Migration From XG 210 To XGS 2100

Hi Clay,

Thank you for reaching out to Sophos Community.

To verify, has the XGS2100 already been deployed in production? Can you upgrade it first before deploying it?

I recommend creating a temporary isolated network where you can assign an IP address that won’t conflict with your internal Network.

Hi, Erick:

No, the XGS 2100 has not been deployed (I have net even turned it on).

Thanks.

Clay

How would I go about creating this temporary network?

A USB to Ethernet adapter makes deployment of firewalls and the like a lot easier as you can leave your computer connected to the normal network and then use the 2nd ethernet to bootstrap your firewall. I set the metric on my USB ethernet adapter to 5000 so it never prefers it as a the default route. Hope that helps.

My approach is: 

Get a stick ready with the newest Firmware and perform a "Stick boot" Reimage.    You do not need a monitor and you can simply boot appliance with the stick, wait 5 minutes and it will have V20.0 MR2 installed. 

With the V20.0 MR2 installed, you perform a Zero Touch Deployment with both appliances.     TL:DR: You go to Sophos Central, you enter the Serial number and do the initial Wizard. 

Then you go to your network and plugin the firewall to WAN within your network, which has DHCP. For example, like you would plugin a PC in your network. 

The firewalls will boot, get a WAN IP and go to Central. Then it will configure itself and be fully reachable via Sophos Central. 

The next step is depending on your liking: I always say, connect both appliances with a cable and build a HA. So you have a HA in the network.  (One Important Part: Change the Cluster ID from 0 to some number!) 

You can do all those steps without any problems in your network or downtimes. 

And now, plan your downtime, via Sophos Central, login to the firewall, restore your backup and then switch the appliances (XG to XGS), use the same cables or change your cable setup as you need it. Done. 

This sounds like the best option. Which usb port should I use to reimage?

Thanks.

Unfortunately, booting from the usb stick does nothing. Screen just sits at "Sophos Protection".

Nevermind. Had to be in DD mode when burning the ISO.