Bloxx TVT-100

Spacemonkey

PFsense on Bloxx TVT-100

I am a novice with pfSense and was looking on Ebay for a box to replace my current firewall (HP Compaq dc7600
). I stumbled upon a different appliance that I thought would make a great replacement. The Bloxx TVT-100 is a content filter with a bypass network card.

After invalidating the warranty :) and opening the case I discovered the following:

Motherboard: Intel Server Boards S3200SH http://www.intel.com/p/en_UK/support/highlights/server/s3200sh
Case: Supermicro SuperChassis 512L-200B http://www.supermicro.co.uk/products/chassis/1U/512/SC512L-200.cfm

In the PCI-E X16 slot is a riser card with a PEG2BPI bypass network card

Model TVT-100

CPU: Pentium(R) Dual-Core E5300 @ 2.60GHz
Memory: 1 x 1 GB dimm
Four DDR2 667/800MHz unbuffered DIMM memory sockets with or without ECC
Hard Drives: 1 x Seagate Barracuda 250Gb
Intel Corporation 82801IR/IO/IH (ICH9R/DO/DH) 6 port SATA Controller [AHCI mode]
On-board Network: 1 X Intel Corporation 82566DM-2 Gigabit Network Connection (NIC 1 /em0)
1 X Intel Corporation 82541GI Gigabit Ethernet Controller (NIC 2 /em1)
Cards: Silicom Dual port Copper Ethernet PCI-E Intel based Bypass Server Adapter (PEG2BPI)

The PEG2bpi card is not detected as an intel card but is listed in the pci device list
http://www.silicom-usa.com/Networking_Bypass_Adapters/PEG2BPi-Dual_Port_Copper_Gigabit_Ethernet_PCI_Express_Bypass_Server_Adapter_Intel_based_58

Driver download login
Username: drivers
Password: all

There are drivers which can be complied for freebsd 4-7 but i'll just swap the card out for something that works out of the box.

The Bios is password protected but is easily reset by a jumper on the motherboard

Latest Bios

Flashed to the latest bios using the EFI Shell
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=20869
Extract the download to the root of a USB pendrive

Booting to the EFI Shell

1. Press F2 when prompted during POST to enter the BIOS utility.
2. Within the BIOS utility, arrow over to the Boot Manager and press <enter>.
3. Arrow down and highlight the EFI Shell option.
4. Press <enter>to go directly to the EFI Shell.

At this point it should go into the firmware update

Installation of PFSense
As the motherboard supports booting from USB, installing Pfsense was a simple task
Using Rufus (http://rufus.akeo.ie/) to create the bootable USB from the lastest img file

Todo list

Replace the PEG2BPI bypass adapter with a dual port intel card
Add a Fan Noise Speed Reduce 4 Pins Resistor Cable Adapter to try and make the fan blower a little quieter
Add 8GB ram</enter></enter>

stephenw10

Looks like a nice box, especially if you got it for a good price. I thought there was going to be a question here but it looks like it's just a report of success. :)
Those Silicom cards can give all sorts of trouble especially those with by-pass. You can just modify the Intel drivers to recognise them though. Have a search through the forum if you want to use it.
I'm surprised there's no speed control for the fans on a relatively new box like that.

Also interesting tip on Rufus, many similar tools do not work with BSD. That's why there's a pfSense USB stick image for the purpose. I take it you used the ISO?

Steve

Spacemonkey

The bios doesn't have any fan setting but it may be possible to configure via the ipmi\BMC interface

Added the 8GB but that cause a slight issue with the ATX power blocking the 4 dimm slot which may be an issue if i add a second disk for a RAID 1 set-up
Replaced the PEG2BPI card with a Dell dual port nic which is seen as 2 Intel (R) Pro/100 Network Connections 7.3.8

The iso image didn't work with Rufus so i used the usb image and then the DD option

Just looking at a Intel Xeon L3360 (Quad core 2.83Ghz 12MB L2 Cache) to max out the board