We need to Reuse some old 21000 appliances

[Fred_Bbaale1]

We would like to reuse some old Checkpoint 21000 that we have replaced. We are thinking of installing Ubuntu  , rather than throwing them away.

Why can't we boot from the Linux USB devices we have prepared for this?

[the_rock]

Um, not sure that might be possible...anyway, what do you get when you try to boot up?

Andy

[G_W_Albrecht]

Ask your local CP SE if that is possible - this is OEM hardware, so possibly Ubuntu does not support it. Why did you not do a Trade In when replacing them?

[Bob_Zimmerman]

Check Point branded servers can definitely boot from USB. I've installed Windows and ESX on a few.

The only major quirk related to booting is they have a real, honest-to-goodness BIOS, while almost every other server vendor has used UEFI since 2005 or so. They can't boot from GPT disks, and they need a BIOS-compatible bootloader. Your Ubuntu drive probably expects UEFI.

[PhoneBoy]

Officially, the only thing that is supported on Check Point appliances are Check Point operating systems.
Having said that, since Gaia is Linux-based, it should be possible to load other OSes through booting off a USB drive.
Current (and past) appliance models use BIOS (not UEFI) and legacy partitioning, so keep that in mind when creating your installer.

The above does not apply to Quantum Spark appliances, which are ARM based and use an embedded-style OS (thus why it is called Gaia Embedded).