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Sophos XG135 Home No Link

So I have acquired a Sophos xg135w from my company after they replaced it last year and it's been sitting there unused ever since.

I didn't want to pay out for licensing for a home lab device so have installed the home version onto it.

Following guidance on forums I have basically zero-filled the onboard SSD and installed using the XG Home for Intel hardware ISO to get the "SFOS Home edition" installed rather than the normal "subscription edition"

So far so good, SFOS has installed and boots, I thought great.

The strange thing is that none of the ports will get a link once SFOS has booted.

During boot the link and activity lights for LAN and WAN come on as expected, but as soon as the OS finishes booting, they go off.

I've tried factory resetting SFOS to no luck.

Running ip a or ifconfig shows all interfaces as being down. Running ifconfig Port1 up accepts the command but does nothing to change the status.

It's almost like something in the config is not correct. I'm OK with Linux but cannot find the location of the network config files (/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts on CentOS for example)

Any ideas what might be causing this to anyone else who has flashed SFOS Home to their XG devices?



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  • Hi,

    you will need to make any changes from the GUI, the ethernet changes in CLI do  not stick. Also the home licence will use ports in different order than the labels.

    Did you have the two of the ports connected when you installed and first booted?

    Which version of SFOS are you running?

    Ian

    XG115W - v20.0.2 MR-2 - Home

    XG on VM 8 - v21 GA

    If a post solves your question please use the 'Verify Answer' button.

  • Hi Ian,

    Thanks for reply.

    Appreciate the changes in the CLI might not stick but its impossible to access the GUI due to the issue.

    During the configuration via CLI using option 1 to set IP, it identifies Port 1 as LAN and Port 2 as WAN. I've tried moving ethernet cables to all other ports incase, as you say, its using different ports, but no change.

    Perhaps didn't have the connected during install but they were connected during boot.

    Running SFOS 18.5.2 MR2 Build 380.

    I'm thinking a re-install in the first instance will probably be needed although I'm certain its a config issue, as the ports have a link during boot and its only once its loaded the config and booted that it drops the link.

    Thanks

Reply
  • Hi Ian,

    Thanks for reply.

    Appreciate the changes in the CLI might not stick but its impossible to access the GUI due to the issue.

    During the configuration via CLI using option 1 to set IP, it identifies Port 1 as LAN and Port 2 as WAN. I've tried moving ethernet cables to all other ports incase, as you say, its using different ports, but no change.

    Perhaps didn't have the connected during install but they were connected during boot.

    Running SFOS 18.5.2 MR2 Build 380.

    I'm thinking a re-install in the first instance will probably be needed although I'm certain its a config issue, as the ports have a link during boot and its only once its loaded the config and booted that it drops the link.

    Thanks

Children
  • Hi Ciaran,

    From my experience the up command in the cli is ignored, tried many times. Ended up performing a fresh install with cables attached.
    ian

    XG115W - v20.0.2 MR-2 - Home

    XG on VM 8 - v21 GA

    If a post solves your question please use the 'Verify Answer' button.

  • Hi Ian,

    No luck this far.

    Did a full re-install with the Intel firmware with cables connected, same result.

    As soon as it gets past this first screen and says "Firstboot completed successfully" it drops the links.

    From an ifconfig:

    And from an ip a:

    So it would appear the network settings are being set correctly assigned against the correct network interface but it then drops the links.

    I'm going to try flashing the SG/XG version of SFOS and see if it does anything different, as to be honest I never tested it beforehand so we could be looking at a faulty appliance (it sat at is previous location for 6 months unplugged)

    Appreciate the guidance.

  • Hi,

    what version of XG hardware's it and how much RAM is installed?

    Ian

    XG115W - v20.0.2 MR-2 - Home

    XG on VM 8 - v21 GA

    If a post solves your question please use the 'Verify Answer' button.

  • Hi Ian;

    Its an xg135w Rev 3. Can’t remember what the BIOS said but it has 4 or 6GB RAM.

    Re-flashed with the appliance firmware and it works fine, so definitley an issue with the Intel firmware on it.

    I’ve got EAP access so might try SFOS 19 on it to see if that does anything different.

    Otherwise try and get hold of an earlier 18 ISO.

  • well done. in eap software the cli has been removed for home users. this might change in the ga version.

    ian

    XG115W - v20.0.2 MR-2 - Home

    XG on VM 8 - v21 GA

    If a post solves your question please use the 'Verify Answer' button.

  • Hi Ian,

    Unfortunately exactly the same situation on SFOS 19.0.0 EAP2-Build271.

    Flashed the SG/XG ISO, network connections work great. Flashed the generic Intel ISO, no network connections after boot up. As you state, advanced shell has been removed, quite why they would do this is beyond me.

    I think last idea to try is a 18.0.X ISO and see if that makes any difference, otherwise it would seem to be impossible.

  • Hello,
    have you managed to solve this problem somehow? I also bought an XG 135 rev3 and I'm trying to install SW-19.0.0_GA-317.iso on it. From what I see on the monitor, the XG booted fine, but all eth interface LEDs went out during the boot.

    It seems to me that the SW OS did not pass on the information to the device that it has booted successfuly, because the green Status LED is still constantly flashing.

    When I install HW ISO everything works fine.
    Thanks for the information.

    Best regards.

  • Unfortunately not, the XG appliance I tried is just sitting in a cupboard right now as I never did manage to get this to work.

    I had exactly the same symptoms you did, appears to boot fine but interface lights go out during boot and viewing the config shows no link from SFOS.

    In the end I used a SG135w instead, put SW ISO onto it and worked perfectly first time. So its something specific to the XG (and maybe XGS) appliances that stops the SW ISO being used.

    Sorry I couldn't offer any further help on this.

  • Ok, so I got it working. I feel a bit silly for forgetting, but while I was searching community forum, I was reminded that when you install SW ISO on XG HW appliance, eth interfaces usually get shuffled. In my case Port1 (LAN) became physical Port5 and Port2 (WAN) became physical Port6. After connecting the UTP cables to the correct ports, the webgui finally worked.

    The one thing that annoys me is that the Status LED isn't working properly. That is to say it's still blinking. But that's probably normal for SW ISO. Or is there maybe some shell command to turn it on or off? Or maybe changing some kind of config so it works properly?

  • Excellent spot sir I've just tried it on my XG and ports 5 and 6 are now the LAN and WAN ports.

    Likewise feel a bit daft at not trying this in the first place several months ago.

    I'm not sure what controls that status LED, something in the firmware I would guess.