Check Point 1500 Appliance - FAQ

[Danny]

Author: Danny Jung

Q: What's the official product site ?
A: Check Point 1500 Appliance | Datasheet | Support Center | Overview

Q: What's new ?
A: Check Point introduced the new 1500 Appliance series in October 2019.

Q: Where can I find Getting Started Guides ?
A: 1550 Appliances | 1590 Appliances

Q: What's the 1500 Appliance's SecureKnowledge article ?
A: sk157412 | Release Notes | Features | Known Limitations

Q: Which User Guides are available ?
A: Central Management | Local Management | CLI Guide

Q: What Check Point version does it run on ?
A: R80.20 for Small and Medium Business Appliances

Q: Is there an unboxing video ?
A: Sure, it's right here.

Q: Which 1500 Appliance license models are available ?
A: 1550 Appliance -> replaces 1430 & 1450 Appliance
A: 1590 Appliance -> replaces 1470 & 1490 Appliance

Q: Where are the LED light indicators described ?
A: Right here.

Q: Can I upgrade the licensed model later on (1550 -> 1590) ?
A: Only via Trade-in.

Q: Which 1500 Appliance hardware models are available ?
A: Model: V-80 Check Point 1550 Appliances
A: Model: V-80W Check Point 1550 Appliances (WiFi)
A: Model: V-81 Check Point 1550 Appliances
A: Model: V-80W Check Point 1550 Appliances (WiFi)

Q: What is part of the content package ?

A: The appliance itself, a power supply, two network cables, a USB-C serial console cable and the usual Getting Started Guide.


Q: What CPU is working inside ?
A: ARM AArch64 Processor [410fd081]

Q: What operating system is it running on ?
A: The 1500 Appliance runs on: Check Point GAiA Embedded R80.20

Q: What are the features of Check Point GAiA Embedded OS ?
A: Check Point lists it right here.

Q: Which other Check Point solution run on GAiA Embedded OS ?
A: Check Point's Quantum Edge VNF SD-WAN solution.

Q: How much RAM does it feature ?
A: 2GB RAM

Q: Which MAC addressing scheme is used for the 1500 Appliance series ?
A: 00:1C:7F:__:__:__

Q: From which SmartCenter version upwards can 1500 appliances be managed centrally ?
A: R80.30 Jumbo Hotfix (Take 107) - sk163296 and SmartConsole R80.30 (Build 36) - sk164092
A: R80.40 - sk160736

Q: Where can I find the driver for the serial communication via USB-C as console connector ?
A: sk159712

Q: Which is the correct serial console configuration to connect to the 1500 appliance ?
A: sk108095 (Baud: 115200, Data: 8 bit, Parity: None, Stop: 1 bit)

Q: What is the most recent firmware version ?
A: Check Point lists all 1500 firmwares in sk97766.

Firmware	Build	Date	SmartUpdate Package	Info
R80.20.00	(992000668)	[Oct 10 2019]		Release Notes
R80.20.01	(992000872)	[Jan 7 2020]	Download	Release Notes
R80.20.02	(992000936)	[Mar 1 2020]	Download	Release Notes
R80.20.05	(992001169)	[May 10 2020]	Download	Release Notes
R80.20.10		[Jul 19 2020]		Release Notes
R80.20.15		[Oct 29 2020]		Release Notes
R80.20.20		[Jan 7 2021]		Release Notes
R80.20.25		[Apr 5 2021]		Release Notes
R80.20.30		[Jul 12 2021]		Release Notes
R80.20.35		[Oct 5 2021]		Release Notes
R80.20.40	[992002665]	[Apr 14 2022]	Download	Release Notes

Q: Which is the default management port ?
A: Port 4434/tcp (https://192.168.1.1:4434)

Q: Which browser should I use to manage it ?
A: Only use the latest version of Google Chrome. There are some issues known when using Microsoft Internet Explorer to export VPN certificates and when using any Web browser on Apple Mac OS X.

Q: What if I cannot access the WebUI on an allowed subnet ?
A: There is an overlapping IP address in the defined subnet, which needs to be removed as described in sk166498.

Q: What does the boot screen show ?
A: Code:

U-Boot 2018.03-release-19.06.3 (Oct 03 2019 - 10:55:23 +0300)

Model: Marvell Armada 7040 Sunspear V0 Software 0.0.4
SoC: Armada7040-A2; AP806-A1; CP110-A2
Clock:  CPU     1400 [MHz]
        DDR     800  [MHz]
        FABRIC  800  [MHz]
        MSS     200  [MHz]
LLC Enabled (Exclusive Mode)
DRAM:  2 GiB

 === V0 board_init === Check Point version: 992000059
Comphy chip #0:
Comphy-0: SGMII1        1.25 Gbps
Comphy-1: USB3_HOST0
Comphy-2: SGMII0        1.25 Gbps
Comphy-3: UNCONNECTED
Comphy-4: UNCONNECTED
Comphy-5: PEX2
UTMI PHY 0 initialized to USB Host0
PCIE-0: Link down
MMC:   sdhci@6e0000: 0, sdhci@780000: 1
Loading Environment from MMC... OK
Model: Marvell Armada 7040 Sunspear V0 Software 0.0.4
Net:   eth0: mvpp2-0, eth1: mvpp2-1 [PRIME]
m88e151x_config_leds(mvpp2-1)
cp_set_board_vars started
switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc1(part 0) is current device

MMC read: dev # 1, block # 4096, count 512 ... 512 blocks read: OK
Verifying CRC for settings area... Done
Saving Environment to MMC... Writing to MMC(1)... OK

************ Hit 'Ctrl + C' for boot menu ************

USB0:   Register 2000120 NbrPorts 2
Starting the controller
USB XHCI 1.00
scanning bus 0 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
       scanning usb for storage devices... 0 Storage Device(s) found

USB storage device not found ..
switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc1(part 0) is current device

Starting kernel ...

[    0.000000] Booting Linux on physical CPU 0x0
[    0.000000] Linux version 4.14.76-release-1.3.0 (builder@lnx70bcccmp1) (gcc version 7.3.1 20180425 [linaro-7.3-2018.05 revision d29120a424ecfbc167ef90065c0eeb7f91977701] (Linaro GCC 7.3-2018.05)) #1 SMP Wed Sep 11 16:36:14 IDT 2019

Q: Where can I find a SMB performance tuning guide ?
A: @HristoGrigorov wrote a comprehensive introduction to SMB performance tuning.

*Work in progress*

[James_Lim]

Any idea what is the storage size / disk space size for 1500/1590?

[Danny]

For local backup storage you'll have to plug a usb stick into the appliance. As it's an embedded appliance there is no real storage other than for the OS itself and some scripts available.

[Expert@FW-1550]# df -h
Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
tmpfs                    20.0M      8.0M     12.0M  40% /tmp
tmpfs                    40.0M      7.2M     32.8M  18% /fwtmp
/dev/mmcblk1p8          623.8M     18.4M    559.9M   3% /logs
/dev/mmcblk1p11           1.2G     85.0M      1.0G   7% /storage
/dev/mmcblk1p3          692.7M    412.0M    230.3M  64% /pfrm2.0
tmpfs                    14.0M     10.9M      3.1M  78% /tmp/log/local
tmpfs                   500.0M         0    500.0M   0% /tetmp
[Expert@FW-1550]#
[Expert@FW-1550]# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/mmcblk1: 3776 MB, 3959422976 bytes, 7733248 sectors
120832 cylinders, 4 heads, 16 sectors/track
Units: cylinders of 64 * 512 = 32768 bytes

Device       Boot StartCHS    EndCHS        StartLBA     EndLBA    Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/mmcblk1p1    320,0,1     1023,3,16        20480    7733247    7712768 3766M 83 Linux
Disk /dev/mmcblk1boot1: 2 MB, 2097152 bytes, 4096 sectors
64 cylinders, 4 heads, 16 sectors/track
Units: cylinders of 64 * 512 = 32768 bytes

Disk /dev/mmcblk1boot1 doesn't contain a valid partition table
Disk /dev/mmcblk1boot0: 2 MB, 2097152 bytes, 4096 sectors
64 cylinders, 4 heads, 16 sectors/track
Units: cylinders of 64 * 512 = 32768 bytes

Disk /dev/mmcblk1boot0 doesn't contain a valid partition table

[James_Lim]

Thanks Danny!

Can I say that by default the 1550 has a total of 3.2 GB disk storage? Usable local logs storage is about 620 MB?

Any idea if the storage is the same across 1530/1550/1570/1590 as well?

[Chris_Atkinson]

Note SD cards are also an option with these.

(See datasheet).

[Marcos_Vieira]

 According to the datasheet the SD Card option (micro SD Slot) is available only to the 1570 and 1590. To the others, 1530 and 1550 there is only the option to do syslog or to send its logs to a Central Management. 

I have already tested (in a 770, not a 1500) and by default the box, when there is no extra space available, do rotate the logs, creating no more than 8 files and then start overwriting them in sequence:

[Expert@gw770]# ls -l
drwx------ 2 root root 140 Jul 6 14:48 0
drwx------ 2 root root 140 Jul 6 20:51 1
drwx------ 2 root root 140 Jul 7 09:34 2
drwx------ 2 root root 140 Jul 4 11:18 3
drwx------ 2 root root 140 Jul 4 20:10 4
drwx------ 2 root root 140 Jul 5 09:26 5
drwx------ 2 root root 140 Jul 5 17:42 6
drwx------ 2 root root 140 Jul 6 07:43 7

[Expert@gw770]# ls -l 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 992378 Jul 6 20:51 cp.log
-rw-r----- 1 root root 77824 Jul 6 20:51 cp.logLuuidDB
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 80 Jul 6 14:48 cp.logaccount_ptr
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 15584 Jul 6 20:51 cp.loginitial_ptr
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 32388 Jul 6 20:51 cp.logptr
[Expert@gw770]# ls -l 1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 983087 Jul 7 09:34 cp.log
-rw-r----- 1 root root 73728 Jul 7 09:34 cp.logLuuidDB
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 80 Jul 6 20:51 cp.logaccount_ptr
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 21824 Jul 7 09:34 cp.loginitial_ptr
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 35448 Jul 7 09:34 cp.logptr
[Expert@gw770]# ls -l 2
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 320908 Jul 7 12:14 cp.log
-rw-r----- 1 root root 8192 Jul 7 09:34 cp.logLuuidDB
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 80 Jul 7 09:34 cp.logaccount_ptr
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5596 Jul 7 12:14 cp.loginitial_ptr
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9992 Jul 7 12:14 cp.logptr
[Expert@gw770]# ls -l 3
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 987930 Jul 4 20:10 cp.log
-rw-r----- 1 root root 73728 Jul 4 20:10 cp.logLuuidDB
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 80 Jul 4 11:18 cp.logaccount_ptr
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18644 Jul 4 20:10 cp.loginitial_ptr
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 33816 Jul 4 20:10 cp.logptr
[Expert@gw770]# ls -l 4
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 979706 Jul 5 09:26 cp.log
-rw-r----- 1 root root 65536 Jul 5 09:26 cp.logLuuidDB
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 80 Jul 4 20:10 cp.logaccount_ptr
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 23864 Jul 5 09:26 cp.loginitial_ptr
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 36836 Jul 5 09:26 cp.logptr
[Expert@gw770]# ls -l 5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 989250 Jul 5 17:42 cp.log
-rw-r----- 1 root root 73728 Jul 5 17:42 cp.logLuuidDB
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 80 Jul 5 09:26 cp.logaccount_ptr
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 17712 Jul 5 17:42 cp.loginitial_ptr
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 33436 Jul 5 17:42 cp.logptr
[Expert@gw770]# ls -l 6
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 980795 Jul 6 07:43 cp.log
-rw-r----- 1 root root 69632 Jul 6 07:43 cp.logLuuidDB
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 80 Jul 5 17:42 cp.logaccount_ptr
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 23088 Jul 6 07:43 cp.loginitial_ptr
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 36428 Jul 6 07:43 cp.logptr
[Expert@gw770]# ls -l 7
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 990511 Jul 6 14:48 cp.log
-rw-r----- 1 root root 77824 Jul 6 14:48 cp.logLuuidDB
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 80 Jul 6 07:43 cp.logaccount_ptr
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 16788 Jul 6 14:48 cp.loginitial_ptr
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 33060 Jul 6 14:48 cp.logptr

[Expert@gw770]#

[MikeB]

Excellent Info Danny! 

Is there any difference regarding CPU in the 1530 and 1550 appliances??

[G_W_Albrecht]

It is for both the same CPU limited only by the firmware, just the 1590 has different hardware...