Firewalla Ubuntu 16.04 EOL
It's not listed anywhere clearly what version of Ubuntu which Firewalla box uses.
My Firewalla Blue currently runs Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS.
From docs and screenshots here and here, I'm guessing that:
- Red and Blue are on Ubuntu 16.04.x LTS
- Blue Plus and Gold are on Ubuntu 18.04.x LTS
Is that right? It would be nice to have this in the docs.
Next, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS will be EOL in 3 months (April, 2021).
Will Red and Blue be updated to at least 18.04 LTS any time soon?
-
For the Firewalla Gold running current firmware/'Box Version' 1.971:
- General distribution: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, aka 'Bionic Beaver' (EOL is April 2023)
- Specific Ubuntu release under FW 1.971: Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS
Most recent Ubuntu 18.04 LTS release: 18.04.5 LTS
- I give the Firewalla developers the benefit of the doubt, that security vulnerabilities that were patched in releases 18.04.4 LTS & 18.04.5 LTS are either not revelant to the Firewalla Gold, and the ones that could be relevant have been manually patched by some other means...e.g. updating openssl manually or something like that (they're maintaining and continuing to develop a firewall and router afteralll)
- Differences in release versions: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases
That being said, since Firewalla is intended to be educational as well as functional, can the Firewalla developers comment on this?
For anyone interested in determining the Ubuntu release version running on their Firewalla (at least on the Gold), one way is to SSH into your Firewalla and run the command:
lsb_release -a
For example, here my terminal from when I ssh'd in to get the info to answer this question:
pi@firewalla:~ (Firewalla) $ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS
Release: 18.04
Codename: bionic -
18.04.3 LTS is out of support now as well as per their website :
https://ubuntu.com/blog/18-04-end-of-standard-support
I checked with Firewalla support, and got this response:
I do not think security update to the 18.04 ended now. So in case there are updates, we will push it through our upgrade process.
If you want a newer OS, you can Firewalla Gold Series: How to Flash Installer Image latest is 22.04The answer is not fully clear to me, my take is that they have a 22.04 in the beta versions already and it will be upgraded to that. I‘ll observe this for a while now, but it would definitely worry me if the whole box ran on an unpatched Ubuntu version.
Maybe Firewalla has Pro support to extend the life? Not sure how we could find out/ verify if it continues to be patched, any thoughts on this welcome.
-
Firewalla will take care of all security updates in 18.04 (and all other base OS). These updates will be pushed to your boxes via our releases if needed.
If you want the latest, you can flash your unit to 22.04; this image has been running for a while now. It is not beta. This image is compatible with all x86 (Gold Original/B/Plus) Firewalla
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
4 comments