Introduction

As we saw in the previous chapter, Check Point Software Technologies firewalls can run on a variety of platforms.You can use open systems based on Intel or AMD processors or dedicated appliances manufactured by Nokia and a dozen other companies. However, two of the most popular and most powerful platforms continue to be Nokia s IPSO operating system and Check Point s SecurePlatform operating system.This chapter addresses these two platforms, including installation, initial configuration, and setting up Check Point for the first time.

SecurePlatform is a Linux-based operating system created by Check Point. It has been hardened and does not require an additional license for its use (except for the SecurePlatform Pro, required for dynamic routing). Since its introduction with NG Feature Pack 2, SecurePlatform has become one of the most widely deployed platforms, along with Nokia. Check Point has been doing all its research and development on SecurePlatform, with other operating systems being done later. SecurePlatform runs on almost any open system available: white-box systems with Intel Pentium IIs and 128Mb of RAM, up to dedicated server-class appliances running multiple CPUs and RAID configurations. In fact, SecurePlatform can run inside virtual machines from VMWare and Virtual PC, which is great for testing, troubleshooting, and more.The illustrations in this chapter were done while running on Microsoft s Virtual PC.

The Nokia IP Series is dedicated appliances that provide firewall services using Check Point firewalls. Nokia s underlying OS, IPSO, is based on the FreeBSD operating system.The IPSO OS has been hardened and does...