When Will SmartConsole Support In-Place Updates?

[Mart_Pirita]

Hi,

I have used CheckPoint since 2005 and I'm now pretty sure, that CheckPoint hates SmartConsole users, as in year 2019 it's impossible to upgrade CheckPoint SmartConsole, without uninstalling old CheckPoint SmartConsole. And in year 2019 this uninstalling does not give any option to save settings and fingerprints, like for example Juniper -s Pulse does.
Uninstalling CheckPoint console removes all settings and fingerprints but of course it does not remove installation folder C:\Program Files (x86)\CheckPoint\SmartConsole\R80.10 and later on new installer then gives error - "The installation directory provided is not empty and might contain previous installation files. To proceed with the installation, please clean this directory or select an empty folder".

Really? In year 2019 I must do it manually? What do you CP guys smoke? Investigated this a bit and it finally turned out, that folder C:\Program Files (x86)\CheckPoint\SmartConsole\R80.10 contained one empty folder "PROGRAM". After manually removing C:\Program Files (x86)\CheckPoint\SmartConsole\R80.10 folder, installer was happy.

But I'm not happy, as the console thinks I'm using it first time, so I must add all settings, again. Accept all servers fingerprints, again. Close the boring popup notifications, again. Etc. And as CheckPoint keeps constantly upgrade SmartConsole, I must deal with this installer issue quite often.
 
Conclusion - in year 2019 we are paying huge money to CheckPoint and in return we're getting lousy product and for comparision freeware tools can create better windows installer packages with better logic, but CheckPoint can't or won't.

[_Val_]

Oh boy, you are definitely unhappy. Just to clarify, you had to reinstall R80.10 SmartConsole and could not do that? That was the reason to call Check Point products lousy?

Do you have this issue every time you reinstall R80.10 SmartConsole? 

[AlekseiShelepov]

I believe, the main point here is that the installer of SmartConsole cannot just upgrade/replace the old version automatically, keeping all settings and server fingerprints from the old one.

[Mart_Pirita]

Yes, You are right.

[_Val_]

Yes, Aleksei Shelepov, and you have managed to do that in one sentence. Your statement is professional, simple to understand and nit offensive to others. 

[_Val_]

Mart Pirita‌, I am not annoyed. Neither I remember that we ever annoyed me.

I am  just trying to understand the point of your post. If you are looking for some assistance or need TAC and/or R&D to work on a particular issue, some more professional attitude would be nice. If you are here to rant, that is also fine, although value to the community in this case is not that great. 

[G_W_Albrecht]

This definitely sounds like RFE to me  !

[PBC_Cyber]

Lol, Like RFE's ever get worked on. 

[Danny]

Check Point loves SmartConsole users, that is why they are offering portable versions of SmartConsole (see sk116158).

[Vladimir]

Danny, actually no, CP does not like us at all

"Before installing Portable SmartConsole, first install the relevant SmartConsole GUI client"

[marki]

Well not all features work with portable SmartConsole, as far as I understand that would be related to missing .NET components that are included in the full installer. Some windows and dialogs just won't open.

[ED]

--- Gif removed. No offend meant to anyone. Cheers ---

[Jerry]

Interesting. Very unprofessional post indeed however, getting to the point without speculating about the politeness or even rudenes I'd only add one thing: SmartConsole was always like that just with R80.x the updates gets more often forcing users to uninstall/install that software again. That's annoying indeed but pointing out to your precise points Mart:

1. Fingerprints of SMS it's not a biggie I guess, that's just "one-more-click" frankly

2. Settings like what you lose? Colours? Columns in Security Policy? Oh my ... huge loss  

3. What then is so so important that it annoys you so much? I just don't get it. I do understand it is a little bit "inconvinience" indeed but I solely believe ALL OF US KNOWS THAT since ... ever? Would that be a good point of such post on the forum where the whole R&D and CP Support Team watching?

I personally think this wasn't a good post at all and could have been phrased differently with simply sentence like this (I hope you agree):

"Is there any chance to improve update process of SmartConsole for Windows?" - wouldn't be that much easier in order to make it clear to ALL wha't's your pain?

Neverthenless we got it and we all sympthatize with you suffering so much every (at least) quarter doing that over and over again  ... if not more frequent.

Best

Jerry

[DennisJ]

So your answer to an "unprofessional post" is... an unprofessional post?  Fighting a less than helpful post (born out of obvious frustration) with a post that is equal parts condescending and dismissive?  Well done.  You must come from the "it takes one to know one" school of thought.

Can we be adults and recognize that SmartConsole has many faults?  Check Point has not remedied these for years and apparently has no desire to.  Starting with R80 SmartConsole has become bigger, slower, and less helpful in several areas.  The fact that an upgrade requires a full uninstall is unusual.  The fact that this comes from a $2 billion company with 3500 employees is ridiculous.

Belittling people is not the answer, despite your attempt.

[Jerry]

completely ridiculous feedback

seems you've missed my points entirely

well done Mr. Unknown.

well done!

[Maarten_Sjouw]

Jerry, valid points for a single SMS, however when you work on large installation with hundreds of domains, therefore loosing all of their settings every time a new version of the SmartConsole needs to be deployed, is a completely different type of scenario as you depict. We have run into this "need to replace as we run into the issues solved in the next version" thing every time.

So do not mock if you do not know the rest of their situation or compare it to your own setup.

[Jerry]

I got it and I do appreciate where you coming from. In such "massive" environment indeed it is a pain and you're right saying it is a purely waste of time of taking care of the SmartConsole software all the time being or not updated by the Vendor.
Sorry I didn't mean to be disrespectful Maarten, not to anyone within a topic or to the "Author" but I just don't get it why we're just moaning about something everyone is fully aware of since long long time.
I'd appreciate AutoUpdate for SC and it's component and as rightly pointed below by Tomer it is "coming soon" - I hope. I for now we need to live that miserable life as we know it.
I just don't get it why ppl tend to judge the book by its cover ... and what's worse even remain "anonymous" on such forum like this.

have a lovely day everyone

[Christoph]

> 2. Settings like what you lose? Colours? Columns in Security Policy? Oh my ... huge loss

You may find this issue miniscule, but if you have a well defined range of distinct colours that you can or cannot use, it is super annoying to look up/readd the correct colours after each reinstall.

And now you have like 15+ people that have to do that have to go through this process every time a new console gets released.

Or people that not often work with the console get confused that their threat prevention blade shows any, while src/dst columns are again hidden.

I was annoyed after the second reinstallation of the console to readd the colours.

You can probably automate the process for the colours or maybe use the portable console to "fix" this. I'm still in the process of readding the colours, as it's faster for me than do any of the mentioned solutions.

Wishlist: The colour range allowed should be a server side setting, which is offered to the client.

[HristoGrigorov]

I don't mind to uninstall/install SmartConsole manually. It is not that often after all. But that I have to set it up every time is definitely usability issue I'd like to see addressed.

[Tomer_Noy · Accepted solution]

Thank you for this feedback. Indeed, with R80.x versions we have increased the pace in which we release SmartConsole versions. The motivation is to periodically release important fixes to the field, many of them reported by our customers.

Following similar feedback from the field, we are already working on a solution for this, which we plan to release during 2019.

There are several requirements that we want to cover:

1) Make it easier to update to a later version, with less hassle and without losing preferences

2) Reduce the number of people using older versions and encountering issues that have already been fixed

3) Allow updating SmartConsole without Windows admin permissions (currently required to install / uninstall)

The solution will be an auto-updating SmartConsole. Upon launching, it will check our cloud for a newer version and will download it in the background. When complete, the user will get a notification and can choose to relaunch, or to continue working and start using the newer version upon the next application launch.

I hope that this solution will make the entire experience much better for our customers.

[Pedro_Espindola]

That's great news! Thank you, Tomer!

[_Val_]

Tomer Noy‌ appreciated

[Mart_Pirita]

Thanks, please ping me when the beta is available.

P.S. I was specially being provocative in order to get the attention, which started this discussion. And as we all can see the subject was not new for the "old" CP users, however, according to this thread feedback, it seems that some are willing to suffer and some are not, some got my point and some didn't. But if we don't talk about the problem, nothing will ever change. 

[JozkoMrkvicka]

2019 and still only 32bit version ...

Why do we need to install every single version of smartConsole ?

What about to create web-based console ? To be put on any linux based system and be accessed via web browser ?

html5 is the answer...

[Duane_Toler]

"No",  to web-based management.  Bad idea; the browser is a hugely hostile environment. This is an awful idea.  No browser-based management ever works well.  VMware's vSphere web management is awful, too; it works 95% of the time, sure, but then that time when you're building out a new VM and the Settings page explodes due to a failed JavaScript call... bye-bye everything, and starting over.

"No", to web-based management.

[Mark_Mitchell]

I actually like the fact that when I install a newer version it keeps the old. I have multiple customers that are running different versions at the minute (in between upgrades) so having both R80.10 and R80.20 consoles is great. I would find it annoying if my client was to be upgraded. I would then need to run the portable versions (which isn't a problem) to be able to have multiple clients on my machines. 

This may be the reason why an update/upgrade isn't possible because there are different use cases for having multiple clients on a machine. 

@Maarten Sjouw - I do however completely agree that losing preferences is a pain. 

An HTML5 version would be amazing though.

[SantiagoPlatero]

Hi all, right when I was reading this interesting thread (unregarded the almost funny interchange above) I was actually thinking in customers we've to manage multiple and different versions. Happens to be in that place a few months ago, when in some installation have a R80.20 mgmt and R77.30 in another one. It's a pain to my corporate laptop (which sadly is low-end) to have multiple SmartConsole installations.

So I would like to invert the question: it some point have occurred to CP to do a revamp of the SmartConsole with the capability to manage multiple versions? I'm not thinking like an "universal console" for R7x/R8x, but it would be nice a console which could manage R80.x or R77.x or R75.x and such.

And thinking in a HTML5 version, first I would do it to the SmartView web

Cheers!

[AlekseiShelepov]

This discussion concerns mostly new builds of the same version of SmartConsole. And not about situations when you have R77.30 or R80.10 installed and try to install additionally R80.20. For example, when a new build for R80.20 is available and you try to install it:

As you can see, new builds are released much more often now than for R77.30:

R80.10 SmartConsole Releases 

R80.20 SmartConsole Releases 

[JozkoMrkvicka]

In addition to all the facts mentioned, starting from R80, there is requirment of having MINIMUM 8GB of RAM.

If you have customers running R80.10, R80.20 and soon R80.30, you will need to have opened 3 separate instancies of SmartConsole. This will complete kill your workstation.

[Martin_Valenta]

Not if you have 32GB ram on your ntb 😛 since architecture of management changed it make much more sense to have Win VM as jump host close by to MGMT server to get better latency and since it’s VM you can scale HW parameters pretty easily.