What are XG home license limits?

Hello,

It is possible, I've just done It.

If any one still interested I can write some How to.

Best Regards 

Patryk

Patryk,

please share the procedure. I am going to try on XG 105.

Thanks

Patryk,

please share the procedure. I am going to try on XG 105.

Thanks

Hi,

Procedure for installing Home Licensee on Sophos XG 85.

Ok, for the start What we have and What we need.

1. We have:

Hardware Appliance with: Intel Atom Baytrail Dual Core (1.33 GHz), 2 GB DDR3, 8 GB eMMC, 2x USB, 1x COM RJ45.

We don’t have:

Graphic interface like VGA port, Bigger drive, any tutorial how clean and write other software than that dedicated for Hardware Appliance.

2. We need:

Drive that has at least 10GB or more of space, it's the minimum amount  of space for installation of Home appliances, Graphic interface to see what we're doing (Serial cable, RJ45 to COM or USB port), some installation media such as USB drive or pen-drive (I use the firmware SFOS 17.0.5 MR-5).

Let’s start from the beginning - Hardware.

The hardware appliance is a micro computer, on board we have one cpu unit, one bios integrated circuit, one eMMC circuit, one BIOS battery and… One SATA port and one four PIN power port like in Floppy drive.

On other post One write that we must erase a whole drive to install the software appliance but question is how ? 

Maybe there is other way to achieve this with DD, some linux distro…  I try this but I always have some issue to do that right, So we use standard installation media.

Procedure to install Home Appliance.

1. Turn of your hardware appliance, disconnect power cord from power connector.
2. Open your hardware appliance (there are 2 screws on both sides and two on the bottom), connect SATA drive (HDD or SSD) to SATA connector and use adapter to connect power to the drive. Do not short-circuit anything, use some glue for a drive or tape.
3. Close the housing.
4. Connect RJ45_COM->COM cable to your PC or MacBook and to hardware appliance - COM port settings are: 

5. DON’T POWER ON APPLIANCE BEFORE CONNECTING A COM PORT !!! ISERT USB INSTALLATION MEDIA WITH THIS FIRMWARE SFOS 17.0.5 MR-5.

6. Use „putty” in Windows or „Serial” and connect to power off appliance, you will see black screen - don’t worry :) next, connect AC power to appliance. Power ON appliance and fast press couple of times F2 key to enter the BIOS.

7. Next one, ensure your BIOS settings are the same as mine, the most important thing is boot setting and hard drive settings.

8. The couple screens will show a different setting on my appliance that you need on yours appliance to install Home version. 

Go to: Boot menu -> Hard Disk Drive BBS Priorities

Change Boot Option #1 -> Boot from your second installed drive, mine is WD3200BEKT

Boot Option #2 -> Disabled. We will be booting our hardware appliance from USB drive installation media. 

On main BOOT menu disable option „boot from MMC - sem08G” because we don’t wan’t  to boot from main drive. Disable all other boot option. On the first position nable boot from USB installation media. Save settings and reboot. 

9. After boot process complete you will be asked if you want to install Sophos XG appliance, the warning message will appear that all data on all drives will be deleted. The first driver for installation will be your eMMC drive - it's OK, and the one will be drive that you installed. You will be asked you are sure to delete all data - YES :)

10. After installation process the appliance will be restarted - his F2 key to enter BIOS, change boot order as you see on my „Hard Disk Drive BBS Priorities” screen and „main BOOT” screen.

11. The Hardware Appliance will boot with Home Appliance version. You have to register the appliance like always with your Home Appliance Key that was send to your e-mail. If you see an error that appliance has some problems after paste a key na hit the register couple of time, check register later.

12. Have Fun, and remember everything you do you are doing on your risk. Don’t use such appliance in production environment it's illegal !!! This is made only for test and education environments !!!

It should be clearly understood from the procedure, but in case it's not - Modifying the hardware or the BIOS will void any warranty remaining on the hardware, and other than voluntary help from other users in these forums, you shouldn't expect any support on the system, after modifying it as described here. Also, remember that the home use license is not licensed for use in anything beyond personal use, in a home network.

Beyond that, happy hacking :)

Hello AllanT,

If you have read my article carefully you would know that I mentioned about licensing. I mentioned that this is only for home users that bought a hardware and they want to have fully functional version of UTM or for users that bought this hardware from secondhand for making  a lab for his/her students. I really don’t see anything wrong with making a lab for students using real hardware, in the near future, think about it, what they recommend to buy in theirs companies ? When they now UTM’s from Sophos.

Best regards

Patryk

While I like your workaround, the one thing that I will always applaud sophos for is their generous home license. Also, unlike UTM, they don't use any watermarks or limitations associated with home license in XG. On smaller appliances, the home license will run happily but at the end of the day, you are messing with their business model. If your appliance is out of warranty and you want to treat it as another hardware, sure go ahead and hack away but still keep in mind, once you go down this road, you are inviting big warning signs like in UTM that will start pointing out that this is for home use only etc. Plus how many people are going to run larger appliances at home?

I have no problems with UTM style home use warnings but it was nice to run XG like a full licensed product without any watermarks on it. And this action more than likely will force them into doing the same for XG.

I understand your desire to teach your students and I am not questioning your motives, but once you put this in the wild, its money that you are inadvertently taking from sophos where the chances for abuse are great. Something to think about. Also, home license in the lab to teach others is not the correct application of the license since technically its not home use.

A 30 day trial license is what you should be using in the lab on your own hardware.

Yes, Patryk, I did read your article. It was well written, and reasonably thorough, though it generated some questions, which were sent to me directly. I felt it would be useful to answer those questions once, publicly, rather than respond to privately. 

To be clear, my intent was not to discourage people from following your article, but to make sure they are properly informed, before they do. 

I see millions of websites with keygens and alike with a disclaimer that the software hack is for educational purposes only. The intent of the hacker is not a problem, its the end user that abuse the hack that ultimately costs the software writers and others is the problem.

Hi,

I really don’t want to start a war what’s wrong what’s good.

I really love business model of Sophos and I think it’s great to learn how to use and deploy UTM before someone buy it for it’s own Company. After a year of testing in home I recommend of buying 4 UTM’s for Company that I worked for with Full license. So please don’t compare this tutorial and Me to cracks sites. If anybody thinks it’s morally wrong DON’T USE IT AND DON’T DO THIS !!! IF YOU WANT USE THIS TUTORIAL IN ANY ILLEGAL ACTIONS YOU SHOULD COUNT FOR LEGAL CONSEQUENCES.

End of discussion.

Patryk

I am not starting a war and it is definitely not end of discussion. While I am personally not a reseller, a lot of people's businesses depend on selling hardware appliances. Your hack is not that difficult and I am sure circumventing bios has been done by chinese hackers long time ago. You just put it out in the open for everyone with step by step directions.

All you have accomplished is to challenge sophos to develop watermarks for their software or use other methods to lock down the bios where the appliance won't boot or worse turn into a brick while attempting bios modifications.

So yeah... its not End of discussion[:^)] 

Yes I’ve done nothing special I’ve just done only what people on this forum trying to done since 2015 if I remember, and no one done it :) So I’ve done only that what everybody want to do it.

Please don’t behave like a child. You are really so jealous that you have no skills to done this before me ?

You are 15 years old and you go to mom :)

It’s not my level of conversation.

TBH, I see a bigger risk for Sophos business in the use of Home License on a Virtual Machine. It can be easily used in data center environment, and most home users will never use VMs in DCs.

I would love to see a Home Use License for smaller XG WiFi appliances even if that would mean only web and wifi protections because these are the most important for use at home, but there is a problem many don't see. Each consumer product requires managing customer problems and there would be a lot of them. Imagine, people sometimes don't know how to connect an iPhone to the home network...