Important note about SSL VPN compatibility for 20.0 MR1 with EoL SFOS versions and UTM9 OS. Learn more in the release notes.

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Where can I find a Hardware Compatibility List for Software XG ?

Slawski

The question is: "Where is a HCL for Software XG ?"

I know that theoretically it is linked to embedded Linux kernel, but it would be nice to have it in form of HCL published somewhere.

Another question is if anyone could build a Linux kernel with a different set of drivers for SFOS as I suppose it is not signed, is it ? I would need kernel sources Sophos used for SFOS - as it is GPL it should hang somewhere, right ?



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  • 0

    SFOS is not GPL, it's a proprietary Kernel rebuilt from the grounds up by Cyberoam. You could technically say it's barely even SUSE Linux anymore which is what it seems to have been built originally from. But I could be wrong because as far as I can see, i've not seen a GPL/GNU tag anywhere.

    As for the HCL, it would be nice to have one but even UTM v9 really only had a unofficial HCL done by the community.

    Edit: Cyberoams Ts&Cs show it as GPLv2 for the Linux Kernel found here: http://www.cyberoam.com/eula_ccc.html

    Interesting

    Update: Asked the question in my training, SFOS is based upon Red Hat and technically you could recompile source code but all the hooks of the overlying software into the kernel are sensitive. Any changes could cause whole portions of the software to break. Think of Google's Android OS, after 2.3 they kept the base OS GNU GPL but the core applications that make the whole thing fly, they are proprietary and you will lose the major overarching functionality if it you recompile the kernel and make too many changes. So the Kernel is GPL v2, the overarching stuff by Sophos/Cyberoam, isn't.

    Updating the Firmware would completely wipe your recompiled firmware because unlike UTM which is a Software based OS, SFOS is a Firmware based OS.

  • 0 in reply to Emile Belcourt

    Well, uname -a shows the following information:

    Linux localhost 3.14.22-Aum #1 SMP Tue Nov 3 13:07:21 UTC 2015 x86_64 GNU/Linux

    so it is OS with Linux kernel. There are a few GNU utilities, but lots of them belong to busybox - multi call binary you can find in embedded OSes like OpenWRT. There are some OpenSource packages like PostgreSQL and Apache but filesystem layout is quite unusual, so maybe it is not based on RHEL or is really heavy modified.

    But... as Linux is GPL v2 - we should be able to find out which hardware drivers are compiled in, right ??? That would be a significant part of HCL.

    A config for the kernel is a dream :-) we would be able do add hardware support as it was done by community of ESXi.

    Regards,
    Slawek

  • 0

    I am also looking for HCL for Sophos XG home.  I hope this OS can support most built-in RAID controller cards on Professional laptops/desktops.

  • 0 in reply to Hamidjan

    Well, I haven't got enough time to build such a list but...

    I have found out that XG open source components are available as an ISO download alongside with firmware. I have downloaded that ISO and unpacked TAR.GZ file included there.

    There are sources of Linux Kernel 3.14.22 with some 4.1.1 backports and lots of patches. I have seen a firmware for atheros 10k series and new bcm driver for example. I suppose this is a good start to build HCL. Unfortunately I haven't built linux kernel for more than 10 years so I need some time to figure out if all necessary information is there or not.

    I think we should remember that they are building firmware for their custom hardware plus common virtualization systems. If I were in their position I would disable most uncommon and experimental drivers because it allows to keep the kernel stable. Unfortunately this includes support for exotic storage controllers and network card - especially wifi network cards. But this is just my speculation.

    The ultimate goal for this research is to find how to build a custom kernel but it will be good enough if we will be able to extract build configuration for software version of SFOS.

    Regards,
    Slawek

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