UTM (Home) EOL and moving over to Sophos Firewall... options?

Notes on installing Firewall... thinking I had not done it right etc x 5 - (rufus usb iso)

SW-19.5.1 ISO boots to display the following after an install
"   Booting '19_5_1_278'
 _
"
Yep thats it....

So in actual fact you need to connect to an AP (so wireless router with DHCP disabled,  plugged into one of the LAN ports) to access the box.
Figuring out what ports on the firewall are LAN/WAN is you next step...

The firewall interface is a "shotgun splatter" of activity and config.

It seems to be doing a great job as a "firewall" but setting up user profiles and devices? WTF?

vicegod said:

The firewall interface is a "shotgun splatter" of activity and config.

So true!

Any updates? How is the migration going for you? I'm still leaning towards migrating to one of the *sense's. I've been "playing" with several FW's and XG is just not a top pick for me. I'm hoping ease of use and feature parity with the UTM gets better by 2026. Fingers crossed.

Hey Jeff

The XG box is gathering dust right now... I have stayed with the UTM.

What are the options Jeff?

I guess I have a year before they figure out the shite that "needs fixing that was never broken".

I spent a couple of days on an XG load, configured to what I could possibly figure out.... my issue is I don't want anyone connecting to my network with a device I dont recognise/mac address and authorise with a user/pass. For me this is basic network security 101. XG didnt seem to offer this option. I have no idea how this is configured under XG... I seriously lost interest. I need simplicity and logic. This product is confusing and layered in "vapour". 

XG has stuff buried in "options"... network traffic control???  I'm worried. No fcking way as an enterprise business would I pay for this system.

Reminds me of Blizzard Entertainment spending millions on a Diablo game upgrade... only to scrap it because "it actually wasnt fun to play"

Hey if you or anyone can help on this then let me know.

Cheers

Craig

Unfortunately, *sense and Untangle appear to be the only options that I can afford.

Unfortunately, *sense and Untangle appear to be the only options that I can afford.

Jeff do either of these options have a "Home" version?

As an alternative if Sophos dont sort themselves out, Im considering a "basic" firewall with DHCP to manage mac/connections.... and then use my DNS PiHole for URL blocking (currently using Pihole with the UTM, and works a dream with subscribed domain blocklists)...

What I meant by *sense is pfSense and OPNsense. Both are open-source. Untangle is $50 or $150 a year for a home license. If you use web filtering with SSL DPI, Untangle will be much better.

OPNSense also supports the Zenarmor NGFW plugin which has a basic version for free. The paid home version is $9.99 a month. 

The OPNsense/Zenarmor combo has been at the top of my list as a Sophos UTM replacement but the $10 a month plan has a 100 device limit and only allows for 3 profiles plus I DESPISE cloud web admin panels. I have several web apps and the profile limitation makes me hesitant. Lately, I've been leaning more towards holding off and waiting to see what the Sophos Firewall will look like when we get closer to the UTM's EOL.

I switched over to the XG a few months ago after tying it out a couple times. What irks me the most (and this is even before it's installed!) is how Sophos firewall uses 172.16.16.16 as the default gateway automatically without even allowing you to specify until afterwords. There are a lot of things that are just bad decision making, I could give you a list of about 30 things about it that keep me awake at night, lol.

But, I was really, really close to going with an Ubiquity Dream Machine Pro, but, at the time they had no OpenVPN support built-into the software. the big advantage though is that the software itself is free for life after you buy the hardware. ($379 for the Dream Machine Pro is not really that bad).

I hear a lot of mention about pfSense, OPNsense, Untangle, and I wonder why Ubiquity wouldn't be a good alternative to Sophos UTM especially for home users.

Hi, saw your post littel late,

but i cant find any demo for the Ubiquity Dream Machine Pro. I would buy it, the price is realy ok, but not without a closer look to the software.

Anyone got a tip where i can look at the software ?

thanks

I would assume the software is tied to Ubiquity firewalls. But there are tons of product reviews for it on youtube. You could watch  them and see what the software looks like before you buy one. 

Well, watched some Vids on Youtube... don't think thats what  i want.

With *sense, untangle, etc. You provide your own hardware, upgrade as neeed.  Untangle does have an annual fee associated.  *sense does not (for home user).

I've decided to go with pfsense+. It may not have all the features of web scanning that xg does but offers far more config granularity. There are some things about it that irk me, such as the lack of integration between modules.  IE, in utm you define an object once and can use it anywhere appropriate. Such is not the case with *sense.

Re pf vs opnsense, feature wise are very similar, but ui is quite different. Can't wrap my head around opnsense's ui layout. Reminds me of the old tomato firmware for wrt* series.

As for ubiquity, if one already has hardware, why reinvent the wheel by buying more hardware.

Jay Jay said:

Can't wrap my head around opnsense's ui layout.

I tried OPNsense awhile ago. I was not fond of the UI either, and the default allow firewall rules that allows everything outbound by default is really dumb. I never tried pfSense yet, but since Zenarmor removed support for it, I can't see it making a good next-gen firewall unless you maybe installed Zenarmor on a Linux distro in Layer 2 bridge mode "with filtering" in a separate VM or on a separate device with 2 or more NICs, which sounds interesting.

EDIT: so it seems that free Zenarmor can still be installed in pfSense manually, you just need to create the Zenconsole Cloud Portal. Is it worth it?