Right now it's OOB install doing testing. The reason I ask when looking at similar CPU on netgate units runing PFsense, they seems to be able to get pretty decent performance.
Dell VEP/VMWare Edge/Velo Cloud SD-WAN/VeraCloud VEP1400/VEP1400-X firewall units
- Thread starter j_h_o
- Start date
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Just found some new in box 680N's on ebay. VMware Velocloud Edge 680N – Model E42W SD-WAN Appliance (NEW) | eBay.
According to the service tag shown in the pictures, the units were shipped Feb 2024. Listed at $190 OBO. I offered less and was accepted.
According to the service tag shown in the pictures, the units were shipped Feb 2024. Listed at $190 OBO. I offered less and was accepted.
Sounds like a decent deal. However, the N stands for no Wi-Fi. That probably means no mini PCIe slot to hack. Personally, I really like my NVMe drive that's accessible right under the cover. According to the service tag, comes with 65W power supply and a wall mount.
When you receive your unit, please remove the outermost 4 screws and slide off the plastic cover. Post a photo of the top side of the PCB. I want to see if there are any slots to hack. If you sell off the fancy power supply and wall mount, maybe you could recover another $50.
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Hi! So, I was able to get a couple of the 610 for shipping - I guess somebody failed miserably bringing them up, but I could not resist the temptation.
I've had a partial success at bringing them up:
- installing DiagOS onto eMMC disabled watchdog permanently (no issues in bios or OS).
- Replaced wifi card with NVME SSD. Works like a charm.
- Installed Proxmox 8.3 onto the NVME over serial port. Almost no issues here - I cheated and used an USB ethernet card.
Now comes the network interfaces. I was able to steal most of the stuff from rc.local. I copied the i2c* and vep1400-mdio-tool binaries from the diagos, they are small binaries and work fine on proxmox. I can confirm the two SFP interfaces work fine after running (notice I'm using I2C bus 0, which in my case contains the PIC and CPLD):
And they map to eno3 & eno4. They don't link with my 10Gbit switch over fibre, but do link over fibre with 1Gbit switch. More investingation pending, but since those are 1Gbit anyway, I don't think I'll be using those ports (or will try with a cheap 1Gbit transceiver an sacrifice the other 6 ports? could work).
However, I got stuck getting the switch working. I can run the vep1400-mdio-tool on eno1. I patched the rc.local to use the correct I2C bus and interface, added the vep400_enable_vlan.sh and started working. The ports link up now and light up appropriately. However, whatever I do, I don't see any packet on either eno1 or eno2 (tcpdump -i ...).
I got myself datasheet for the 88E6190 (there is a kernel driver too, but it doesn't read that well, especially since I have zero experience with DSA switches). I'm puzzled about two things. Reading the scripts, they frequently invoke:
This seems to match the registers per documentation. Although I tried toying with the LED registers to see if I'm doing it right and... I'm not getting any results there, almost looks like they take no effect. But the script from diagos runs the same commands and those seem to be required. Almost as if the CPLD is controlling the LEDs, not the switch? Could be.
These are supposed to be internal PHY registers. So far, I've been unable to find out what this corresponds to in the datasheet.
If anybody knows a bit obout those switches, I'd appreciate a few pointers:
- Why do I see no packets on eno1? Am I supposed to set up LACP bond or something similar? Though I'd guess LACP would show me at least some packets, I'm getting nothing.
- What are the internal PHY registers in the datasheet?
Too late today, I'll continue investigations tomorrow. Just wanted to dump my brain and hope somebody is a step ahead. My goal is to get those ports working. Having them VLAN aware would be nice, but not really necessary. If I end up using those boxes, they'll some kind of monitoring/proxmox q device, nothing fancy (can't do fancy with 4GB of RAM).
I've had a partial success at bringing them up:
- installing DiagOS onto eMMC disabled watchdog permanently (no issues in bios or OS).
- Replaced wifi card with NVME SSD. Works like a charm.
- Installed Proxmox 8.3 onto the NVME over serial port. Almost no issues here - I cheated and used an USB ethernet card.
Now comes the network interfaces. I was able to steal most of the stuff from rc.local. I copied the i2c* and vep1400-mdio-tool binaries from the diagos, they are small binaries and work fine on proxmox. I can confirm the two SFP interfaces work fine after running (notice I'm using I2C bus 0, which in my case contains the PIC and CPLD):
Code:
./i2cset -y 0 0x31 0x10 0x00 b
./i2cset -y 0 0x31 0x11 0x00 bHowever, I got stuck getting the switch working. I can run the vep1400-mdio-tool on eno1. I patched the rc.local to use the correct I2C bus and interface, added the vep400_enable_vlan.sh and started working. The ports link up now and light up appropriately. However, whatever I do, I don't see any packet on either eno1 or eno2 (tcpdump -i ...).
I got myself datasheet for the 88E6190 (there is a kernel driver too, but it doesn't read that well, especially since I have zero experience with DSA switches). I'm puzzled about two things. Reading the scripts, they frequently invoke:
Code:
vep1400-mdio-tool eno1 w mac PORT REG VALUE
Code:
vep1400-mdio-tool eno1 w int PORT REG PAGE VALUEIf anybody knows a bit obout those switches, I'd appreciate a few pointers:
- Why do I see no packets on eno1? Am I supposed to set up LACP bond or something similar? Though I'd guess LACP would show me at least some packets, I'm getting nothing.
- What are the internal PHY registers in the datasheet?
Too late today, I'll continue investigations tomorrow. Just wanted to dump my brain and hope somebody is a step ahead. My goal is to get those ports working. Having them VLAN aware would be nice, but not really necessary. If I end up using those boxes, they'll some kind of monitoring/proxmox q device, nothing fancy (can't do fancy with 4GB of RAM).
I take this back. I didn’t see anything mounted at l31 on the previously posted images.
@hall757 @krakonos
The mini PCIe slot is not a huge loss either way. It's just nice and tidy. You still have USB 3.0. There's a complete teardown of a 680 somewhere in this thread. In fact, the 680/640/620 should all be the same. I think there's a good chance it will work if the necessary components are fitted. The BIOS seems to be more concerned with missing hardware than additional. If you want the original Wi-Fi module and antennas, you can have mine for the cost of shipping.
The mini PCIe slot is not a huge loss either way. It's just nice and tidy. You still have USB 3.0. There's a complete teardown of a 680 somewhere in this thread. In fact, the 680/640/620 should all be the same. I think there's a good chance it will work if the necessary components are fitted. The BIOS seems to be more concerned with missing hardware than additional. If you want the original Wi-Fi module and antennas, you can have mine for the cost of shipping.
Good day, everyone,
I need your help with a botched firmware update for a 640N.
I guess it got rebooted during CPLD/PIC update and now it just flashes red and doesn't want to communicate on serial.
I got inspired by awilson13 (https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...00-vep1400-x-firewall-units.39392/post-452081) and got myself a CH341A and could even read both winbond chips, I tried to flash VEP1400-X-BIOS-3.50.0.9-20.bin manually, but it didn't help.
Does anybody have old 640N bios backups so that I can try to flash and maybe revive it? It's been slowly decomposing in my cabinet otherwise
.
I need your help with a botched firmware update for a 640N.
I guess it got rebooted during CPLD/PIC update and now it just flashes red and doesn't want to communicate on serial.
I got inspired by awilson13 (https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...00-vep1400-x-firewall-units.39392/post-452081) and got myself a CH341A and could even read both winbond chips, I tried to flash VEP1400-X-BIOS-3.50.0.9-20.bin manually, but it didn't help.
Does anybody have old 640N bios backups so that I can try to flash and maybe revive it? It's been slowly decomposing in my cabinet otherwise
.Attachments
There are 2 BIOS slots. I'm pretty sure you can use the small pushbuttons inside to choose the slot. Hopefully you didn't corrupt slot 2 with your programmer. If you can boot from slot 2, you should be able to reprogram slot 1 with the normal tools. You could also try a factory reset by holding the reset button.
Where specifically are you stuck? Did you install the new DiagOS onto the eMMC and boot into it?
Hi I have an edge 620 and at boot this appears:
VEP1400-X
Version: 3.50.0.9-10
maybe I already have a new version of bios?
in any case, the diag is installed on the eMMC, while on the SSD I was able to easily install the pfsense.
So I shouldn't have any problems?
Should all the ports work or do I have to update the firmware? After a test on the igb0 and igb1 ports, everything seems to work.
Now I have to understand if this hardware can support my 1Gb FTTH connection.
I await your response
Thanks
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I just booted one of my 640s which has been updated and I get this:
BIOS Boot Selector for VEP1400-X
Version 3.50.0.9-20
If I boot into the BIOS I see this:
If that's what you see you should be on the latest. When I install pfSense on one of these I get the following port layout from left to right: ix1 (SFP+ cage), ix0 (SFP+ cage), igb2 (top RJ45), igb3 (bottom RJ45), igb0 (top RJ45), igb1 (bottom RJ45), and then the last two RJ45 ports don't seem to work. I've been using a couple of these with pfSense for a while and can push line rate 1G no problem.
BIOS Boot Selector for VEP1400-X
Version 3.50.0.9-20
If I boot into the BIOS I see this:
Code:
| BIOS Vendor American Megatrends |default language |
| Core Version 5.13 | |
| Compliancy UEFI 2.6; PI 1.4 | |
| Project Version 3.50.0.9-20 | |
| Build Date and Time 09/19/2023 16:52:53 | |but do you think it is possible to update the firmware?
is this below the latest version?
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Look at my post from two pages back where I quoted the steps I used. I’m not in front of a box right now but I can look again later. If you put the firmware package on a USB drive and then boot into DiagOS, what is the error you get?
from memory, I unzipped the files and put them on a usb drive. When DiagOS booted I think I must have manually mounted the drive, copied the directory to the root partition of DiagOS, changed directory into the firmware directory, then ran the installer is that what you’re doing? If so what error is it giving you? If not, what are you doing?
from memory, I unzipped the files and put them on a usb drive. When DiagOS booted I think I must have manually mounted the drive, copied the directory to the root partition of DiagOS, changed directory into the firmware directory, then ran the installer is that what you’re doing? If so what error is it giving you? If not, what are you doing?
Just booted mine into DiagOS again with a usb drive plugged in. I found where the drive was located with
ls -la/dev/disk/by-id. It was at /dev/sdb1 in my case so I mounted it with mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/. Then I copied vep1400x_ufw_2.5 from /mnt to the root directory and ran it. Did you do all that and it wouldn't run? If so, what was the error because I've done this several times and never had an issue thus far.
Those last two ports are ix3 and ix4, but they only run at 1G speeds. pf 2.7.2 has no problem recognizing and using them. I haven't made the jump to 2.8.0 yet.
Ciao ho scaricato da qui:
l''ultimo firmware disponibile come indicato sotto:
VEP1400_UFW 2.6_External.zip
after unzipping it I saw that the firmware version present is:
VEP1400-X-BIOS-3.48.0.9-23.bin
as I wrote you in some previous posts, when booting my edge620 this appears
BIOS Boot Selector for VEP1400-X
Version 3.50.0.9-20
maybe I already have the latest firmware installed?
because in the zip file it seems like an older version