topic Re: WatchTower feature request in Spark Firewall (SMB)

WatchTower feature request

Ilmo_Anttonen — Tue, 01 Oct 2019 11:37:17 GMT

I like the idea of the app and my first thought was to use it at one of my customers with several hundreds of SMB appliances stationed in buildings to guard OT systems. Since custom notifications are available according to the description, I could have a notice sent every time one of the appliance dropped their VPN-tunnel to central mgmt or when the Internet link went down. That way we could fix them before a janitor notices that the buildings' gone cold because it had no access to weather forecasts ^^,

But unfortunately the app is only available for locally managed according to release notes .

Is there a problem with having a feature set like notifications made available also for centrally managed appliances? What is the barrier not allowing centrally managed devices to register with the WatchTower app?

I know that Smart Mobile is on it's way but I don't know if it will support these kinds of notifications.

Re: WatchTower feature request

PhoneBoy — Tue, 01 Oct 2019 23:00:01 GMT

I do know we plan to extend WatchTower-like functionality to other devices.
However, I'm not aware of the specific plans.

Re: WatchTower feature request

G_W_Albrecht — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 10:57:30 GMT

I would not use WatchTower with several hundreds of SMB appliances 😉 - especially not when centrally managed ! Using SNMP, you can send a notice every time one of the appliances drops their VPN-tunnel to central mgmt or when the Internet link went down.

Re: WatchTower feature request

Ilmo_Anttonen — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 12:03:36 GMT

Yeah, thanks, I'm aware of SNMP but this application seemed as a simple way to communicate outages to my cellphone where I can quickly scan notices. I'm not always on the customer site but have the possiblility to connect remotely when needed so I thought, if it works, it would have been nice to try it out 🙂

Re: WatchTower feature request

G_W_Albrecht — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 13:39:34 GMT

Yes, this is a more simple possibility ! But to get several hundred SMB devices into WatchTower would be quite a task - and you will not be notified if Internet is down on the box or VPN is down, only if the GW rebooted unexpectedly, ...

Re: WatchTower feature request

Ilmo_Anttonen — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 12:27:10 GMT

Yeah I know it would be painful to do it on every box. I planned on testing it on some critical sites to begin with and then play around with what exact notifications I could get. If VPN down isn't one of them it's unfortunate!

I'm currently waiting for an invite to SmartMobile EA to see what I could get out of that too. Just curious to see what uses there are of these new applications. Testing stuff out and making life easier is after all the fun part of being in the business ^^,

Re: WatchTower feature request

G_W_Albrecht — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 13:53:11 GMT

i show the possibilities to you:

Re: WatchTower feature request

Ilmo_Anttonen — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 14:04:48 GMT

Many thanks, very informative! So basically it's some on and off switches. I like the license expired! Happens that one forgets to activate the license before sending out a box some times..

Re: WatchTower feature request

G_W_Albrecht — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 14:06:22 GMT

You do not need an EA - just download WatchTower, see sk144852: R77.20.86 for Small and Medium Business Appliances for details!

Re: WatchTower feature request

Ilmo_Anttonen — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 11:58:42 GMT

I said "I'm currently waiting for an invite to SmartMobile EA"

🙂