Successful Install on Watchguard Firebox X700!

theborger

if i reboot it from the web page or from the console it powers down, but will not come back up until i wait 5 min or so.

Ill check the cmos battery this evening. It came with a 32mb card i think. and i am using a 4gb card the card is the first thing i thought of and ill have to order one.

stephenw10

If it doesn't do it with a monowall image then I doubt it's a problem with the card.
Does it show anything on the console when you reboot?

Steve

theborger

i have not tried monowall on the 4gb cf, i am about to do that. And no nothing on the console at all.

theborger

so just tried the 4gb cf i have with monowall 1.33 and it is booting every single time. I have hard powered it off 5 times back to back and it works fine. So i guess the cf card is ok.

arstacey

I wanted to see if anyone else has had these same issues on their watchguard/pfsense box. I flashed the embedded 2G image to a 2GB CF card and so far everything seems to be working fine, including the LCD, on my X1000. However I have the following issues:

1. I used the serial band-aid trick posted here, http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,34814.15.html, to try and get the serial console to work beyond boot. I get serial output until I see the message Bootup complete, then I get /etc/rc: /usr/local/share/misc/serialbandaid.sh: Permission denied. I thought that it might be a permissions issue, so I tried to chmod +x and even chmod 777 the file but just get an error that says Read-only file system. Has anyone else come across this?

2. Has anyone tried upgrading the ram? Mine had 256MB of PC133. I tried to put in two different 512MB sticks of different brand but identical speed and timing ram and the system will not boot. I get the first beep after a few seconds when I power on but the system seems to hang. Don't know why or where because I get no serial output when this happens. Just wondering if anyone has had any luck doing this.

stephenw10

The file system is supposed to be mounted read only for the nanoBSD image.
However there is currently a bug that means it sometimes isn't. See: http://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/1279
It appears some progress has been made on this and it's related to package installation. I guess you haven't installed any packages?

The correct way to modify files in nanobsd is to first remount the filesystem see:
http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Remount_embedded_filesystem_as_read-write

The X-core seems to be picky about it's memory. Reading back through this thread (now TL/DR!) there are a number of posts about ram not working.
Unless you're running memory hungry packages you won't need more than 256MB.

Steve

woc38

@arstacey:

[…]
then I get /etc/rc: /usr/local/share/misc/serialbandaid.sh: Permission denied. I thought that it might be a permissions issue, so I tried to chmod +x and even chmod 777 the file but just get an error that says Read-only file system. Has anyone else come across this?

Had this issue on a 2.0 release installation (full install on hard disk). I did a chmod 755 ont the serialbandaid.sh file, and now it's working. I have no problem with the read-only file system because of the HD install, but 755 is enough (probably 555 should also do it)

batteryman

My bios was reset and now I cant get it to boot from a CF card or even see it for that matter. Anybody know what I need to change in bios? I have a PS2 KB connected…

stephenw10

Do you have a pci graphics card and monitor attached too?
How was the bios reset? Is it corrupt?

Steve

batteryman

@stephenw10:

Do you have a pci graphics card and monitor attached too?
How was the bios reset? Is it corrupt?

Steve

Hi Steve

Yes i have a really old pci video card installed. barely fits..

Bios is fine the battery just went dead so i replaced it.

i have it set to boot from other devices and still nothing.

stephenw10

If the battery went flat it may have a corrupt CMOS (forgotten some settings only).
It should boot from the CF with the default settings.
Try resetting the CMOS and loading the default values from the BIOS.

Is this the same CF card that was booting fine previously? What size is it?

Steve

PowerToTheUsers

Hey,

a few months ago I bought a x700 which already had pfSense 1.2.3 on it, and I love it. But now I wanted to try it for myself: I found another x700, and an x550e, got myself a couple of 4GB CF-cards and I've seen pfSense 2.0 is out as well. So I was ready for some pfSense-fun and -experimenting. I started, but I was stopped quite soon after that:

I put the CF in a computer with a CF-card reader, and I used physdiskwrite (as described here, but with PhysGUI as described here) to write pfSense-1.2.3-RELEASE-4g-nanobsd.img.gz on it. I put the CF-card in my X700, connected with a serial cable, opened putty and saw it booting. Or at least trying to, as this was the output:

1 FreeBSD
2 FreeBSD

Boot: 1
/boot.config: -h
No /boot/loader

FreeBSD/i386 boot
Default: 0:ad(0,a)/boot/kernel/kernel
boot:
No /boot/kernel/kernel

FreeBSD/i386 boot
Default: 0:ad(0,a)/boot/kernel/kernel
boot:

All this output is without any input from me through putty. As I read in the startpost of this thread, I entered ufs:ad2s1a, but that doesn't bring it any further:

1 FreeBSD
2 FreeBSD

Boot: 1
/boot.config: -h
No /boot/loader

FreeBSD/i386 boot
Default: 0:ad(0,a)/boot/kernel/kernel
boot:
No /boot/kernel/kernel

FreeBSD/i386 boot
Default: 0:ad(0,a)/boot/kernel/kernel
boot: ufs:ad2s1a No ufs:ad2s1a

FreeBSD/i386 boot
Default: 0:ad(0,a)ufs:ad2s1a
boot:

When I try with the CF-card with pfSense 2.0 on it, I get a similar output:

1 pfSense
2 pfSense

F6 PXE
Boot: 1
/boot.config: -h
No /boot/loader

FreeBSD/i386 boot
Default: 0:ad(0,a)/boot/kernel/kernel
boot:
No /boot/kernel/kernel

FreeBSD/i386 boot
Default: 0:ad(0,a)/boot/kernel/kernel
boot:

As it suggest both FreeBSD-options, I assume the Firebox is trying to boot from the CF-card, so the card should be OK.

Can anyone give me a little push to get over this obstacle?

Thanks in advance!

stephenw10

Did you get any errors writing the image to the card?
I'd first try using the 2GB image to be sure.

Steve

PowerToTheUsers

@stephenw10:

Did you get any errors writing the image to the card?
I'd first try using the 2GB image to be sure.

Steve

Aha, that seems to be the problem indeed. Now PhysDiskWrite took a lot more time :D
Put the CF-card in the Firebox, and it booted right this time, I didn't even have to configure the ufs:ad2s1a, it just works. Awesome!

Next step: putting the pfSense 2.0 card in it, play with them, and check if the x550e goes this smooth too :)

stephenw10

Excellent!
The X550E will require changing some settings in the bios (due to a buggy bios). You can do this either by using a keyboard and a PCI-E graphics card (which requires some fabrication of connectors) or by re-flashing the bios. See:
http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,20095.msg190456.html#msg190456

Steve

PowerToTheUsers

@stephenw10:

Excellent!
The X550E will require changing some settings in the bios (due to a buggy bios). You can do this either by using a keyboard and a PCI-E graphics card (which requires some fabrication of connectors) or by re-flashing the bios. See:
http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,20095.msg190456.html#msg190456

Steve

I'm digging through that thread ;)

To me the biggest improvement in the x550e over the x700 are the gbit-interfaces as my pfSense-box does not only my WAN-loadbalncing, but also some routing/firewalling between my wireless, wired and lab-network.

Is there an info on the impact of using a bigger CF-card, using more memory or using a faster CPU (higher frequency or more cache or…) in these fireboxes?

stephenw10

There's no real benefit to installing a larger CF card.
The memory can be upgraded and can help if you are running hungry packages like squid or snort. The X700 is very picky and RAM, the X550E will take any old DDR2 sticks up to 2GB total.
Processor can be upgraded. It's especially effective in the X550E since the Celeron doesn't support speedstep where as any Pentium-M you put in will. Faster and cooler! :)

Steve

MartinD

Hi! I have a problem with pfsense on X700.
I can install, boot, connect to webGUI - all perfect.
If I do changes like enabling Secure SSH, reboot and I got this (on serial putty):

±ÿàþÙE1Àmõâþ- ?ûù5Þþ1TÂÛ
ÿâüôðö¨ÿxzþøÀê ôéUòN)dÀGh,ý+øüQ
cÝ.ûü|E)A84þ

I thought is IDE HDD, I took another, did the same settings and bang ??? :o

Please help!!!

TIA - MartinD

stephenw10

What pfSense version are you running? Embedded? Nano?
The serial connection works OK before you reboot?

Steve

MartinD

Hi,

It's new pfSense 2.0. Installed on IDE HDD from LiveCD (onother PC where all other devices where disconnected), embedded kernel as per advice.
Serial connection was working fine before reboot.
After I install I have changed LAN IP and restarted, reboot was fine. But when you create more complex changes like enabling SSH or putting virtual IPs.
When rebooted, then same thing - Jibberish as in my first post.
Any idea what is going wrong?
Thanks.

MArtinD