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Watchguard Firebox M400/M500

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  • I
    iJay-XTM5
    last edited by May 18, 2018, 5:38 AM

    Good deal, looks like you're finally on your way!

    If you need to access the VGA, all you need are some $3 arduino jumper cables from ebay. Here's what my crappy setup looks like - not very elegant, but works! I was able to boot freedos and tinker a bit….

    IMG_3290.JPG
    IMG_3290.JPG_thumb
    IMG_3282.JPG
    IMG_3282.JPG_thumb

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    • T
      Testing
      last edited by May 18, 2018, 1:05 PM

      Yeah, I think my bios is setup for different devices on the sata ports. In the manual I saw that you need to select which kind of device is connected to which sata port. So it seems Sata4 is for HDD in a Firebox m500.

      The complete videocard with the right vga port+cable was 8dollars including shipping. I will send a picture when I have it up and running ;)

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      • I
        iJay-XTM5
        last edited by May 18, 2018, 5:02 PM

        Hopefully the BIOS is setup to switch automatically to an external VGA when one is detected. The problem with the locked BIOS is you can't change any setting.
        I was naive and actually called WatchGuard support expecting to get an unlocked version of the BIOS or the password to unlock it! :)

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        • S
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by May 20, 2018, 1:04 PM

          I'd be surprised if it cannot boot a legacy install though it might be locked out of doing so in the BIOS. You'd have to inspect the BIOS image to know for sure.

          What options did you chose in the install process?

          My own VGA hookup was even more basic. I connected only the green signal line and used some random header cables from an old PC.  ;)

          Steve

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          • N
            N1ck
            last edited by May 20, 2018, 5:12 PM

            Well, it seems only uefi will boot, nothing else.

            And for my vga cable, forgot a few holidays here, so that will arrive tuesday. I am not using the vga card, only the vga cable that comes with it. It's a low profile card and those had the blue vga port above the rest(full profile), but in low profile you needed an extra steel plate next to the card and there you would mount the blue vga port. That's why on those cards the vga port is connected via a ribbon with 12pin(1NC) connector. Ordering header/arduino cables was an option, but it was cheaper to buy an entire graphics card which has the correct vga port with ribbon ;)

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            • S
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by May 20, 2018, 5:47 PM

              That's interesting. Yet legacy images boot fine from CF?

              I don't see anything in the default BIOS settings that I can see in the image that might do that. However some stuff is not visible there.

              Can we see a comparative output from the console command 'geom part list'?

              For example from a Minnowboard Turbot which only boots UEFI:

              [2.4.4-DEVELOPMENT][admin@4220.stevew.lan]/root: geom part list
              Geom name: ada0
              modified: false
              state: OK
              fwheads: 16
              fwsectors: 63
              last: 62533255
              first: 40
              entries: 152
              scheme: GPT
              Providers:
              1\. Name: ada0p1
                 Mediasize: 209715200 (200M)
                 Sectorsize: 512
                 Stripesize: 0
                 Stripeoffset: 20480
                 Mode: r0w0e0
                 efimedia: HD(1,GPT,3da27220-1e32-11e8-8da9-0008a20bc486,0x28,0x64000)
                 rawuuid: 3da27220-1e32-11e8-8da9-0008a20bc486
                 rawtype: c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b
                 label: (null)
                 length: 209715200
                 offset: 20480
                 type: efi
                 index: 1
                 end: 409639
                 start: 40
              2\. Name: ada0p2
                 Mediasize: 29855055872 (28G)
                 Sectorsize: 512
                 Stripesize: 0
                 Stripeoffset: 209735680
                 Mode: r1w1e2
                 efimedia: HD(2,GPT,3da318d6-1e32-11e8-8da9-0008a20bc486,0x64028,0x379c000)
                 rawuuid: 3da318d6-1e32-11e8-8da9-0008a20bc486
                 rawtype: 516e7cb6-6ecf-11d6-8ff8-00022d09712b
                 label: (null)
                 length: 29855055872
                 offset: 209735680
                 type: freebsd-ufs
                 index: 2
                 end: 58720295
                 start: 409640
              3\. Name: ada0p3
                 Mediasize: 1601175552 (1.5G)
                 Sectorsize: 512
                 Stripesize: 0
                 Stripeoffset: 20480
                 Mode: r1w1e1
                 efimedia: HD(3,GPT,3da43efe-1e32-11e8-8da9-0008a20bc486,0x3800028,0x2fb800)
                 rawuuid: 3da43efe-1e32-11e8-8da9-0008a20bc486
                 rawtype: 516e7cb5-6ecf-11d6-8ff8-00022d09712b
                 label: (null)
                 length: 1601175552
                 offset: 30064791552
                 type: freebsd-swap
                 index: 3
                 end: 61847591
                 start: 58720296
              Consumers:
              1\. Name: ada0
                 Mediasize: 32017047552 (30G)
                 Sectorsize: 512
                 Mode: r2w2e5
              
              

              Any 2.4.X should be able to create that. You do have to choose efi rather than freebsd-boot though.

              Steve

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              • N
                N1ck
                last edited by May 20, 2018, 5:55 PM

                I will install a CF image(nanobsd) and will try the command. Or is there a faster way to use the command? Now I have install image on my CF and unfortunately only have 1 CF.
                I don't think the images are legacy images, my image has got an efi-partition and is a GPT not MDR.

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                • S
                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                  last edited by May 20, 2018, 6:10 PM

                  The installer image has both efi and freebsd-boot partitions so it should boot either.

                  In the MBT which only boots efi the installer only adds en efi image. I'm pretty sure I didn't do anything special there. I suspect it adds the partion type depending on how the installer booted. Trying to confirm that.

                  So if you installed to a HD in an efi laptop it will probably work.

                  Steve

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                  • N
                    N1ck
                    last edited by May 20, 2018, 7:12 PM May 20, 2018, 6:58 PM

                    Ok, geom part list command executed on pfsense 2.1(grabbed a 1gb card from my dad). Seems MBR, but it could be that sata needs efi(as each sata port needs to be configured and can only accept what was configured by firebox). I don't have the vga cable yet, so I can't run anything to grab the bios image.

                    # geom part list
                    Geom name: ad4
                    modified: false
                    state: OK
                    fwheads: 16
                    fwsectors: 63
                    last: 1969631
                    first: 63
                    entries: 4
                    scheme: MBR
                    Providers:
                    1\. Name: ad4s1
                       Mediasize: 472195584 (450M)
                       Sectorsize: 512
                       Stripesize: 0
                       Stripeoffset: 32256
                       Mode: r1w0e2
                       attrib: active
                       rawtype: 165
                       length: 472195584
                       offset: 32256
                       type: freebsd
                       index: 1
                       end: 922319
                       start: 63
                    2\. Name: ad4s2
                       Mediasize: 472195584 (450M)
                       Sectorsize: 512
                       Stripesize: 0
                       Stripeoffset: 472260096
                       Mode: r0w0e0
                       rawtype: 165
                       length: 472195584
                       offset: 472260096
                       type: freebsd
                       index: 2
                       end: 1844639
                       start: 922383
                    3\. Name: ad4s3
                       Mediasize: 52641792 (50M)
                       Sectorsize: 512
                       Stripesize: 0
                       Stripeoffset: 944455680
                       Mode: r1w0e2
                       rawtype: 165
                       length: 52641792
                       offset: 944455680
                       type: freebsd
                       index: 3
                       end: 1947455
                       start: 1844640
                    Consumers:
                    1\. Name: ad4
                       Mediasize: 1008451584 (961M)
                       Sectorsize: 512
                       Mode: r2w0e4
                    
                    Geom name: ad4s1
                    modified: false
                    state: OK
                    fwheads: 16
                    fwsectors: 63
                    last: 922256
                    first: 0
                    entries: 8
                    scheme: BSD
                    Providers:
                    1\. Name: ad4s1a
                       Mediasize: 472187392 (450M)
                       Sectorsize: 512
                       Stripesize: 0
                       Stripeoffset: 40448
                       Mode: r1w0e2
                       rawtype: 0
                       length: 472187392
                       offset: 8192
                       type: !0
                       index: 1
                       end: 922256
                       start: 16
                    Consumers:
                    1\. Name: ad4s1
                       Mediasize: 472195584 (450M)
                       Sectorsize: 512
                       Stripesize: 0
                       Stripeoffset: 32256
                       Mode: r1w0e2
                    
                    Geom name: ad4s2
                    modified: false
                    state: OK
                    fwheads: 16
                    fwsectors: 63
                    last: 922256
                    first: 0
                    entries: 8
                    scheme: BSD
                    Providers:
                    1\. Name: ad4s2a
                       Mediasize: 472187392 (450M)
                       Sectorsize: 512
                       Stripesize: 0
                       Stripeoffset: 472268288
                       Mode: r0w0e0
                       rawtype: 0
                       length: 472187392
                       offset: 8192
                       type: !0
                       index: 1
                       end: 922256
                       start: 16
                    Consumers:
                    1\. Name: ad4s2
                       Mediasize: 472195584 (450M)
                       Sectorsize: 512
                       Stripesize: 0
                       Stripeoffset: 472260096
                       Mode: r0w0e0
                    
                    

                    ADDED: I don't have any other device that uses uefi boot. laptops and computers all don't use uefi.

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                    • N
                      N1ck
                      last edited by May 21, 2018, 1:26 PM

                      Tested MBR image in CF->works.
                      Image installed to ssd->doesn't work.

                      So it seems my router requires UEFI on sata. The router has a locked bios, so can't change anything there.
                      The pfsense 2.4.3 image has uefi, but when it installs it formats the ssd GPT and doesn't add an efi-partition with data to the ssd. So I think I just need an option to let pfsense install an efi-partition and data on the ssd.

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                      • S
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by May 21, 2018, 2:33 PM

                        You can just add an efi partition using the manual install method. I've never tried that and don't have any easy way to test it but it should work.

                        You can probably remove the freebsd-boot slice too. Though it should work with both in place.

                        Steve

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                        • N
                          N1ck
                          last edited by May 21, 2018, 5:27 PM

                          With manual installation I can add an efi-partition. But pfsense doesn't install anything in it, so it's just an empty partition. Maybe I need to use another command to install something in the efi-partition?

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                          • S
                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                            last edited by May 21, 2018, 9:27 PM May 21, 2018, 9:17 PM

                            Ok try installing using the 'Auto (ZFS)' option. Then you can set the Partition Scheme to GPT(UEFI) or GPT (BIOS+UEFI). Both of which should boot.

                            [2.4.3-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.localdomain]/root: gpart show
                            =>     40  8388528  ada0  GPT  (4.0G)
                                   40   409600     1  efi  (200M)
                               409640     1024     2  freebsd-boot  (512K)
                               410664      984        - free -  (492K)
                               411648  7974912     3  freebsd-zfs  (3.8G)
                              8386560     2008        - free -  (1.0M)
                            
                            

                            Steve

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                            • N
                              N1ck
                              last edited by May 21, 2018, 9:44 PM

                              That worked! I selected GPT(UEFI) and it installed and booted without a problem.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                              • S
                                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                last edited by May 21, 2018, 10:22 PM

                                Nice!  :D

                                That's weird. Learned something there though.

                                Steve

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                                • N
                                  N1ck
                                  last edited by May 22, 2018, 5:13 PM

                                  Yeah it seems my Firebox M500 will only boot an hdd or ssd on sata port 3. 2 and 4 will not work(won't even now I installed it on port 3).

                                  And the Firebox M500 will boot MBR on CF, but requires UEFI on sata.

                                  Strange, but with my tests it looks like this is 100% true.

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                                  • S
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by May 22, 2018, 6:37 PM

                                    I imagined that would be identical to the m400 other than RAM and CPU but maybe not.

                                    You can dump the BIOS image from the pfSense command line using flashrom but it cannot re-write it.

                                    pkg install flashrom
                                    
                                    rehash
                                    
                                    flashrom -p internal -r /root/backup.rom
                                    

                                    Reading that should be no risk but any operation involving the carries some danger. I've done that several times here though.

                                    Steve

                                    chpalmerC 1 Reply Last reply May 17, 2020, 10:22 PM Reply Quote 0
                                    • S
                                      Scorch95
                                      last edited by Jun 19, 2018, 5:15 PM

                                      Those with ssd installations are you installing a bracket to hold the drive or just letting it sit inside the case?

                                      I 1 Reply Last reply Jun 21, 2018, 2:45 AM Reply Quote 0
                                      • S
                                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                        last edited by Jun 19, 2018, 11:28 PM

                                        I'm not currently but I previously found adhesive velcro pads to be an acceptable solution for SSDs at least.

                                        Steve

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • S
                                          Scorch95
                                          last edited by Jun 20, 2018, 2:48 PM

                                          I have an m400 on the way but is the 4GB DDR3 RDimm or UDimm?

                                          I 1 Reply Last reply Jun 21, 2018, 3:05 AM Reply Quote 0
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