Problems installing pfsense on Cymphonix network composer EX220
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Hello, I had a question about a hardware problem with my cymphonix network composer EX220. I bought the machine a few days ago and I wanted to use it for a PFsense machine. I was able to install it properly onto the hard drive, but the WAN and LAN Ethernet lights are flashing in a circular motion around the two ports. While the software does see that they exist, it always states that they are not connected when I connect them to my home internet. Any ideas on what the problem is?
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I can find very little about that device in a brief Google. What hardware is it?
LEDs flashing "in a circular motion around the two ports" is...odd. How many LEDs does it have there?
How do the interfaces appear in pfSense? What's the output of
ifconfig -aat the command line?I would guess they might have some sort of LAN bypass arrangement that needs to be disabled.
Steve
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@stephenw10 Ok, so here are the specs:
- ASUS P5G41-M LX2/GB motherboard
- 4Gb of ram
- Intel Celeron 430 @ 1.80GHz
- 250Gb Western Digital Hard Drive
Also, here's an image of a unit that is similar to mine. (I only have one set of WAN & LAN ports and I have no front display):
But, the board that contains the front I/O (Power button/lights, reset button, USB serial, USB, Management Ethernet port (AUX), Gigabit WAN & LAN ports) is a proprietary board that was made specifically for the machine. The lights that are blinking are the activity lights on the ports (The WAN & LAN ports are directly above one another). So, there are 4 lights.
In pfSense, they all appear as "(down) Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection 7.6.1-k" They are always down even when connected. But, the Management port (AUX) is the only one that will connect to the internet (even though the activity lights on it remain off). When I type the command, I see that in the status section it says "no carrier". Is there anything else that I should be looking for?
Thanks
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Photos of the inside would help here. Showing the front board and how it's connected to the main board.
I bet it has LAN bypass, some of there other devices do.
That connects WAN to LAN dircetly in the event the OS crashes or there is a hardware failure so there is still connectivity through the unit just without the IPS is does normally. You should be able to test that with two other devices.
Depending how they did it there might be BIOS options or jumpers to disable lan-bypass. It's often driven from a watchdog so it fails to bypass mode in a crash.
Steve
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@stephenw10 I attempted to upload photos and it said that the file size is too large. So I'll explain. The front I/O board is connected to the motherboard through the PCI-E port. It also gets it's power from a floppy drive connector on the PSU. I was also looking for jumpers and bios settings with no luck. I was able to connect to the internet from my laptop through the WAN & LAN ports though.
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Ah, so definitely stuck in bypass mode. Can you put pics in imgur or somewhere and link to them?
If it's just a PCIe NIC controlling the bypass relays could be difficult.
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@stephenw10 Here they are:
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Hmm, that is a whole bunch of stuff!
Are any of those headers labelled anything useful?
Might not be much we can do here. At least not without some serious investigative work.
Steve
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@stephenw10 Unfortunately, there are no useful headers. The ones in the picture are the USB and Serial connectors for the front I/O.
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@stephenw10 The good thing is that the guy I bought it from said that if it didn't work, I can just return it and get another one. But, thanks for all of the help man!
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There are certainly easier platforms you could use!
Depends what you're in it for, you could probably learn quite a lot from trying to get that working even if it doesn't work.
What NICs are those? If they're not em or igb (Intel) then I'd probably move on to something else.
It's almost certainly possible to get it working but it could be challenging. One of those unpopulated headers on the expansion card may well provide a jumper to set the relays. Otherwise it would be a matter of probing in software which is needle/haystack time without any clues to help. Does it still boot the original OS? The bootlog from there may give is a clue.
Cymphonix have done it right with that expansion card. Unlike some other devices that look more like something I could have done myself just to get it working.
Steve
