pfSense on Watchguard M370
-
Hi everyone,
I recently bought a Watchguard M370 with the intention of repurposing the box to run pfSense. Just wanted to let the community know that pfSense can be easily installed on a Watchguard M370, via mSATA, and with all interfaces operational. Even the front panel soft power switch halts and boots pfSense, which is nice. And the fans are reasonably quiet, although the could be quieter. The BIOS is password protected, though, so I cannot make any BIOS adjustments to the fans. The motherboard is a Lanner NCB-WG4210. If anyone knows how to unlock this BIOS, please let me know. I already tried removing the battery, the CMOS reset jumper procedure, and all the AMI BIOS passwords that I could find. The BIOS only allows for 3 tries then requires a reboot.
Bob
-
If it's anything like their other devices of the same era the password is hardcoded and non-removable (in any way that I found).
You can probably export the bios, edit the default values and reflash it. I've done that but it's not without risk.
You could also try to use the default Lanner BIOS if you can get that.Got any internal photos?
Steve
-
I tried to post a photo of the internals but the file size was too large.
-
The maximum attachment size is 2MB so you might need to resize the image first.
Steve
-
This post is deleted! -
-
mSATA, they finally moved off CF then. Nice.
There are some big differences to the NCA-4210 which I assume it's based on. Interesting.
-
@stephenw10 Hi，Which tool can edit the default values? and do you hava any document about this?Thank you very much
-
That newer that anything I've looked at before but AMIBCP is the standard editor. It's proprietary software though.
There are other programs that people report to have used.
You won't be able to removed the password using that alone though.Steve
-
@stephenw10 Thank you very much
-
@stephenw10 Now I user AMIBCP 5.0 。 but I did't found the options that can edit default values 。I just want to set my bios so I can user this server for more functions . My server is M470
-
Ah, well I've never looked at this BIOS or used AMIBCP 5, I think the version I used was 4.6 but it's been a while.
Steve
-
@networkBob Nice finding, im also interested in 1 unit to use PfSense.
Is there a chance you could detail what hardware is inside the unit of the Picture?
CPU Type and model, Memory, NIC Chips, ETC. Thanks. -
Have a look here.
-
@stephenw10 Thanks
I already purchased 1 unit, from an etailer on a "difficult to pass" Price (28 bucks with shipping) , just waiting to receive it to make some test with some parts I have laying around.
I assume that any Skylake CPU showed in the hardware manual you have provided will work. Maybe upgrading the ram to a 8gb or more, perhaps (32gb Max) will be Overkill. The only downside of this unit is it doesn't have the expansion Port as M470 to M670 models. Would be great to find a PCI Express adapter to place this expansion on a drilled hole in the M370. But the cost of those expansion modules are skyrocket and I haven't find info on the Interface used.As soon as I receive the unit, I'll be posting my testing results and experiments.
Thanks to @networkBob for the info and picture.
Have a nice day.
-
@nicknitro said in pfSense on Watchguard M370:
28 bucks with shipping
Ha, yeah hard to pass that up!
I would expect most skylake CPUs to work but I'm not sure anyone has tested that... yet.
If you look at the NCA-4210 it lists a lot. The board here is marked NCB-4210 and is customised for Watchguard so it's hard to say exactly what might work.
Steve
-
@networkBob said in pfSense on Watchguard M370:
Hi everyone,
I recently bought a Watchguard M370 with the intention of repurposing the box to run pfSense. Just wanted to let the community know that pfSense can be easily installed on a Watchguard M370, via mSATA, and with all interfaces operational. Even the front panel soft power switch halts and boots pfSense, which is nice. And the fans are reasonably quiet, although the could be quieter. The BIOS is password protected, though, so I cannot make any BIOS adjustments to the fans. The motherboard is a Lanner NCB-WG4210. If anyone knows how to unlock this BIOS, please let me know. I already tried removing the battery, the CMOS reset jumper procedure, and all the AMI BIOS passwords that I could find. The BIOS only allows for 3 tries then requires a reboot.
Bob
I just got this model myself for the same purpose. Since this is my first pfSense setup, would you be willing to describe how you went about installing it on this model?
Is the selected pfSense (2.4.4-p3) download configuration correct?
Architecture: AMD64
Installer: USB Memstick
Console: SerialWould I simply replace the shipped mSATA SSD with my own, set up a console session (Cisco-compatible pinout?) from my laptop to the unit, plug in the USB drive containing the pfSense image, wait for the M370 to boot from the USB drive, then proceed?
Thanks!
-
Almost certainly a Cisco style console cable will work. They do work with other Lanner devices.
The first thing I would try is to just boot the memstick serial image from USB. It may or may not boot from USB by default.
If it does not you can always install pfSense to mSATA in some other device and swap it in.Steve
-
USB stick doesn't seem to be successful - how would I get the pfSense image onto the mSATA drive otherwise?
-
If I were doing this I would move the mSATA drive (or use a different mSATA drive) to a different device and install to it there then move it back.
Does it boot from USB if you remove the mSATA drive? In other words is it just booting from mSATA because of the boot priority?Steve
