Lately my personal toybox has expanded with a bunch of 5th Gen. SonicWalls that have been discarded because of a Dell upgrade path to 6th. Gen. models. These units are party disabled by Dell: most of the security functions are impaired and the licenses have all been tranfered to the newer models.
However, as SonicWall units have some nice hardware features and are pretty good performers I'd like to give them a second life. Maybe I can make them SNORT around my home network and do some IDS/IPS by installing another distro on them. However, there isn't much info on the net about reprogramming a SonicWall - to be acurate there's none.
I want to start with a TZ210 unit because it's not that much of a pitty if I brick it permanently while on the other hand it is quite comparable with the NSA- series that I also have. So, first some info about the unit:
I've connected with the CLI but that's extremely limited and I haven't been able to squeze info about the FS and/or OS out of it. Furthermore I've tried to dissect the firmware using Binwalk (which I usually find very helpful) but more than a rather flat entropy graph (1) I haven't been able to deduce from it. I hoped to find something that gives some indication how it boots but nope.
Luckily there's support for the Octeon MIPS64 platform for some linux and BSD flavors but I've no clue how to get it on it (apart from the fact that I also have to figure out first what modules to include during the kernel compilation).
I'm getting afraid that the only way to load some custom stuff in it is using the 32-pin header on the PCB which can be observed in the picture made by dashpuppy:
So, to summarize: I'm stuck. If there's anyone around who likes this project and feels like sharing ideas and thoughts with me, please comment! Although it probably won't be very easy, we'll probably be the first ones hacking into a SonicWall 5th. unit so it's defininately worth it )
I'm trying to keep track of my progression on my personal site. Some more info and links can be found there as well. See https://itandthebiomedicus.com/?p=125
(1) derived from the sw_tz-210_eng_5.9.0.3.sig firmware
However, as SonicWall units have some nice hardware features and are pretty good performers I'd like to give them a second life. Maybe I can make them SNORT around my home network and do some IDS/IPS by installing another distro on them. However, there isn't much info on the net about reprogramming a SonicWall - to be acurate there's none.
I want to start with a TZ210 unit because it's not that much of a pitty if I brick it permanently while on the other hand it is quite comparable with the NSA- series that I also have. So, first some info about the unit:
- Cavium MIPS64 500MHz Octeon CPU (Single Core, I believe it's CN5010-500BG564)
- 256MB RAM
- 32MB Flash memory
- 2x Gigabit ethernet (separate NICs)
- 5x Fast ethernet (separate NICs)
- 1x Console port (serial)
I've connected with the CLI but that's extremely limited and I haven't been able to squeze info about the FS and/or OS out of it. Furthermore I've tried to dissect the firmware using Binwalk (which I usually find very helpful) but more than a rather flat entropy graph (1) I haven't been able to deduce from it. I hoped to find something that gives some indication how it boots but nope.
Luckily there's support for the Octeon MIPS64 platform for some linux and BSD flavors but I've no clue how to get it on it (apart from the fact that I also have to figure out first what modules to include during the kernel compilation).
I'm getting afraid that the only way to load some custom stuff in it is using the 32-pin header on the PCB which can be observed in the picture made by dashpuppy:
So, to summarize: I'm stuck. If there's anyone around who likes this project and feels like sharing ideas and thoughts with me, please comment! Although it probably won't be very easy, we'll probably be the first ones hacking into a SonicWall 5th. unit so it's defininately worth it )
I'm trying to keep track of my progression on my personal site. Some more info and links can be found there as well. See https://itandthebiomedicus.com/?p=125
(1) derived from the sw_tz-210_eng_5.9.0.3.sig firmware
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