Does someone know if there are any limitations to home license besides hardware cap and non-business usage ? For example if I can activate more than one devices with my Sophos ID ?
I'm asking because my devices is already "in production state" - I mean it serves as a home router and now I have limited possibility to test things out. It would be nice if I could use the license on a VM for testing.
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...
Cześć Patryk,
It's not the style of this community to attack others - Billybob has been a positive force here for many, many years and was not attacking you. He was just expressing concern about making your result public without getting feedback from Sophos beforehand. He's thoughtful and insightful and was discussing this issue.
I see that Alan Toews has participated here. He's one of the most-respected technical guys at Sophos, so I'm sure that he'll run this by the C-level. Alan can delete your instructions or the whole thread if the company feels it's necessary.
In any case, one can see that you're a talented technical writer, so I'm glad to see you participating here!
Cheers - Bob
Cześć Patryk,
It's not the style of this community to attack others - Billybob has been a positive force here for many, many years and was not attacking you. He was just expressing concern about making your result public without getting feedback from Sophos beforehand. He's thoughtful and insightful and was discussing this issue.
I see that Alan Toews has participated here. He's one of the most-respected technical guys at Sophos, so I'm sure that he'll run this by the C-level. Alan can delete your instructions or the whole thread if the company feels it's necessary.
In any case, one can see that you're a talented technical writer, so I'm glad to see you participating here!
Cheers - Bob
No need to delete anything :) This thread isn't threatening to our business model, and isn't going to provoke changes to the software.
The thread is only concerning to a user who follows it in ignorance, and later learns that they've removed the warranty on a new piece of hardware. (which is why I replied) If you want to use XG for educational use, virtual or software is a far safer choice.
If you're looking to buy an XG85 for home use, I wouldn't recommend it. By the time you buy the hardware and the hdd to add to it, you could likely find a similarly powerful small form factor pc, for less, and install the home version, without voiding its warranty. If you have one left over from an upgrade, or were given one cheaply, then feel free to mod away - just be clear on the warranty impact, before you open the box.
Like I said previously, I have no horse in this race. I am not a reseller and am not involved in hardware decisions where I work. However, I do enjoy the generous hardware allotment for home license provided by sophos. And to be honest, I also like the fact that when guests come over and a page is blocked during web surfing, they don't get the authorized for home use.
I will also say kudos to sophos one more time for providing me with 100 IP UTM home license every time it has expired. They were in no way obligated to do that and yet they did it anyway.
P.S. Although you can't reveal future plans, there are no plans for adding watermarks to XG in future versions right? [:D]
