Installing Sophos XG on Cyberoam device

When I was scouring Marktplaats (The local ebay in The Netherlands) for a firewall I stumbled upon a Cyberoam CR25iNG for only 25 Euros. So I did a quick search and found some notes on how to install Sophos XG.

The notes being not very user friendly I have decided to make a more step-by-step tutorial.

What do you need

• Cyberoam firewall
• Console cable
• Console to USB adapter
• USB drive with 4GB or more

If you have an laptop or desktop with a console port there is no need for the adapter.

Preparing the USB

First we need to prepare the USB with the Sophos installer ISO.

1. Signup to get a Sophos XG Home license
2. Download the ISO
3. Use an bootable USB creator tool of your choice to flash the USB (I prefer Etcher, however a good alternative is Rufus)

Installing the firewall

1. Insert the USB to any USB port on the device
2. Connect the console cable to your pc (using the adapter if needed)
3. Open Putty on your PC
4. Change the settings to:
   • Connection type: Serial
   • Speed: 9600
   • Serial line: [your serial port]
5. Click “Open”
6. Connect the power to the firewall to power it on
7. Press “ESC” in your serial console until it boots into the BIOS
   • If the device does not boot into the BIOS, unplug the power and try again
8. Go to the last screen and change the boot order so it starts from the USB drive you inserted
9. Save and exit the BIOS
10. The device will reboot, unplug it during boot
11. Change your Putty settings:
    • Connection type: Serial
    • Speed: 38400
    • Serial line: [your serial port]
12. Click “Open”
13. Power on the device (it should now boot from the USB)
14. Once you are asked if you are sure you want to wipe the device, hit “y”
15. Wait for 10-30 minutes (the notes I found said 15 minutes however with my device it took quite a bit longer)
16. Are you hearing “Beethoven - Für Elise”, then you did it!

Setting up Sophos XG

This might be the most annoying part of this process.

1. Remove the USB
2. Wait for 10-15 minutes for the device to boot
3. Try and find the correct ports. Sophos will assign one of your ports to be the LAN port, and one to be your WAN port. To find the ports I plugged in the cables for 10-30 seconds and waited for the light to start blinking, if it does not start blinking try the next port.
4. Now that you have 2 ports left, plug in your WAN cable and LAN cable.
5. Go to https://172.16.16.16:4444
   • Not working? Swap your LAN and WAN cables. You might have them in the wrong ports.
   • Still not working? Set your DHCP on your PC to 172.16.16.16
6. You now have a working Sophos XG firewall!

Important tip: The installation wizard asks for a way to verify your license, if you want to use the Home license DO NOT CLICK TRIAL. I decided to do so and had to reinstall my firewall and lost my configuration.