SonicWall hardware: good for anything?

[Benjamin Scott]

On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 2:44 PM, Alan Johnson <alan at datdec.com> wrote:
> I've got 4 3060's and 2 2040's.  Decent hardware for firewalling ... but
> the software sucks, IMHO.

  Good to know SonicWall hasn't changed since I last encountered them (c. 2003).

> I'm wondering if I can get pfSense onto them ...

  Many firewall appliances (the good ones, anyway) do the forwarding
in custom ASICs.  They generally need highly proprietary software for
that.  I dunno if what you have is those.

> There is a not-DB15 connector on the MB labled "VGA".  It looks like an
> 8-pin-long floppy/IDE connector ...

  Those are generally called "ribbon cable connectors" when they're
not anything in particular.  :-)

  Standard VGA needs a minimum of 9 conductors (3 colors each with
signal and ground, vert sync, horiz sync, sync ground) (the other 6
are for DDC or not used).  So whatever that 8 pin connector is, it
isn't standard VGA.  However, if you only need monochrome (and a
firewall's debug port doesn't need color), you can drop two of the
colors, bringing it down to 5 conductors.

  Good luck finding the pinout for that thing, though.  If I had to do
it, I would get a VGA cable, cut an end off and fan it out, solder on
9 alligator clips, and start trial-and-error mix-and-match.  Someone
with an oscilloscope (and who knew what to do with it) might be able
to approach the problem more intelligently.

> If not, I could probably figure out an install via serial terminal, but I've never
> been there before.

  That's relatively easy.  You give GRUB another argument and it will
become serial-enabled.  You give the kernel another argument and it
will put the console on a serial TTY.  Then add another line to
inittab to run a serial getty.

> Other than that, it looks like a pretty standard Intel-platform motherboard
> with some extra on-board NICs.

  That's interesting.  Can you post pics?

-- Ben