Watchguard Firebox M440

pglover19 · Oct 14, 2018, 1:10 PM

Going back to the BIOS discussion, it is prompting me for a password to enter the setup. Is there a way to clear or reset the password?

stephenw10 · Oct 14, 2018, 4:11 PM

The igb driver with dbg set to 1 would require the module recompiling after making that change. Non-trivial.

The 2.3.5 install image can be found here:
https://nyifiles.pfsense.org/mirror/downloads/pfSense-CE-memstick-serial-2.3.5-RELEASE-amd64.img.gz

It would be interesting to see what is on J5. If it was me I would put a scope on it first to check what the voltage level and baud rate is. However most people don't have access to that.
That may be the only way to configure the switch in the absence of a driver for the Marvell PCI interface.

There is probably no way to remove the password from the BIOS. It's set by default so resetting the CMOS for example will not help.

Steve

pglover19 · Oct 14, 2018, 4:28 PM

@stephenw10 said in Watchguard Firebox M440:

The igb driver with dbg set to 1 would require the module recompiling after making that change. Non-trivial.

The 2.3.5 install image can be found here:
https://nyifiles.pfsense.org/mirror/downloads/pfSense-CE-memstick-serial-2.3.5-RELEASE-amd64.img.gz

It would be interesting to see what is on J5. If it was me I would put a scope on it first to check what the voltage level and baud rate is. However most people don't have access to that.
That may be the only way to configure the switch in the absence of a driver for the Marvell PCI interface.

There is probably no way to remove the password from the BIOS. It's set by default so resetting the CMOS for example will not help.

Steve

For some reason, the M440 is not booting from the 2.3.5 image on the SSD. I selected the ISO image. Not sure what is going on...

Ok.. Maybe I selected the wrong 2.3.5 image.

pglover19 · Oct 14, 2018, 5:07 PM

For some reason, pfSense 2.3.5 will not boot at all on the M440. I tried installing this version on a SSD and Hard Drive and the M440 is not booting from the disk (SSD or HD). Installed v 2.4.4 on the SSD and it is booting fine.. Not sure what is going on with version 2.3.5.

stephenw10 · Oct 14, 2018, 5:16 PM

Hmm, it's probably a UEFI boot issue. I could believe it only boots UEFI from SATA. Not sure I ever tested that on the m400.

Do you have a spare CF card you can try the 2.3.5 Nano image on?

Steve

pglover19 · Oct 14, 2018, 5:38 PM

I guess we are finding out that pfSense will not recognize the 24 ports that is part of the switch. I assume I made a bad purchase and will need to try to sell these units to get my money back. Really disappointing.

pglover19 · Oct 14, 2018, 5:43 PM

@stephenw10 said in Watchguard Firebox M440:

Hmm, it's probably a UEFI boot issue. I could believe it only boots UEFI from SATA. Not sure I ever tested that on the m400.

Do you have a spare CF card you can try the 2.3.5 Nano image on?

Steve

I have a Transcend 8GB Compact Flash card. So, I will try that.. What is the version I need to download and install on the CF?

stephenw10 · Oct 14, 2018, 5:52 PM

This: https://nyifiles.pfsense.org/mirror/downloads/pfSense-CE-2.3.5-RELEASE-2g-amd64-nanobsd.img.gz

Though I just tested it on the m400 and it doesn't boot even from the CF slot. It probably is UEFI only which was in 2.4.

We have only been trying for a few days so far, it took far longer than that for some of the other stuff we now have access to.
However I agree this is not good target really. Certainly there are far easier things to install pfSense on. But if you wan a challenge this looks like it!

There is more stuff we can try.

Steve

pglover19 · Oct 14, 2018, 6:02 PM

I’m up for the challenge. What’s next?

pglover19 · Oct 14, 2018, 6:08 PM

I got version 2.3.5 booting on the CF. Will upload the boot file.

pglover19 · Oct 14, 2018, 6:20 PM

Here is the boot file for version 2.3.5. Same results in that it only recognize the 3 interfaces.

0_1539541204109_Version 2.3.5 BootLog.txt

pglover19 · Oct 14, 2018, 6:29 PM

Here is a better copy of the 2.3.5 log file.

0_1539541752379_Version 2.3.5 BootLog_2.txt

stephenw10 · Oct 14, 2018, 8:42 PM

Ok so that was the normal pfSense installed to CF? Not Nano by the looks if it.

Ok, so that at least proves it's not some odd driver regression. It seems more like a resource conflict of some sort though I don't see anything specific. I'll try to get that module built for 11.2.

Steve

pglover19 · Oct 14, 2018, 8:48 PM

@stephenw10 said in Watchguard Firebox M440:

Ok so that was the normal pfSense installed to CF? Not Nano by the looks if it.

Ok, so that at least proves it's not some odd driver regression. It seems more like a resource conflict of some sort though I don't see anything specific. I'll try to get that module built for 11.2.

Steve

Yes.. The normal pfSense installed to CF.. Please explain what you are building (module 11.2). When will it be available for me to test?

stephenw10 · Oct 14, 2018, 9:05 PM

Hopefully it will be the igb kernel module that you can load in place of the in kernel driver but with debugging enabled.

It should be easy to build but it's been a while since I tried and I have to test it works at all locally before you try.

Steve

pglover19 · Oct 14, 2018, 9:10 PM

@stephenw10 said in Watchguard Firebox M440:

Hopefully it will be the igb kernel module that you can load in place of the in kernel driver but with debugging enabled.

It should be easy to build but it's been a while since I tried and I have to test it works at all locally before you try.

Steve

When will you have it available for testing? Anything else you want me to try?

stephenw10 · Oct 14, 2018, 9:57 PM

Ok, so this works. But it is very verbose! Like it prints out a page of status info every second at the console.
0_1539553890564_if_igb.ko.txt
That is the replacement kernel module.

Copy it to /boot/modules in the m440 and rename it if_igb.ko.

Then add the following line to /boot/loader.conf.local:
if_igb_load="yes"

Then reboot.

Try to capture the console output covering the boot process. That should show it attempting to connect to the i354 NICs and why it's failing. You might have to disconnect the console once that happens because as I said it will continue to spam the console every second.

Steve

pglover19 · Oct 14, 2018, 9:59 PM

@stephenw10 said in Watchguard Firebox M440:

Ok, so this works. But it is very verbose! Like it prints out a page of status info every second at the console.
0_1539553890564_if_igb.ko.txt
That is the replacement kernel module.

Copy it to /boot/modules in the m440 and rename it if_igb.ko.

Then add the following line to /boot/loader.conf.local:
if_igb_load="yes"

Then reboot.

Try to capture the console output covering the boot process. That should show it attempting to connect to the i354 NICs and why it's failing. You might have to disconnect the console once that happens because as I said it will continue to spam the console every second.

Steve

Ok.. Will try it now.. Give me 30 minutes..

pglover19 · Oct 14, 2018, 10:03 PM

@stephenw10 said in Watchguard Firebox M440:

Ok, so this works. But it is very verbose! Like it prints out a page of status info every second at the console.
0_1539553890564_if_igb.ko.txt
That is the replacement kernel module.

Copy it to /boot/modules in the m440 and rename it if_igb.ko.

Then add the following line to /boot/loader.conf.local:
if_igb_load="yes"

Then reboot.

Try to capture the console output covering the boot process. That should show it attempting to connect to the i354 NICs and why it's failing. You might have to disconnect the console once that happens because as I said it will continue to spam the console every second.

Steve

I will be using WINSCP to copy the file to the M440 system...

stephenw10 · Oct 14, 2018, 10:25 PM

Yeah, that's fine.

You don't really need to quote my whole post when you reply to me. There's only you and me here.
Doing so makes the thread waaaay longer.

Steve