CloudGuard IaaS VMware Questions

[Daniel_Collins]

Hello Check Mates!

Hoping you could help clear something up for me. 

We know that Gaia can detect that it's on a virtual platform, as it states that it's installed on VMware in the Gaia portal. 

Is this merely a cosmetic message? or is there some system customizations/optimizations that are made in the system at the point of install to best use the software for a virtual platform? Such as the scheduler etc? 

I know of sk104848 and I can see that in R81 those customizations that are suggested aren't implemented by default. Not that this is a problem, I am just trying to establish if the system is somewhat-optimized for the hardware out of the box?

Thanks

Daniel

[G_W_Albrecht]

This is for licensing purposes - you get the error "Invalid license: VE license is required" on GWs only. Should use vSEC licenses, but there is no inforcement afaik. No optimization involved here at all 😎

[Daniel_Collins]

So you think it's there to just ensure the system is correctly licensed? 

[Sigbjorn]

Check Point also provides vmware tools which is started as a service if its running on vmware.

The service is called vmtoolsd  if you want to check if its started.

Without the tools, vmware will not be able to report ip etc.

[PhoneBoy]

Yes, running in VMware has some different drivers active and of course vmtools.
Not sure there are any specific optimizations outside that.

[Daniel_Collins]

I'm guessing that's the VMXNET drivers etc for the virtualised hardware. 

vmtools I'm not really counting as that's a service needed for host access, rather than specific system optimizations.

[Chris_Atkinson]

There are some tuning recommendations for VE Gateways in sk169252.

Did you install from ISO or are you using the OVFs from sk158292?

[Joerg_B]

great info

[Paul_Hagyard]

For anyone that's interested, open-vm-tools is included when installing from ISO on VMware - you do not need to install from OVF.