Checkpoint IPSO vs SecurePlatform vs Gaia

[fjulianom]

Hi guys,

What's the differences between these three OS?

From Wikipedia: "Check Point IPSO is the operating system for the 'Check Point firewall' appliance and other security devices, based on FreeBSD, with numerous hardening features applied."

From Check Point: "Gaia is the Check Point next generation operating system for security applications. [...] Gaia is a single, unified network security Operating System that combines the best of Check Point's SecurePlatform operating system, and IPSO, the operating system from appliance security products. Gaia is available for all Check Point security appliances and open servers."

So both are OS. In turn, Gaia combines Check Point's SecurePlatform operating system and IPSO. So here appears other OS, Check Point's SecurePlatform. What's this? Can anyone shed some light on this?

Regards,

Julián

[Chris_Atkinson]

GAiA is the only current supported OS, the others are former OS variants from which we took the best bits to form GAiA.

[fjulianom]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your clear and concise answer. And is GAiA for both SG and SMS?

Regards,

Julián

[Chris_Atkinson]

Yes correct used for both.

You can see a historic announcement introducing GAiA here if it's of interest.

https://www.checkpoint.com/press/2012/check-point-introduces-gaia-unified-secure-operating-system-wi...

[the_rock]

Chris is 100% right...Gaia was derived from splat and ipso. I think the best person in the world to tell you about ipso is @PhoneBoy , he was always the master in it, but, the OS had not been supported for some time and only used to run on old Nokia IP appliances. Lots of customers used those, very solid firewalls.

Secure Platform (splat) was used on UTM firewalls and mostly what CP was using before Gaia. As @Chris_Atkinson said, Gaia was the result of combining Ipso and splat back, I believe 12-13 years ago, if memory serves me well.

[G_W_Albrecht]

GAiA went GA together with R75.40 in April 2012. 

Check Point Operating Systems: Gaia, SecurePlatform, MS Windows Server 2003, 2008, Windows XP, 7, Red Hat Linux RHEL 5.0, 5.4, on Nokia IPs IPSO Disk-based, IPSO Flash-based, on Crossbeam X-series OS and  Solaris Ultra-SPARC 8, 9, 10.

[_Val_]

Wow, what a blast from the past 🙂

This question lost a relevance about 10 years ago or so. Yet, if you are interested in the history of OSs and products, I would recommend CP4B /  Security Basics / Brief History of Check Point Firewalls article. We have a nice collection of supported OSs, with nice names like Solaris, AIX, HPOS, and others.

[fjulianom]

Hi,

Yes I read the article some days ago, but I got confused with so many OSs. Other small question. I have seen in some videos that when installing Gaia on a VMware VM, some people choose Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 64-bit as Guest OS, and other choose Other 64-bit. Both options work? This is other point of confusion.

Regards,

Julián 

[_Val_]

Either will work. I personally prefer RH option

[the_rock]

Either one works fine. I always use other 64-bit and never had an issue for 10+ years.

[PhoneBoy · Accepted solution]

The only OS that matters anymore is Gaia, which is effectively a combination of the best features of SecurePlatform and IPSO.
Now for a brief history lesson 🙂

IPSO was created by a company called Ipsilon Networks that Nokia acquired at the end of 1997.
As I recall, IPSO means "IP Switching Operating System" and was, prior to its use for Check Point, used for ATM Switching (the interface type, not the machines you pull money out of).
It basically became a purpose-built operating system to run Check Point FireWall-1 and was also used by Nokia Networks for various functions.
IPSO was based on FreeBSD and was used on the various Nokia appliances, as well as the Check Point-branded IP Appliances.

SecurePlatform (a.k.a. SPLAT) was Check Point's dedicated operating system for Security Gateways and Management that was created in the 2000s.
It is based on RedHat Linux and ran on generic hardware, initially.
Later, it would also run on specific purpose-built appliances.

When Check Point acquired Nokia's Security Appliance business back in 2009, the best elements of both SecurePlatform and IPSO were combined and Gaia was created.
The first version of Gaia shipped with R75.40 and is the only OS that is used today.
SPLAT and IPSO ended at R77.30 and are now end of life.

[the_rock]

I knew you would deliver with awesome post. Who knew that Ipsilon networks only existed for 3 years before Nokia bought them for 120 million $ in 1997 and also, the guy who was the president at the time, later became CEO of Blue Coat systems.

[fjulianom]

@PhoneBoy  awesome answer and brief history lesson 🙂

Regards,

 Julian