(Clean) Reinstall of (standby) management with R80.40 -preferred way

[bluecross]

Hi,

we're currently in the task of reinstalling our standby management (Smart-1 525) with R80.40 due to problems with corrupted data on that systems (we have a TAC case). Upgrade to R81.20 is planned.
Our first try was clean install via USB, but unfortunately failed due to the possibility to change the boot order, so we'd try to do a clean install via CPUSE. As we'll do it remotely, we need to be sure, that the basics settings (e.g. IP address, hostname, default gateway etc) are transferred, so we don't need to configure them again via local console.
Can anybody confirm that this is possible? Or do we have to plan an onsite service?
Version to be installed is the same as the current version (R80.40 T294)

Thanks for your advise.

[Duane_Toler]

You should be able to do this with ISOmorphic and select your appliance type.

Download the T294 ISO image and the latest Jumbo HFA.   Load all of these into ISOmorphic and write it to the USB stick.  You will need the MGMT interface MAC address so that the configuration will be applied correctly.  You have an option to configure the network interface and installation type, and run the Gaia First-Time-Wizard automatically.

There is a limitation with Smart-1 525.  Someone will need to remove the USB stick after it completes and does the reboot.

https://support.checkpoint.com/results/sk/sk65205

[bluecross]

Thanks for your reply. We created the stick with the ISOmorphic tool and it seemed that the stick was correctly recognized (as seen on some BIOS screen). The problem is that the boot-order cannot be changed, so the appliance always boots from HDD. As the BIOS is password-protected by Check Point we found no possibility to change the boot device. The Gaia Embedded Boot Loader (Ctrl + S) doesn't provide any change in the boot order either.

[Alex- · Accepted solution]

Although I've never done it on a standby SMS, a cpuse clean install should wipe the DB and leave IP parameters in place.

From there you can rerun the FTW, SIC and add the server back in the HA pair.

[bluecross]

Can confirm now, that the clean install via cpuse retains the IP settings, so we could successfully reinstall the Secondary, sync and install database. We had to do it in CLISH with "installer reinstall <image>", as there seemed to be no possibility in Gaia to reinstall the same version.

[PhoneBoy]

Quantum Spark appliances and regular Quantum appliances are different.
They will use USB, albeit in different ways:

1. Bootable USB drives with a valid Gaia OS should boot from said image (assuming ISOmorphic burned it to the USB correctly)

2. Quantum Spark appliances will accept a firmware image stored on the FAT32/XFAT volume on a USB drive. If present at boot, the appliance will be reimaged with the firmware image (replacing the backup firmware image) and will require a power cycle afterwords.

If you're having trouble with either of these options, please consult with TAC: https://help.checkpoint.com 

[Alex-]

Smart-1 appliances don't seem to be too sympathetic to Isomorphic.

I don't know about 525 but I tried with 600 and they didn't seem to run it, I would have needed to either use CPUSE or factory reset from the boot menu.

[Amir_Senn]

AFAIK it saves all the OS and networking information.

Not a 100% sure but I think it saves all the information you can save in "show configuration" command (https://sc1.checkpoint.com/documents/R81/WebAdminGuides/EN/CP_R81_Gaia_AdminGuide/Topics-GAG/Working...).