SmartConsole application automatic updates - how it works?

[Gav]

Hi Folks,

I would like to get the Smartconsole application updates working on our corporate laptops but I'm not sure if anything is being blocked by the group policy. In order to troubleshoot this, I've been looking for more information regarding how the update mechanism works but there appears to be very little information available beyond Automatic updates for SmartConsole (checkpoint.com).

There also seems to be very little visibility of the update functionality in SmartConsole itself, beyond the instructions to de-activate it in the above link. It would be very handy to know how updates are downloaded and where from, how often this takes place, how the installation is activated, etc?

Would be grateful if anybody could share any additional details around this or point me to resource where I can learn more?

Many thanks.

Regards,

Gavin

[G_W_Albrecht]

I saw the update message once already - but currently, new smart console builds do not come very often. 

Current version is Build 406 published on 1st of May 2022.

[Gav]

My version is currently 402 so I would expect an update for that surely?

[Alex-]

See an explanation here.

[Gav]

Many thanks for this.

The thread states that SmartConsole will automatically go and check for updates shortly after being opened. I've been monitoring the proxy logs for over 30 minutes since I opened the app and there's been zero traffic from my laptop. How long should I have to wait?

I think a button to force a check would be useful or better still, a settings page to control the feature's behaviour. But at the moment I'm still pretty much in the dark as to what's happening, or not as the case may be.

[Tomer_Noy]

SmartConsole should check for updates pretty quickly after launching. No more than 1 minute.

We had a slight hiccup with R81.10 build 406 that was released on May 1st. It was not published properly for auto-update and we corrected it now. Assuming that you have Internet connectivity, you should see the green update button.

We are also adding a "Check Now" button that will be included in one of the next builds. We understand that people sometimes want to make sure manually that they are up-to-date and also it will allow you to speed up the update and not wait for the full gradual rollout.

[Gav]

@Tomer_Noy thanks for this.

We are using build 402 at the moment ... should I still see a green update button? And is it only present if the app can see the Internet? How does that work if we go through a proxy?

"Check now" button will be welcome I think 🙂

[Omer_Ran]

SmartConsole Update uses Windows proxy settings when check for updates (and for downloading).

Windows proxy settings are located at Internet Options -> Connections -> LAN Settings.

In case you need to use different proxy settings for SmartConsole updates you can edit SmartConsole.exe.config, and in the line that start with "<UpdateSettings CertificateKey " (not to be confused with the line that start with "<section name="UpdateSettings"") - add the following between "Update Settings" and "CertificateKey":

UseSystemProxy="false" Proxy="myproxy.myCompany.com"

So the final line should start with:

<UpdateSettings UseSystemProxy="false" Proxy="myproxy.myCompany.com" CertificateKey

At this stage we don't support proxies that require authentication.

[Gav]

Thanks for this.

Ordinarily, the laptop uses a pac file which is deployed from the proxy but I have also tried configuring proxy settings in the SmartConsole.exe.config file. But sadly I'm still not seeing anything in the proxy logs to suggest that SmartConsole is trying to communicate with any Checkpoint servers.

[Omer_Ran]

Is there an XML file in "C:\ProgramData\Check Point\SmartConsole R81.10"?
If there isn't, it might mean that automatic updates are turned off for some reason (we can try to understand why).
If there is - it contains information about the last update attempt and any error encountered.

If you'd like to continue this conversation in private, please reply me in a private message or email me at omeran@checkpoint.com

[Omer_Ran · Accepted solution]

After some investigation, it seems that HTTPS inspection can prevent the SmartConsole's auto-update mechanism from authenticating the connection correctly.

For the time being, I can suggest adding an exception to exclude HTTPS connections to updates.checkpoint.com from HTTPS inspection.

We're are looking for better solutions for this issue, and I will update when we have them.

[Marcel_Gramalla]

Yay, we finally received build 406 a few minutes ago. Thanks 🙂