GAIA R80.40 Install on Paralells - MAC M1 ARM

[superd]

Hi all,

Im wondering is GAIA R80.40 supported on Paralells (MAC M1 ARM), or has anyone managed to install it?

I cant see an option for the RHEL OS on paralells, and also cant see an option to download anywhere.

Also seems not supported here: https://www.reddit.com/r/redhat/comments/mq6nb5/rhel_8_arm64_on_a_mackbook_air_m1/

I just thought Id open it up here on the off chance someone else managed to get it working.

Note, Its for a personal LAB Im trying to set up, not production env.

Regards,

Davde

[Chris_Atkinson]

What's Supported and what works aren't always the same.

But typically unless it's one of the supported cloud platforms or listed on the HCL your going to be disappointed.

https://www.checkpoint.com/support-services/hcl/

[superd]

Thanks Chris. 

For my own understanding, hypothetically speaking, if I was able to get a working RHEL OS, would I still be presented with issues with GAIA interoperability with my ARM M1 CPU? Or are things abstracted to a certain extent at that level?

[HeikoAnkenbrand · Accepted solution]

Hi @superd;

Check Point SMS, MDS and gateways does not support ARM processors.

[HeikoAnkenbrand]

It is interesting to me that you can execute CP on a non-supported hardware platform. For example you can install VMWare ESX and use the firewall virtually. This is the case for older HP servers (DL 360/380 G8).  The question is how performant is the firewall in this case?

[Chris_Atkinson]

Hi Heiko,

As you're probably aware we don't provide performance metrics for open server deployments due to the variables involved.

Whilst ESXi might help to mitigate some potential driver compatibility challenges and the like in some scenarios the appropriate comparison here for this thread is probably more aligned to Vmware workstation.

[Bob_Zimmerman]

Short answer is no, it definitely won't work.

Longer answer is that Apple's processors are aarch64, but Check Point's firewall and management software is exclusively amd64 at this time. Apple provides a translation layer called Rosetta which allows most amd64 software to run, but it doesn't translate the privileged instructions necessary for an operating system or hypervisor to run. Thus, Parallels allows you to run other aarch64 operating systems in VMs, but you can't run amd64 operating systems in VMs.

The firewall software is heavily entangled with the OS kernel, so I don't think it would be possible to run the amd64 firewall software on an aarch64 kernel. It would be much less effort to get the management software running on aarch64, but what's the business case for the developers to spend that effort? It's not like anybody would actually buy a SmartCenter or MDS license to run in a VM on their ARM Mac.

[superd]

Very clear answer Bob, thank you!

[_Val_]

Gaia is Intel based system. Any virtualisation environment, Paralells, of VM Fusion, should support interpretation of Intel to M1. There are quite a few known issues with that. This is why although RH may support native M1 deployment, virtualisation may still not work.