Dell VEP/VMWare Edge/Velo Cloud SD-WAN/VeraCloud VEP1400/VEP1400-X firewall units

[wifi75]

@bigdweeb

Update:
Thanks to your advice, I managed to update to the latest firmware version now it is:
3.50.0.9-21
I had to do a reboot by pressing the two buttons, because I realized that the last two ports IX2 and IX3 did not work.
not only what are those two buttons but in fact it worked.
I entered the bios removed the password, now I should not do anything else right?

 

[nmpu]

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

I've mentioned this before, but the 3.xx should be ignored when comparing firmware versions. Only the final suffix matters.

Where did you get VEP1400-X-BIOS-3.48.0.9-23.bin? I find references to A16 here, but I've never seen it in the wild.

I have a Dell account, but none of my Edge devices are still covered by support. Maybe that's the difference.

 

[wifi75]

[CITAZIONE="nmpu, post: 470178, membro: 69974"]
L'ho già detto, ma la versione 3.xx dovrebbe essere ignorata quando si confrontano le versioni del firmware. Conta solo il suffisso finale.

Dove hai trovato VEP1400-X-BIOS-3.48.0.9-23.bin ? Qui trovo riferimenti ad A16 , ma non l'ho mai visto in circolazione.

Ho un account Dell, ma nessuno dei miei dispositivi Edge è ancora coperto dal supporto. Forse è questa la differenza.
[/CITAZIONE]

ultima versione del firmware qui:

Supporto per Dell EMC Networking VEP1425/VEP1445/VEP1485 | Driver e download | Dell Italia

 

[nmpu]

Excellent. Once I knew what to search for, I was able to locate on the English website.

Now, the question is whether I want to risk messing with a perfectly-working device.

 

[wifi75]

this is nice: I decided to reinstall pfsense, always version 2.8.0.
this time I decided to use the igb2 port for the wan and igb3 for the lan, after the installation at boot fopo the Pfsense logo remains there. and does not go forward.
is it normal that it does not start because I used the igb2 and igb3 ports?
if I use the igb0 ports for the wan and igb1 for the lan the system starts up without any problems.
can someone explain to me why?

 

[stangri]

- Installed Proxmox 8.3 onto the NVME over serial port.

Does the Proxmox installer now support installing over serial with UI or did you have to automate the install? I'd appreciate if you could elaborate on the Proxmox 8.3 (or later) install process on those, I remember failing with the earlier versions.

 

[helsyeah]

It supports install over serial. I did 8.5 on two 620s earlier this year. Grub needs to be updated on these to support it but it's in the instructions.

 

[AverageHomelabber]

Hey Y'all! Just wanted to jump back in here. I've been running two Edge 620s for almost a year now and they're both solid! One runs OPNsense and the other runs Proxmox with Home Assistant and a few other VMs.

I'm curious if anyone's gotten those cheaper 610 units running with anything other than DiagOS. I'm aware of the quirks with the internal switch and the watchdog. Anyone got any info on getting around those? Hoping to buy a 610 to play with but I don't want to end up with a paperweight.

 

[stangri]

turned off compatability mode in the bios

I know it's been a few years since that post, but I'm facing a similar issue and can't find the setting in BIOS for legacy vs UEFI boot. I'm on:

```
BIOS Boot Selector for VEP1400-X
Version 3.50.0.9-13
```

 

[stangri]

I know it's been a few years since that post, but I'm facing a similar issue and can't find the setting in BIOS for legacy vs UEFI boot. I'm on:

```
BIOS Boot Selector for VEP1400-X
Version 3.50.0.9-13
```

Still struggling to install DiagOS on one of the 640 units, even tho in BIOS -> Advanced -> CSM Configuration I set Disabled. However I was able to install DiagOS to MMC on another 640 unit and then install Proxmox 8.4 onto SSD (it would fail to install to eMMC) and I can boot a live USB of OpenWrt, however, none of the ethernet ports seem to work. Not only the LEDs do not light up (there was a report to that extent a few pages back) but I also can't get any dmesg messages when connecting an ethernet cable to any of the GE-marked (ethernet) ports on the back, neither with Proxmox nor OpenWrt.

Is there something else I need to enable/disable in BIOS? Is it an indication of a defective unit?

 

[oneplane]

The ports are presented as the KR interfaces, not as actual interfaces. An internal switch does the copper ports (configured out of band over I2C or MII). The SFPs are directly connected. Depending on the model, two of the GE interfaces are a separate chip.

The BIOS has no port control interface.

 

[stangri]

The ports are presented as the KR interfaces, not as actual interfaces. An internal switch does the copper ports (configured out of band over I2C or MII). The SFPs are directly connected. Depending on the model, two of the GE interfaces are a separate chip.

The BIOS has no port control interface.

Thanks for your prompt reply. Can you share the `/etc/network/interfaces` from a proxmox with all ethernet ports enabled on 640?

Also, why aren't ports being triggered in OpenWrt and I plug/pull cables? I'm confident that's how I got the device names in OpenWrt for 620.

 

[stangri]

Still struggling to install DiagOS on one of the 640 units, even tho in BIOS -> Advanced -> CSM Configuration I set Disabled

I feel that once you mess with the MMC beyond the Dell-provided tools, the DiagOS can no longer be installed on it (I've had DiagOS installed on MMC, then attempted to install Proxmox there which failed, not DiagOS can no loner be reinstalled). Any instructions on how to wipe/clean it using normal linux CLI tools so that it would take DiagOS again? Not sure if it needs to be GPT/MBR and partitioned/formatted any certain way?

 

[oneplane]

DiagOS is just a dumb partition cloner, they essentially cooked a homemade ONIE installer. If you create the two partitions (boot and root) you can dd the filesystems right on there. The logic in their installer is somewhat limited so that's why it fails as soon as it doesn't get exactly what it expects.

As for the network: the switch chip is not supported natively, that's why the SD-WAN operating systems all come with some sort of mii-tool to use an RC script at boot to set the QinQ status of all the ports.

 

[stangri]

I was under impression that people were running Proxmox on 640 models, are those people only using SFP cages and not the ethernet ports on the devices?

With either Proxmox or OpenWrt, how to activate the ethernet ports on 640?

 

[nmpu]

Still struggling to install DiagOS on one of the 640 units, even tho in BIOS -> Advanced -> CSM Configuration I set Disabled. However I was able to install DiagOS to MMC on another 640 unit and then install Proxmox 8.4 onto SSD (it would fail to install to eMMC) and I can boot a live USB of OpenWrt, however, none of the ethernet ports seem to work. Not only the LEDs do not light up (there was a report to that extent a few pages back) but I also can't get any dmesg messages when connecting an ethernet cable to any of the GE-marked (ethernet) ports on the back, neither with Proxmox nor OpenWrt.

Is there something else I need to enable/disable in BIOS? Is it an indication of a defective unit?

Your interface problem is not worth troubleshooting until you update the BIOS. It appears you have 9-13. That's about 3 years old. The latest is 9-23. You won't be able to update the BIOS until you get DiagOS installed somewhere. I suggest you boot with some live Linux and delete all active partitions from the eMMC. I'll bet DiagOS will then install.

 

[stangri]

I've fixed the problem with DiagOS not booting on one of the units (where it booted before). I've tried installing to both eMMC and SSD and the issues during install were:

Updating EFI NVRAM Boot variables...
Could not add entry to BootOrderm
ERROR: efibootmgr failed to create new boot variable on: /dev/mmcblk0

Updating EFI NVRAM Boot variables...
Could not add entry to BootOrderm
ERROR: efibootmgr failed to create new boot variable on: /dev/sda

So the DiagOS was actually installed, but for some reason it would fail to add UEFI entries for proper boot. I was able to boot into grub shell however and boot DiagOS from the grub shell by running DiagOS from SSD:

set root=(hd0,gpt2)
linux /boot/ngos.linux root=/dev/sda2 rw console=ttyS0,115200
initrd /boot/ngos.initrd
boot

I am now booted into DiagOS, if there's a way to reset the system to factory defaults from DiagOS, I'd like to do that before attempting to flash BIOS, to hopefully clear NVRAM/UEFI entries first.

Any hints?

 

[stangri]

Your interface problem is not worth troubleshooting until you update the BIOS. It appears you have 9-13. That's about 3 years old. The latest is 9-23. You won't be able to update the BIOS until you get DiagOS installed somewhere. I suggest you boot with some live Linux and delete all active partitions from the eMMC. I'll bet DiagOS will then install.

Using the link you provided I've downloaded the file, moved the vep1400x_ufw_2.6 to the /root/ of DiagOS install, however after running it twice, my BIOS was updated to:

    ======== VEP1400-X Firmware Updater Package ========

    Package version: 2.6
    Packaged images:
        BIOS image version: 3.50.0.9-21
        CPLD image version: 0x2a
         PIC image version: v20P

How can I update to 9-23?

Also, the LEDs light up for all ethernet ports while booted into DiagOS, however even with live-booting OpenWrt afterwards, no ethernet port seems to work. This is after BIOS update to 9-21.

 

[nmpu]

Using the link you provided I've downloaded the file, moved the vep1400x_ufw_2.6 to the /root/ of DiagOS install, however after running it twice, my BIOS was updated to:

    ======== VEP1400-X Firmware Updater Package ========

    Package version: 2.6
    Packaged images:
        BIOS image version: 3.50.0.9-21
        CPLD image version: 0x2a
         PIC image version: v20P

How can I update to 9-23?

Also, the LEDs light up for all ethernet ports while booted into DiagOS, however even with live-booting OpenWrt afterwards, no ethernet port seems to work. This is after BIOS update to 9-21.

9-21 is current enough. I haven't even attempted the 9-23 update. 9-23 might only show on higher models. In the past, when I've updated my 640 and 680 from the same file, I've seen different BIOS versions. I've also seen both 3.48 and 3.50 prefixes. Only the last digits matter.

If you want to attempt a factory reset, hold the reset button until 'Factory Reset' comes out the console port. That may very well resolve your ports issue. It may also change what you see during boot and/or self test. Don't be surprised if you see stray characters during boot. That's just the way it works.

 

[stangri]

Thanks for your prompt reply.

Only the last digits matter.

It was made clear in your earlier post, before that I was confused by the 3.50 prefix and thought my BIOS was newest.

If you want to attempt a factory reset, hold the reset button until 'Factory Reset' comes out the console port.

How long do I have to keep it pressed after I see the 'Factory Reset!!' message on the console? What message(s) should I see while it's resetting? I've tried doing it a few times and unlike after BIOS update, the BIOS settings were not reset to require password to enter BIOS nor did it bring back the ethernet ports (tested under OpenWrt).

PS. While booting DiagOS I saw the messages that it loaded out-of-tree tainted kmod for ixgbe, are the ports supposed to work with the open source driver?

PPS. I'm now seeing 'Factory Reset!!' in console on every reboot.

PPPS. It feels like the ethernet ports are somehow disabled in BIOS or something and DiagOS is using out-of-tree module to enable them. Here are the lspci outputs:

root@dellemc-diag-os:~# lspci -nn | grep -i ethernet
02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation I350 Gigabit Network Connection [8086:1521] (rev 01)
02:00.1 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation I350 Gigabit Network Connection [8086:1521] (rev 01)
02:00.2 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation I350 Gigabit Network Connection [8086:1521] (rev 01)
02:00.3 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation I350 Gigabit Network Connection [8086:1521] (rev 01)
05:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:15c4] (rev 11)
05:00.1 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:15c4] (rev 11)
07:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:15e4] (rev 11)
07:00.1 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:15e4] (rev 11)

root@pve:~# lspci -nn | grep -i ethernet
05:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection X553 10 GbE SFP+ [8086:15c4] (rev 11)
05:00.1 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection X553 10 GbE SFP+ [8086:15c4] (rev 11)
07:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection X553 1GbE [8086:15e4] (rev 11)
07:00.1 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection X553 1GbE [8086:15e4] (rev 11)

OpenWrt edge640vn in ~ # lspci -nn | grep -i ethernet
05:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection X553 10 GbE SFP+ [8086:15c4] (rev 11)
05:00.1 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection X553 10 GbE SFP+ [8086:15c4] (rev 11)
07:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection X553 1GbE [8086:15e4] (rev 11)
07:00.1 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection X553 1GbE [8086:15e4] (rev 11)

I do have kmod-igb, kmod-ixgbe loaded and still I350 ports are not detected. Nor did they work in Proxmox.