Improvement request - Still updating a firewall requires so much time

+1

Paul Jr

I know this doesn't add any further to your request but the system load of almost 100 percent per core is unsustainable in a production firewall. I was running system load over 3 on my test firewall in a vm with quad cores. Yes throwing newer, faster hardware will bring it down a little but the system load has increased significantly in v18 compared to v17 and my test lab had only one user mostly playing with the GUI.

Regards.

Hello

Thanks for your answer.

I presume this would be questions for this event:  https://community.sophos.com/products/xg-firewall/sfos-eap/sfos-v18-early-access-program/b/blog/posts/webcast-firewall-v18-overview-and-live-q-a-with-the-xg-product-team---november-14-11am-est

It would be preferable someone more polite and nuanced than I ask.  Cause I have a tendency to be aggressively unforgiving in my speeches when I'm not delivered in time what I rightfully expect since it was promised ages ago.  I'm stuck at WWII thinking era.  Kind of "If you don't you die".

Paul Jr

[*-)]

Picasso?  I think we are still trying to find nemo. 

Kidding aside, Sophos should do themselves a favor and acknowledge v18 with respect to the internal code names floating around.  Is this the result of nemo??  Boy I sure hope not.  Cause from what I see nemo isn't done and picasso hasn't even started.  Just my eyeball test though.

Even more challenging, I built the J1900 from V18 EAP refresh 1 update ISO, what a pain. Different install screens, lots of blank screen while something is happening, no indication of activity, enough of that this thread is about performance.

You thought the upgrade from v17.5.8 was slow this is even slower. Some items never complete a change, I have been trying to update etc notification settings for at least two hours including restart to see if that unstuck it, but no, still the magic circle.

Ian

Can someone form Sophos devs look at this issue?

Thanks

Hi Luk,

I have isolated the issue to W10 PC and IE.

I have used the same software build on two different versions of hardware with the same issue, so that left the management PC as a likely cause. Checked using FF on MBP and all the settings are correct and no spinning ball.

Ian

No body from Sophos is considering this thread?

This is a performance issue. Editing an existing firewall rule still require 14 seconds to update. Can this be tracked and investigate?

Thanks

I am the only one with this issue?

Maybe is my installation? Can someone from forum confirm the behaviour?

Thanks

Hi Luk, I tested this with a stopwatch [8-|] . I have a 4GB vm with 2vcpus and memory utilization to 80%. I have web proxy with categorization and av blocking. Also running Application categorization with allow all for pretty graphs (not blocking any apps). I don't have any DPI rules. I am also not using IPS.

Average time for a rule update is 10.85 seconds. I did the test multiple times with different rules and it is always 10.5 plus seconds. I usually don't play with the firewall once its setup so not a problem after initial setup. I am also getting some inconsistent results with multiple NAT rules as the firewall seems to get confused if you turn on and off too many rules but that is not the topic here.

Are you running everything on your firewall? Maybe the processor is overwhelmed with everything running? Not saying they don't need to fix this, just wondering why you are getting almost twice the time that I am getting on firewall rule update.

Regards

10s? This is a "huge" amount of time. Updating a firewall rule should not require more than 4/5 seconds.

I think the gui waits for the backend to finish before it says update successful. Its the same behavior if you turn on a service that is not running. Turn off IPS and then turn it back on, you will have to wait forever before the service started message comes up.

I agree that overall gui is too slow from control center to firewall rules. Was v17 like this? I don't quite remember how the older v16.xx versions acted on rule updates but from memory, they were still slow compared to other firewalls

I think the gui waits for the backend to finish before it says update successful. Its the same behavior if you turn on a service that is not running. Turn off IPS and then turn it back on, you will have to wait forever before the service started message comes up.

I agree that overall gui is too slow from control center to firewall rules. Was v17 like this? I don't quite remember how the older v16.xx versions acted on rule updates but from memory, they were still slow compared to other firewalls

Billybob said:

...they were still slow compared to other firewalls

That's the problem. I lost already 2 customers and 5 are waiting for UI responsiveness in v18, otherwise they will move away. Same behaviour for logging. There is a certain lag between what's happening and log itself (I do not want to say nothing about the logging quality via UI).

Regards

I am currently working with CM as a GUI replacement and it is quite fast. 

Did you try this approach? 

No Lucar. Small customers do not need CM. They use XG interface.

Is CM going to be the new UI even for XG in 18 or 18.5?

Regards

LuCar Toni, 

can you ask to some dev like Rana Sharma or someone else to look at this issue?

Thanks

The basic question is: Is it slower than V17? 

No!

The title of the thread is clear! In v18 no improvements have been done for speed-up Firewall editing UI.

In Addition, Lucar:

threads like this should not even been opened. Waiting 10-14 seconds after updating a firewall rule is a shame!

Sorry for posting. I am just a privat user like you. 

Just wanted to know, if there is a new issue with the V18 release, because the time to complete a task is kinda the same in V17 to V18, from my experience. 

Something i looking forward is CM. Central has some powerful UI. You will be fast in configuration and easily push this configuration to your XG. 

Hello All,

While i have found that the process of rule creation and updates takes 15+ seconds on the XG125 running either V17.5 or on my test V18 box, I know that on several customers XG310 units running V17.5 it is a lot faster.

While a few people have been using CM to make changes and are advising that the rule updates are faster, is this actually the case? is the CM GUI just more responsive because the changes to the actual firewall are being background tasked, and still taking 15+ seconds to complete, but because the CM is not instant access people are just not observing the time requirement.

Personally while my XG125 units in the field are slow at firewall edits and changes, I am not finding the GUI that unreasonable. If I was seeing that delay on the XG310's I think I would be more concerned. I also do not use anything smaller than a 125.

Regards

Gavin

Appreciated your opinion Luca. As I said, most smb will use only XG and nothing else.

Regards