Corporate Armor is an extremely experienced Sophos partner. We can help you find your perfect solution, and we can do it for less cost to you. Sophos SG and XG are expansive families of products, and they are tremendously popular. Models like the XG115, from $537, XG125, from $717, XG135, from $943, and SG105, from $400, are among our top sellers, and for good reason.
However, if you would like to breathe new life into your trusty SG appliance, read on!
Have you purchased an SG Firewall with the UTM operating system? Would you now like to install the new Sophos Firewall OS on it? Since the SG and XG hardware are identical, this can be done in a few steps.
By the way, this conversion procedure WILL NOT migrate your existing configuration to Sophos SFOS.
First, log in to https://id.sophos.com with your Sophos ID. If you do not yet have an account, you must first create a Sophos ID. After logging in, click MySophos. Then, click Network Protection. Finally, select Download Installers. Now you’re on the right page to download the SFOS.
Under Hardware Installers you will find the Firewall OS for XG Series. Click on Download to download the installer. Accept the terms and conditions and click on Submit. Then the ISO image will be downloaded.
Create bootable USB stick
We copied the downloaded ISO image to a USB stick. For this, we use a special tool so that the SG can boot from this USB stick later.
Insert a USB stick with at least 4GB of memory into your computer. Make sure that there is no more important data on the USB stick. Otherwise, it will be completely erased later. We are about to create a bootable USB stick. The easy way is to go to the website https://rufus.akeo.ie/. Then, download the latest version of the Rufus tool.
After that you can start the Rufus Tool by double clicking on it. In the dropdown next to Create a bootable disc using, select the variant ISO Image. Then, you can select the downloaded ISO image of the SFOS next to the dropdown. Select 8192 bytes under Cluster size and give the volume under volume label a name.
Finally, click on Start to format the USB stick and copy the SFOS image to it. When asked which mode to use, select Write in DD Image mode.
Installing SFOS on the SG Appliance
You now have a bootable USB stick with Sophos’ SFOS on it. Now you can start the installation on the SG appliance. Remember, installing the SFOS on your SG will completely overwrite the hard disk. As a result, it will completely reset the device. You WILL have to reconfigure your appliance.
Connect the Sophos SG to a screen (no keyboard necessary). Then, plug in the USB stick and turn on the firewall. (By default, the SG boots automatically from a USB. First, the hard disk is formatted. Then, the new OS is automatically installed. No typing is required. The process should take 15-20 minutes).
Once the SFOS install is complete, the message “remove installer Disk – press y to reboot “ appears. You can now remove the USB stick.
Start SFOS Wizard
SFOS is now installed on your Sophos SG! A wizard will help you to set some basic configurations before you really get started:
Connect your PC via the LAN 1 port of the SG firewall with a network cable. The SG can be reached by default via the IP address 172.16.16.16. However, since you’re in the same network with your computer, you should be able to reach the firewall via a ping.
Open your web browser and access the web interface via https://172.16.16.16:4444. If everything is working, you will see the XG Firewall “Welcome screen”. Click on Click to begin. Then, you can start the wizard and make some basic configurations.
Congratulations! You have transformed your SG firewall into an XG with the SFOS. Next, all you need to do is migrate your UTM license for SFOS. Read about that here!
And, if you have any questions, just email us or call Corporate Armor at 877-449-0458. Thanks for reading!
Advantages of Sophos SFOS (XG)
| Base License is included free |
| EnterpriseGuard Bundle is a real moneysaving alternative |
| Firewall Rules feature is more powerful |
| The Log Viewer is excellent |
| Firmware updates are seamless, and even easy to undo, if necessary |