New Homelab Pt1 - Picking a firewall - XG450

Starting a new Lab rack and making sure its ready for anything I can throw at it so why not go a bit overkill on the firewall....I have a few to choose from
Power meter used:
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Sophos Firewall Home Edition:
www.sophos.com/en-us/free-too...
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[@robbieels6628]

Thank you so much! I'm in the process of buying an XG135 for my home lab. I'd like to see even more videos!

[@JasonsLabVideos]

OHHH! thats a nice box !! Lucky !

[@2Bad.]

Just found your channel - subscribed. I'm looking at using Sophos for my home network here in Canada. Looking forward to your future videos. Cheers !!!

[@rollothomasy7505]

Setting up Sophos XG home edition on an XG450 Rev2 was a little interesting. It turns out in my case the XG home install, which proceeded just like this video, changed my port order. On my XG450 I have the regular 8 x gigabit ports (where the LAN and WAN ports are by default) the 2 x 10G ports and a separate 4 x 10G flex module - for some reason my port 1 LAN and Port 2 WAN were moved to ports 1 and 2 on the flex module! Additionally, all of my link lights on the gigabit ports no longer operate... strange. I've heard on some XG 135 models the LAN/WAN ports moved to port 5 & 6. So one needs to check all of the ports to find the LAN port for the web interface set up.

[@JimtheITguy]

Port order is a bit......random sometimes on the SW load, normally it's reversed but when you start adding in flex modules it goes crazy

[@mikescott4008]

All that horse power for XG Home. Nice I see it’s 4C but 16GB RAM What’s the crack re VPN / AES on XG Home again? AES turned off?

[@mikescott4008]

Wish I’d kept my XG230 rev 2 🤦‍♂️

[@johnharrison712]

I have 1 106 and 2 230 and 3 330, however never used Sophos before just reflashed it for pfSense

[@JimtheITguy]

Your missing out

[@johnharrison712]

@@JimtheITguy Yeah I want to try it out but the licenses cost is so pricey for a home user.

[@JimtheITguy]

@@johnharrison712 home license is free and fully featured, follow the link in the video description

[@mikescott4008]

Pfsense ran really nicely on a 230 rev2 I had. Never got round to putting untangle on it . Sold it off and running a Dell R220 with XG / pfsense. Depends which disk I’ve booted off. Shame the XG boxes don’t have ipmi interface. I was looking at some of the Supermicro units, but wow £££ On the eBay hunt again for XG230 Rev2 or XG135

[@ivosarak959]

How do you get feature licenses from Sophos for these second market units?

[@JimtheITguy]

Using the Home version which uses the software image instead of the hardware image from Sophos

[@magesnz]

Do you have 10 gig on your xg450? Or you need to upgrade it for the 10gig?

[@JimtheITguy]

You can add 10Gb and even upto 40Gb with the right cards, mine have 10Gb flex cards now

[@carstenackermann-qt4gf]

I have just flashed an xg230 rev 1, even after a "clean" i diskpart i would still get the error about using the wrong image, and that awful tune. (Tried 3 times) i then swapped the ssd and i was successful in flashing. My plan is to hook up the intel ssd to my pc to see what it looks like, (perhaps its encrypted?) Have you ever had a problem where you could not flash it after you used diskpart to clean the ssd?

[@JimtheITguy]

Yes, some units you have to swap the SSD in, I was going to do an updated video for this

[@jeffnew1213]

Jim, I need your help! I have a Sophos XG 125 that I bought new a few years ago for my home lab. I paid out the nose for yearly support (over US$500/year) for a couple of years, then stopped. Now the power supply on the unit has a defect where the unit loses power when the cord goes a bit tight. A replacement (without the nice barrel screw that keeps it from falling out) is US$112! Maybe it's time to replace the unit. I looked into Sophos' free home edition and that looks good. Now I am looking for a 1U rack mount unit to run it on. Suggestions? I thought that maybe buying a similar XG 125 used and loading the free edition on that would work. What do you think? Any ideas? Someone suggested an older Dell PowerEdge R220, but I just got rid of my 12th Gen Dells with the acquisition of an R740 and R750. I looked at Protectli, but nothing rack mount. Much appreciate your assistance. Thanks!!! - Jeff

[@JimtheITguy]

Hi Jeff, find a Rev3 XG 125/135 and swap the mSATA SSD in it, you can then load XG home into it for your Lab

[@jeffnew1213]

@@JimtheITguy Jim, I very much appreciate the advice. I got lucky on eBay this afternoon. I found a new-in-box XGS 136. A newer model, a bit more powerful than my XG 125 and still with very low power use. Well under US$400 with tax. I'll be installing Sophos Home on it when it arrives and importing my rules and configuration from the existing XG 125. Is there anything I need to watch out for in the export-import process?

[@JimtheITguy]

@@jeffnew1213 Just make sure you have a spare mSATA to go into it before you load the sw image on it

[@jeffnew1213]

@@JimtheITguy M.2 SATA, right? 128GB? 256GB? Larger?

[@JimtheITguy]

@@jeffnew1213 Yes, 64GB is fine, doesnt need to be big

[@firewalls4fun587]

Are you a Sophos partner? Ask them for one of the new XGS units running SFOS v19 or v19.5, these dual-CPU units are really solid + SD-WAN! And ask them to put you in the 0-Touch EAP for Firewalls.

[@JimtheITguy]

Yeah I need to have a play with zero touch deployment soon, just need time