Can R80.10 manage R80.20 gateways

[Daniel_Westlund]

Here is what the R80.20 Release Notes say:

Maintaining Security Management Server Version

You can maintain a R80.10 Security Management Server or Multi-Domain Security Management without upgrading and manage R80.20 Security Gateways:

• Support for such a setup will be provided at a later stage via the R80.10 Jumbo Hotfix Accumulator (sk116380)
• In this mode R80.20 new features are not available.

The way I read this, first it says it is supported, but then it says it is not supported until a new jumbo comes out.  I checked the jumbo SK for R80.10 and it has nothing about R80.20.  My questions are: am I reading this right that this support is not available yet?  And if so, does anyone know when that jumbo will be available so that we can manage R80.20 with R80.10?

[Ross_Pember]

I read it same as you, there'll be a new JHF coming along for R80.10 that will allow it to manage R80.20 gateways. Generally though I'd suggest that given that new R80.20 features can't be used when managed via R80.10, there's no huge reason to upgrade gateways before management. 

[Trevor_Bruss]

In my case, I just don't want to have to do multiple touches of some of our sites gateways. That is, they are not clustered and any upgrade is then an outage to that site while it is performed. I'd rather get to 80.20 in one step as opposed to multiple steps over a period of time. Also, it appears that using CPUSE to upgrade to 80.20 is not a viable way to get the new filesystem, so it likely would be another fresh install if we deem any benefit from the new filesystem. I'm not opposed to fresh installs since they can be performed rather quickly these days, I just don't like taking outages.

I can always plan our management server upgrade/install at a more appropriate time. One of the reasons I feel the need to stay at 80.10 there is because we use a separate log server located in Azure, and Checkpoint recommends (or states) that the versions should be the same. As there is no approved upgrade path for our Azure log server we are stuck at 80.10 there.

[Ross_Pember]

Hi Trevor

At the moment the new kernel and filesystem is only available for management servers, so CPUSE updates for gateways is fine. For management servers, an advanced upgrade (rebuild/migration of DB) is definitely recommended as it will get you the new filesystem, as you say. I believe there is an EA program for R80.20 in Azure that you may be able to join for your log server if you're super keen.

[RickHoppe · Accepted solution]

Perhaps you already have seen the new Jumbo Hotfix that supports this but I will submit the answer anyways to make sure this will help others too.

• Install R80.10 Jumbo Hotfix Accumulator Take 167 or higher (see https://supportcenter.checkpoint.com/supportcenter/portal?eventSubmit_doGoviewsolutiondetails=&solut...)
• Install R80.10 SmartConsole Build 89 or higher (refer to sk119612)

[sachintekane]

Can we also manage MLM & Smart Event with R80.20 through MDS running with R80.10?