Watchguard Firebox M400/M500

revsie · Mar 15, 2020, 6:54 PM

Hi,

I have received 2 Watchguard Firebox M400's from work, they were just going to throw them out after we got ourselves some new owners who replaced all our IT systems.

I have spoken to a few of you already and was advised to start a brand new thread with details, so here I go.

Ok, things will come in drips and drabs as I take this thing apart.

There are 4 screws holding it together, one on the left, two on the back and one on the right (it's under the void sticker), the top then slides to the rear and voilà!

So inside is a Celeron G1820 with 1 4GB stick of DDR3, there is one slot free and I am led to believe the M500 has 8GB, so I don't see any reason why this wouldn't support 8GB. I will scout around for another 4GB stick, I must have one somewhere! There are 2 40mm fans pulling air through from the front, this is channelled through the CPU heatsink and past the RAM, hopefully this keeps it cool enough to support a faster AES-NI based cpu, otherwise might need a bit of modding.

There is a 150W PSU made by FSP, 80 plus silver with 24pin ATX connection and 2 SATA power connectors. There are also 3 SATA data ports on the motherboard.

The hard drive is a 4GB Transcend CF card.

There is a connection on the right hand side of the motherboard and a sticker nearby that talks about a battery so possibly an option for an internal battery backup!?

I will post some more pictures, if you have any questions, please just ask and I will do my best to fill you in.

I don't have a console cable currently, going to try and get hold of one soon.

Cheers guys, looking forward to getting pfSense installed on this bad boy! Also looking forward to upgrading the processor to an AES-NI chip, might not be until after Christmas though.

Pictures are too big to attach so will upload to Google Drive and share.

revsie · Dec 20, 2017, 9:29 PM

Sorry about that guys, I have attached a link to said Google Album with lots of photos. If you want any photos of anything in particular then give me an shout.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/qzDO6Gd7NyZ3k5DM2

dlucas46 · Dec 20, 2017, 10:51 PM

So its got another reverse PCIE adaptor gold fingers, that's annoying again.

3 SATA Ports and two spare SATA power cables.

Looks like a 2.5" will go in next to the power supply nicely.

Now all we need is to see if the bios is locked down.

You may need to replace the CF card with a live install image and then install to a 2.5" hard drive. When you have Pfsense up and running you can use flashrom to dump the rom.

Can you see any USB headers on the board?

Scorch95 · Jan 1, 2018, 4:17 AM

Any updates? ;D Just maybe hoping you got an image of pfsense running on this by now. :P

Edit: Looks like they use ECC DDR3-1600. Single 4 GB stick makes upgrading to 8GB easy.

Could pick up an i3-4130 for cheap and it adds hyper threading plus a boost from 3.2 to 3.4Ghz all the while only adding 1w to tdp making it 54w. It also gives you AES-NI support. If you're looking for more cores you'll need to go with a Xeon to keep ECC support I believe.

Dec 30, 2017, 1:55 PM

Looks like the battery sticker is a warning about the CMOS battery, not about any extra battery. It even uses the same font as the ones you used to get with Intel retail/OEM motherboards.

Scorch95 · Jan 11, 2018, 3:53 PM

Any success? Any progress?

DeLorean · Jan 13, 2018, 10:43 AM

Attached a list of the specs of the other M models
I can add pictures of the M200 box inside, but that's a no go for pfSense box to me.
I have got such a box a month ago, but with no Sata-ports, a Freescale onboard cpu,
and those boxes use U-Bootloader to load the software from the SD card. (yes SD card, and not CF).

Grtz
DeLorean

revsie · Jan 15, 2018, 11:33 AM

Hi guys,

Sorry for the absence but I have been a little busy to say the least!

I haven't had much time to look at this but have received the console cable and also have an I5 4460T which I need to install, maybe a little overkill but low powered.

As soon as I can I will get the CPU installed and see what happens.

revsie · Jan 15, 2018, 11:37 AM

These people seem to think pfSense can be installed!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Watchguard-Firebox-m400-firewall-security-appliance-or-PFsense-/122868662426

DeLorean · Sep 9, 2019, 5:18 AM

@revsie:

These people seem to think pfSense can be installed!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Watchguard-Firebox-m400-firewall-security-appliance-or-PFsense-/122868662426

That's right.
All models above M300, like M400, M440 and M500 should be useable for pfSense.

Grtz
DeLorean

revsie · Jan 15, 2018, 4:26 PM

@Scorch95:

Any updates? ;D Just maybe hoping you got an image of pfsense running on this by now. :P

Edit: Looks like they use ECC DDR3-1600. Single 4 GB stick makes upgrading to 8GB easy.

Could pick up an i3-4130 for cheap and it adds hyper threading plus a boost from 3.2 to 3.4Ghz all the while only adding 1w to tdp making it 54w. It also gives you AES-NI support. If you're looking for more cores you'll need to go with a Xeon to keep ECC support I believe.

After reading your post again Scorch95 I have seen the error of my ways and ordered i3-4130.

Scorch95 · Jan 16, 2018, 12:34 AM

I don’t believe you’ll run into any problems unless watchguard did something like the XTM8 and spec’d It without a COM1 port. I’m waiting as patiently as I can but I’m looking to upgrade from my XTM5 to either an XTM 400 or XTM 470. I’d like to get the 470 as it uses a skylake processor and a msata drive but either one will keep me good to go with 2.5 and aes-ni.

revsie · Jan 16, 2018, 9:32 AM

Well I might try later this evening, if I get time.

I did have 2 of these but just sold 1 for £400, they are sort after so they seem to be a little expensive. I think I was lucky to get one from work!

revsie · Jan 18, 2018, 9:50 AM

Well, a little further.

The i3-4130 arrived and is installed, there were no errors and the system loaded up successfully, I haven't flashed pfSense yet so it loaded the Watchguard firmware. But good news is the processor runs fine.

Scorch95 · Jan 18, 2018, 11:59 PM

Did you add more ram or are you gonna stick with 4Gb?

revsie · Jan 19, 2018, 6:55 AM

Hi,

For now, stick with the 4GB, see how it all goes.

Scorch95 · Jan 22, 2018, 2:43 PM

Any luck?

revsie · Jan 23, 2018, 9:51 AM

Not yet I'm afraid, had a few car troubles which have taken over and I also start a new job soon so getting ready for that!

I will get back to you as soon as I can though, I really want to get this up and running.

revsie · Mar 2, 2018, 6:09 PM

Well, finally had time to look at this, so far so good.

I just backed up the 4GB compact flash card, wrote the 64-bit nano image to the CF card, put it back in the Firebox M400, started up and voila!

I can connect using the front com port and I can connect to the web GUI using port 1, 0 seems to be for the WAN, haven't finished setting it up but can confirm everything seems to be ok, very simple to setup with no issues so far. Will update when I have some more info.

dlucas46 · Mar 2, 2018, 7:08 PM

Can you install flashrom from the terminal and then make a copy of the bios please?

The exact instructions for doing so should be the same as for the xtm 5

Thanks