDD connected to the mainboard, you can see that the HDD is placed left
of the heatsink (box placed with the Rj45 connection in front of you), while in a XTM5 this is mounted right.
Also the powersupply is on the left side of the heatsink, and they placed the HDD where normally the VPN accelerator sits.
Besides that, it's verry usefull to know what all the connectors are on the mainboard.Grtz
DeLorean -
Hi all, First off thanks to everyone for all the excellent info. I'm very new to pfsense but have had no problems getting my APU2C4 up and running or the WG 515 I just bought. I was wondering if anyone could use the bios image in my 515. The 515 has the motherboard MB-7580T and the bios is WG 1.3. If someone wants it please let me know how to back it up and I'll share it.
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I'm a bit late to returning to the party, it's been a couple years.
Only minor detail, under chapter 2 they have used a picture from another box With a totally different mainboard.
The pictures are most likely accurate. You've probably already realized since you posted this, but it's not the manual for ours, it's for a very similar board (one model number different, though that doesn't necessarily mean much) that has slightly different specs and layout. But most of the information is the same. (Unless of course you have the same model that this manual is referring to, I don't recall which XTM you actually have and am on my phone right now which makes checking for the info a bit more difficult.)
Nice. Yeah the 7580 manual used to be available at their old site. Not sure why they took it down. I might have a copy of it somewhere.
Glad to see you're still around here! If you can find it, I'd appreciate a copy of it. I think you were supposed to look for it for me a long time ago, but I don't remember if you found it or not. I'll look through my stuff and see if I have the copy you sent me, if I ever did receive it.
One thing that's interesting about the 7581 manual is the back of the case diagram shows a slot for use with a riser card and the motherboard layout still shows the "golden fingers" connector. Makes me wonder how to get my hands on one of those riser cards, though the XTM 510 would probably not have the clearances to make it viable for use, but maybe some sort mount for a supported accelerator card could be hacked together.
Sadly, we ended up moving in a bit of a rush and I tossed up a "temporary" internet solution that we've been using since we moved in while the XTM has sat in storage under a bed untouched. (I also managed to misplace a cable modem that I still haven't been able to locate.) After all the work I put into this, I would really like to actually start using it, despite having just ordered a new consumer wireless router that will be arriving on Monday.
I've just reread, the entire thread, a lot has been posted since my last time here. Does anyone have any recommendations on mounting hard drives in the XTM 510? I'd like to go with a pair in RAID-1, but will settle for a single drive with a spare stashed away.
Hi all, First off thanks to everyone for all the excellent info. I'm very new to pfsense but have had no problems getting my APU2C4 up and running or the WG 515 I just bought. I was wondering if anyone could use the bios image in my 515. The 515 has the motherboard MB-7580T and the bios is WG 1.3. If someone wants it please let me know how to back it up and I'll share it.
Are you able to get flashrom running on your system? I'd be interested in taking a look at it and could probably make an unlocked version of the BIOS for you if you wanted. I should still have all the software here somewhere.
If you can't get flashrom working, I probably should still have the FreeDOS image I used sitting around here. Not sure if the console port on your model would work or if you'd have to hook up com2 to get it, but I could change the autoexec to automatically make a backup of your BIOS and send some beeps when done if you can't get the console working in FDOS.
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Sadly if I did ever have it I haven't the slightest idea where it is! I suspect I was misremembering about the manual though there were other resources for the 7580.
Steve
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Sadly if I did ever have it I haven't the slightest idea where it is! I suspect I was misremembering about the manual though there were other resources for the 7580.
Steve
Out of curiosity, I may already know this and have forgotten, but what other resources did you have on the 7580? I remember you said the old site would have people on there that would pretty much toss you something with the information you were looking for if you asked, but not sure what all you might have gotten in regards to the 7580.
(On a side note, I figured what the heck and decided to try contacting Lanner directly concerning the manual for the FW-7580. I doubt they'll do anything other than try to sell me a new WG, but it's worth a shot. Although, if they do toss me a pitch, I might be able to get my boss to buy WGs to replace our Merakis. It would probably cost less to replace all 3 Merakis with WGs than the one Meraki MX400 that we have budgeted for next (fiscal) year (July). The more I try to do anything with them, the more I dislike them. And my boss isn't too happy with them or Meraki's support right now. (I'd love to go pfSense, which would probably come in under WG's prices, but that's a harder sell than WG despite my reassurances of how well pfSense works. I've brought up pfSense a few times and made a bit of a brochure for some of the Netgate stuff with commercial support, but he's still not that interested.))
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Heh, ask and ye shall receive…
@Lanner:
Hello John,
Attached is the manual for the FW-7580. If you need anything else please do not hesitate to reach out to me.
Thank you,
Really didn't expect that. Especially without a sales pitch or anything attached. At work, so I can't compare it to mine at home and only took a brief glance through it. Wonder how similar the chassis for the Lanner and XTM are. I did see instructions for adding a riser card, which won't work on my XTM without relocating the power switch I think. (Not sure if there are PCI-E cards that would be of use either. What cards would you possibly add? Are there any PCI-E VPN accelerators that would work with FBSD? Could do hardware RAID1 instead of software I suppose.) Definitely not without moving my custom serial port. Mostly curious about the hard drive caddy shown in the manual and if it would work in the XTM, especially since it does look like it could hold 2 laptop drives. (My XTM is one of the models with the dual SATA power supplies.)
But at least now I can go home and compare the jumper settings I have on my XTM with the manual. They were set differently than what the manual for the FW-7581 from a few posts ago.
I've attached the manual to this post as well if anyone else would like it. (It's zip compressed. Figured that would be easier than changing file extension. Why can't we attach PDF files?)
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I have been running my WatchGuard XTM 525 model with pfsense for over 2 years and everything is working fine. This unit has 2GB of RAM, Celeron E3400 2.6GHZ CPU, and I installed a SSD drive. Has anyone replaced the power supply with a picoPSU? If yes, please provide some details on installation and part numbers please.
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Out of curiosity, I may already know this and have forgotten, but what other resources did you have on the 7580?
It's been a while. ;)
But they had the original BIOS up on that site for a time after I asked them for it. Like you I found them very helpful. They seemed to have accidentally staffed the forum with real engineers!I'd give you thanks for that manual but I already thanked someone in this thread long long ago. Have some karma instead.
@pglover19. I'm not sure anyone had detailed it but I have no reason to think it wouldn't work with a picopsu. The power requirements are not large.
Steve
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I have been running my WatchGuard XTM 525 model with pfsense for over 2 years and everything is working fine. This unit has 2GB of RAM, Celeron E3400 2.6GHZ CPU, and I installed a SSD drive. Has anyone replaced the power supply with a picoPSU? If yes, please provide some details on installation and part numbers please.
The power consumption of these XTM 5 boxes are arround 27Watt (@ 220V) at idle.
So if you use a PicoPsu with at least 80Watt power outage, then you have enough extra.
Besides that, the only requirement is that the PicoPsu has the 4pin connector (2 yellow and 2 black wires) for the extra cpu power next to the powerconnector on the mainboard.Grtz
DeLorean -
Out of curiosity, what is the fastest CPU the XTM 510 could handle? I have an E4500 in a newly acquired box but wanted to use SNORT and such and was thinking if a quad would be too much for the board / psu or if a bios update would be required..
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Does anybody have the correct settings for lcdproc package (now available again, thanks!) to use with an XTM5?
(COM port, Display size, Driver, Port speed) -
Does anybody have the correct settings for lcdproc package (now available again, thanks!) to use with an XTM5?
(COM port, Display size, Driver, Port speed)SDEC driver, the parameters do not matter. It's a parallel port device, the same for all Watchguard boxes with an LCD, so all parameters are coded in the driver.
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what is the fastest CPU the XTM 510 could handle?
'Fastest' is an interesting term. For some workloads you are better to have a dual core at higher frequency. Once you introduce more processes though, like Snort, it helps to have more cores.
The XTM5 has a smaller PSU than the Lanner unit it's based on. The single core Celeron did not require huge power and it did come with hungry hard drives. So it might be expected that the fastest listed CPUs may give problems.
However I'm not sure anyone has seen issues yet. There are a number of CPU swap options detailed in this thread.Steve
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Does anybody have the correct settings for lcdproc package (now available again, thanks!) to use with an XTM5?
(COM port, Display size, Driver, Port speed)SDEC driver, the parameters do not matter. It's a parallel port device, the same for all Watchguard boxes with an LCD, so all parameters are coded in the driver.
booom! works, nice