topic Re: R81.10.17 in Spark Firewall (SMB)

R81.10.17

TJ_Aus — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 05:51:01 GMT

R81.10.17 is now showing in Smart Dashboard as the "recommended jumbo"
sk183153 - R81.10.17 for Quantum Spark Appliances

Is anyone else already testing this release and can give feedback on the stability?

Re: R81.10.17

Chris_Atkinson — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 03:46:50 GMT

FYI - Last updated on 23 March 2025:

Latest Firmware	R81.10.17 Build 99600XXXX
Recommended Firmware	R81.10.10 Build 996002993

Source: sk179615: Quantum Spark Appliances - Releases R81.10.X

Re: R81.10.17

Amir_Ayalon — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 07:09:19 GMT

The release in new

still not recommended,

we will check why it appear as recommended in smart dashboard.

thanks

Re: R81.10.17

nmelay2 — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 16:26:23 GMT

Hi,

One of my customer's SMP managed gateway was upgraded from R81.10.10 to R81.10.17 today at 1am GMT.
The plan for these gateways is set to automatically upgrade to the "Check Point recommended" version.
Only 1 out of 15 gateways was upgraded, thankfully.
So my guess is R81.10.17 was promoted to recommended status on release, and that was fixed shortly thereafter.
Not good.

Everyone working with SMP and firmware upgrades enabled should probably check which firmware is now running on their gateways.

Re: R81.10.17

ANANTADSULE — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 05:09:04 GMT

looks like optimization release for 2 GB Spark appliances ,nothing special changed except Spark support for DoS / Rate Limiting protocols for enhanced protection against DoS (Denial-of-Service) attacks which can be configured through CLI only.

Re: R81.10.17

Petr_Hantak — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 07:35:56 GMT

I agree, but there are resolved issues - https://support.checkpoint.com/results/sk/sk181134

I found some problems there which I already noticed. Happy to see it is fixed in this version.

Re: R81.10.17

G_W_Albrecht — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 10:46:00 GMT

I would suggest to no one should enable automatic firmware upgrade on SMBs at all ! This could cause havoc since old Edge/Safe@office times, and although in most cases nothing bad will happen, we all here work in security, not in gambling 😉

Re: R81.10.17

nmelay2 — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 11:42:32 GMT

That someone with your experience in the field considers that trusting Check Point not to mess up with software updates equals to gambling is quite alarming.
I wish Check Point QA would read this.

I used to have firmware upgrade in my plans point to a specific version.
Since "Check Point latest" was replaced with "Check Point recommended", I switched to this instead.
I guess I'll switch back.

Re: R81.10.17

G_W_Albrecht — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 12:03:07 GMT

As i wrote, the risk is only very small (as is the chance of winning a million by gambling), but out of my experience it does exist. Latest example was the introduction of the IoT blade that totally messed up an SMB cluster (that had later to be reconstructed manually) after manual upgrade by the customer ☹️

So my suggestion is to roll out new firmware versions manually and test it first on only one GW. If you can not test it without much risk i would wait some time until the gravest bugs have been fixed or the version is broadly accepted in the field and has proven its worth.

This is not only about SMB firmware - remember the Jumbo Takes whose download was disabled after feedback revealed (a) serious bug(s) ? I also would not suggest to install a new plain-vanilla version but instead wait at least for the first junbo take. This is all software and will contain errors / bugs, as is just natural with all man-made things. Only "AI" makes more mistakes 😉

Re: R81.10.17

TJ_Aus — Thu, 08 May 2025 08:39:39 GMT

It appears that when you disable the auto timezone feature on this release and manually set the timezone (using the commands below), the timezone still automatically updates. I was making GUI updates only to find when I went back into the GUI later, it had changed back.
So under SSH cli I made the necessary changes to disable it, but when I go back and check, it has changed again. Usually within less than an hour. I am hoping I am wrong and have missed something vital, but have logged a case anyway

> set auto-timeZone off
>show auto-timeZone
auto-timeZone: off

> show ntp
active: on
primary: ntp.checkpoint.com
secondary: ntp2.checkpoint.com
interval: 30
auth: off
secret:
secret-id:
timezone: GMT <redacted>
auto-adjust-daylight-saving: off
auto-timeZone: off
local-server: off

Re: R81.10.17

TJ_Aus — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 00:45:55 GMT

The latest build that was just released - Build 996004620 - does not mention this has been addressed, I am going to test this release
sk181134 - Check Point R81.10.X Resolved Issues and Enhancements

Re: R81.10.17

TJ_Aus — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 05:42:31 GMT

The auto timezone issue still exists in the latest build. If anyone knows how to disable it, please advise. I have an open TAC case

Re: R81.10.17

TJ_Aus — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 00:45:32 GMT

The new firmware release 996004620 is also showing as recommended on Smart Console:

Re: R81.10.17

G_W_Albrecht — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 11:02:25 GMT

Still sk179615 does rule here:

Re: R81.10.17

TJ_Aus — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 02:36:07 GMT

This week CP released R81.10.17 (996004653) which fixes the time zone issues I was experiencing. (Good work Amir et al)
sk183153 - R81.10.17 for Quantum Spark Appliances

Please note that although this issue is now fixed with this release, it is not mentioned in the resolved issues page
sk181134 - Check Point R81.10.X Resolved Issues and Enhancements

Re: R81.10.17

Chris_Atkinson — Mon, 25 Aug 2025 07:21:42 GMT

sk179615 now lists R81.10.17 as recommended.

Re: R81.10.17

Chris_Atkinson — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 13:25:49 GMT

FYI - GA Replacement Build 996004721 available from 18 September 2025