Hardware Limitations In Home version

C'mon mate, lets imagine that sophos has to pay salaries, developing new solutions, ideas maintain current activities, infrastructure etc etc. We can be glad that sophos is allowing us a home users to using their product just for free with all features. Beside that, for home usage 4 cores and 6 gb is a overkill. With all features on you can gain 1GB/s. look how Fortigate(and other solutions) are expensive, what the are offering etc. With sophos you've got it for free with great community :) appreciate it ^^ and if you wanna use it for commercial just support it - buying it ;)

I understand this logic, but there is no reason to limit hardware if it is proven that the UTM is in a home location.  There are tons of other UTM packages out there that don't have hardware limitations.  I don't mind paying the annual license, but to pay the annual license with a hardware restriction is weak.  I guess I'll just stay on PFsense until they finally decide to remove the limitations.  Thanks

@Michael Caplan

Sophos don't want your $50. More hassle than it is worth and I can well understand why they dropped it for UTM. One of the things I don't miss moving to XG is the 50 IP limit. In itself it was OK for a home network but as it is my 'playground' I quite often exceeded it testing new network setups. Ended up having to reinstall UTM each time it happened.

I don't agree it is 'easy' to verify whether Home is genuinely being used at 'Home' - which would also require more time and effort (which means money). Sophos put a cap on to prevent people using it illegally in large commercial environments.

I am grateful to be able to use it free at home. It also benefits Sophos (which is why they do it). From being able to use it and evaluate it at home, I have since become a Sophos partner and have several installations planned for customers.

I also really can't understand your view point. The current cap should allow you to use it in a home environment, even with 1Gb connections, for the forseeable future as long as you have the right spec hardware. What is the problem?

@Mike Scott

I've installed the home edition on both a 125 rev2 and a 430 (my current home kit). It can be tricky getting it to install on the installed SSD so I just replaced it with a new SSD and then installation was easy. A small SSD is cheap and I got the 430 for £300 which is cheaper than anything I could buy new of similar spec and it fits nicely in my rack (yes, I'm sad enough to have a rack at home). The only thing you lose is hardware specific support (for instance the LCD display doesn't show anything meaningful).

Makes sense and the best way of understanding what you're taking on.  Many years ago when I worked in the MSP space we walked away from a big customer as so many issues were identified during the pre-onboarding process.  They refused to have items address or money spent, so the contract never moved forward.  I visited their rented datacentre space in Canary Wharf and it was horrific.

Interesting re pfsense, particularly as I've seen large orgs using it.  Going to google it a bit more, even with version 2.4.5?  Problem with any vendor is getting past the marketing blurb.  Take Unifi for example, awful edge products imho

I've worked with Fortigate, Cisco (PIX/ASA), Microsoft ISA (shudder)..  My main skills though is infra, vmware, Wintel, networking and so forth.

Only exposure to Sophos XG at the moment is at home and I like it.  The problem with any solution installed at home is are they left in the default setup.

Thanks for you time I just wanted a simple answer; no the limitation is still present.  No clue why you guys argue that the limitation is acceptable; it’s not for me.  I’ve stated it multiple times, but you guys seem programmed that limitations are okay.  Cool; it’s not for me...

No point in continuing this post any longer.   Thanks again for your time.  Please mark this post as closed or delete it.

Not arguing, I just accept what Sophos offer as do I accept what the other vendors offer.

Each individual's requirement is different and enjoy whatever fits your requirements best.  I'm still determining what's meets my needs best, but then I also like to explore vendors offerings.

Was in reply to the others not you; as you seem to be in a similar boat of testing new packages.  Good luck on figuring out what works best for you.  

The only times I've seen large organisations using PFSense is for internal VLAN segregation, and where QoS is required - not for permitter use - they normally seem to leave that to the commercial side of things.

Open Source has been a big no-no for a lot of the companies I support - it's the fear of the source code being available and therefore being examined by hackers for exploits - with closed source you have to take a longer route to find them.

And agree, the problem is that most things at home have been left in the default setup, and that usually is not hardened enough...how many home users would just have an any>any rule, rather than just allow what's needed and block everything else?

Any>Any kind of defeats the object of having a firewall - and a lot of people while they are happy to control what comes in, they forget about securing what goes out.

Flyncalpoly said:

No clue why you guys argue that the limitation is acceptable; it’s not for me.

It isn't about limitations. It's about "is it sufficient to satisfactorily do the job I need doing".

Every solution has limitations. You can always specify more cpu, more memory, more bandwidth etc. If Sophos limited you to 100 CPUs and 1TB memory would you be happy or would it still be 'limited'? If you were going to provide an XG solution to a customer would you specify the biggest possible (at enormous cost) because it has the least limitations? Of course not, you specify what will do the job.

Will the free solution that Sophos offer do the job for a home user? Yes. That's what matters!

rfcat_vk I seem to remember you stating on another post, that it is not the brute power but the speed that is most important when choosing a CPU, as mathematical calculations are not the cornerstone requirement of the software, just quick responses.

I am currently looking out for a micro-pc with 2 x Intel NICs with a Team Red (AMD) CPU, as most are Intel.

Hi Argo,

i don' think I have said anything different in this thread?

Remember the main part of the firewall is establishing the start and ending of the connection, once the connection has been validated then you need a very fast processor to shift the incoming packets to the next stage of the firewall configuration.

ian

I'm reconsidering my i3 6100T again Vs the Atom processor I'm currently using

I'm reconsidering my i3 6100T again Vs the Atom processor I'm currently using

Hi Mike,

that CPU has 2 real and 2 threads, so you could expect around equivalent of 3 cores, but get 3 snorts (most time one less than CPUs). It will work very well.

Ian

Hi

Food for thought indeed, just got to consider the power consumption vs performance etc.

cpuspecs.com/E3845-vs-i3-6100T