Successful Install on Watchguard Firebox X700!

PowerToTheUsers

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

stephenw10

And presumably it then fails to boot (no access via ssh or web gui)?

To be honest I have no ideas. :( I've not tried installing to HD on one of these boxes. I also haven't tried using the embedded kernel option.
Is there an 'enable serial console' option in that configuration? It could be defaulting to VGA for some reason and then failing to find any VGA hardware (that shouldn't stop it booting though).
There is no need to use the embedded kernel if you are installing to HD. However if you do a full install you will need to boot the install in another machine and select serial console in the web gui.

Steve

PowerToTheUsers

@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

For what it's worth: I had a similar output when booting from the original firebox-card instead of the pfSense CF-card.

dig1234

Wow this unbelievable, I came to this thread looking for hardware recommendations to put pfSense 2.0 on, to REPLACE our firebox x500 and I see you guys are talking about putting pfSense ON the firebox. That's uber cool. Can someone tell me if this will work for 2.0 on the x500, all the instructs I see are for 1.2?
I will trash that watchguard "OS" in no time.

stephenw10

@dig1234:

That's uber cool

It is pretty sweet! ;D

2.0 works almost as well as 1.2.3 did. Some users have experience an odd bug where the serial console fails to come up after the bootup messages. There is work around for that though.
The NICs in the Firebox X-Core are low quality Realtek and can cause problems. You may see 'watchdog timeout' in the logs and the NICs stop responding. This seems largely dependent on what you have it connected to. A good quality switch that only sends 'nice' packets seems least problematic.
You may as well give it a go since you already have the box. :)

Steve

MartinD

@stephenw10:

And presumably it then fails to boot (no access via ssh or web gui)?

To be honest I have no ideas. :( I've not tried installing to HD on one of these boxes. I also haven't tried using the embedded kernel option.
Is there an 'enable serial console' option in that configuration? It could be defaulting to VGA for some reason and then failing to find any VGA hardware (that shouldn't stop it booting though).
There is no need to use the embedded kernel if you are installing to HD. However if you do a full install you will need to boot the install in another machine and select serial console in the web gui.

Steve

Hi,

I had to go with embedded kernel otherwise serial does not work when first time booted. Before first restart I edited /etc/fstab to mount after restart ad2s1a and ad2s1b partition.
So now even though I still got unreadable serial connection, webGUI works fine and SSH as well.

P.S. Steve, your LCD instructions worked perfect :)

Thank you all.

Unubtanium

@stephenw10:

The NICs in the Firebox X-Core are low quality Realtek and can cause problems. You may see 'watchdog timeout' in the logs and the NICs stop responding. This seems largely dependent on what you have it connected to. A good quality switch that only sends 'nice' packets seems least problematic.

I can confirm this!! Damn stupid cheap NIC's, someone did put a cheap D-link Swithc in on my opt3 and i did se this "problem", Changed it for a HP ProCurve so lets hope this fixes my "problem"…... ;D

dig1234

Interesting, anybody try it with 3com Superstack III's ?

@Unubtanium:

@stephenw10:

The NICs in the Firebox X-Core are low quality Realtek and can cause problems. You may see 'watchdog timeout' in the logs and the NICs stop responding. This seems largely dependent on what you have it connected to. A good quality switch that only sends 'nice' packets seems least problematic.

I can confirm this!! Damn stupid cheap NIC's, someone did put a cheap D-link Swithc in on my opt3 and i did se this "problem", Changed it for a HP ProCurve so lets hope this fixes my "problem"…... ;D

Unubtanium

@dig1234:

Interesting, anybody try it with 3com Superstack III's ?

Will check tomorrow if i have one and test for u, but also let u all know if the ProCurve works fine, just changed it today so tomorrow will tell… ;D

Unubtanium

The HP Procurve did the trick, no more "dead" OPT3 Nic. Do not have a 3com so can not test it… But all points to Cheap shitty switches freak out the cheap realtek NIC

stephenw10

I remember reading about this some time ago unfortunately I have forgotten most of the detail and can't find the page now! ::)
Anyway it had something to do with fragmented packets.
Basically a cheap 'dumb' switch send any old packet towards the firebox where as a smart switch does a much better job of reassembling bad packets correctly. However that really deppends on the switch software so some are better than others.

There has been a lot of work gone into this over the years. Hopefully with the first 2.1 builds based on FreeBSD 9 there may be some resolution.

Steve

Unubtanium

@stephenw10:

I remember reading about this some time ago unfortunately I have forgotten most of the detail and can't find the page now! ::)
Anyway it had something to do with fragmented packets.
Basically a cheap 'dumb' switch send any old packet towards the firebox where as a smart switch does a much better job of reassembling bad packets correctly. However that really deppends on the switch software so some are better than others.

There has been a lot of work gone into this over the years. Hopefully with the first 2.1 builds based on FreeBSD 9 there may be some resolution.

Steve

Lets hope 2.1 will do its magic, but for now i am looking for a x550e that i can test on because the other is in production environment doing 3 wans with failover and load balance with 2 lans too =)

Thanks again Steve for teaching me,, Did wish i had your Skills

m4f1050

Trying to install this on X500, someone mentioned it being same hw as the other X seires, I read somewhere I had to flash new firmware to allow it to boot > 512mb CF card, is this correct?

http://documentation.dbernhardt.com/pfsense/article.html

X750EB2.BIN or does it have to be X500?

Brak

@m4f1050:

Trying to install this on X500, someone mentioned it being same hw as the other X seires, I read somewhere I had to flash new firmware to allow it to boot > 512mb CF card, is this correct?
http://documentation.dbernhardt.com/pfsense/article.html
X750EB2.BIN or does it have to be X500?

No, an X500 should be able to boot from anything without any BIOS modifications. Just try installing a nanobsd image of pfSense onto a CF and give it a try.

m4f1050

I will be trying to boot form 2gb CF card (or any size, I just need to know what is the highest size CF I can use on the X500)

Thanks!

stephenw10

Mmm, yes that article you linked to is a bit confusing. It doesn't specify which Firebox it's for.
Like Brak said, there's no need to flash the bios. There should be no restriction on the CF size however there is no advantage to using a larger one. 1GB is fine.

Steve