I believe the hardware is all the same, they are model upgradable. Mine
is the x700 but looks identical to the ones in the pictures you sent. I
did pull the CF card and look at the contents, but not much made sense
to me. I will keep trying during lunch breaks and at home to see what I
can get.

>>> [log in to unmask] 11/06 11:14 AM >>>
On Nov 6, 2007, at 10:46 AM, Ryan Wilkerson wrote:

> I have an older retired watchguard firebox, and I was wondering if
> anyone out there has ever replaced the os on a firebox. It is
> basically
> a computer and runs some version of linux anyway, but I want to be
> able
> to build my own firewall with the hardware. Any ideas?


Hey Ryan,

I've got three of these and am about to give one away to our student
hacking group. I gave two Symantec firewalls away earlier this year
and one guy has Gentoo/SELinux running on it.

Which model do you have? I've got two X2500's and one SSL VPN which is

the same hardware but with a hard drive inside.

Below are some pics the showing the IDE headers, PCI slot and Compact

Flash card. The OS probably boots from the CF so try yanking it and
seeing what happens. Then, install your favorite linux distro on
another box, give it a static IP and try booting the Firebox with that

drive. Plug a laptop into each port trying to ping it. You could also

try plugging in a PCI video card and finding the keyboard/mouse/serial

headers on the mobo if the other way doesn't work.

If you want to know more about the box that has the hard drive in it,

let me know. I could open it up and compare it to the other Firebox,
but I think they are identical. I can also plug the HD into another
box to see what is on it if you'd like.

Let me know. These types of hardware devices are fun to hack.

-jhs
--
John H. Sawyer
IT Senior Security Engineer
University of Florida - IT Security Team
352.392.2061 - [log in to unmask] - infosec.ufl.edu