cOS Core 14.00 FAQ

FAQs

What appliances will be supported to run cOS Core 14.00?

The following existing models will support cOS Core 14.00

• Clavister NetWall E10
• Clavister NetWall E20
• Clavister NetWall E80
• Clavister NetWall W20
• Clavister NetWall W30
• Clavister NetWall W40
• Clavister NetWall W50
• Virtual Appliances running the 32-bit image (VMware, Hyper-V, KVM).

The new appliances introduced 2021 will only support cOS Core 14.00 or later:

• Clavister NetWall 110
• Clavister NetWall 140
• Clavister NetWall 510
• Clavister NetWall 550
• Clavister NetWall 6200
• Clavister NetWall 6600
  
• Virtual Appliances running the 64-bit image (VMware, KVM).

Any appliance that is released after the release of cOS Core 14.00 will ONLY support cOS Core 14.00 or later.

Why will the new appliances only support cOS Core 14.00?

The new appliances will use a 64-bit version of cOS Core, this version is not possible to to downgrade to older versions as they are only available in 32-bit versions.

Is it difficult to upgrade from cOS Core 13.00 to 14.00?

No, it’s done in the same way as from 12.00 to 13.00 or upgrading from cOS Core 13.00.07 to 13.00.08. Remember to read the release notes for any version specific information.

Can the E or W-series appliances be upgraded to the 64-bit version of cOS Core 14.00?

No, appliances running the 32-bit firmware will not be possible to upgrade to the 64-bit version of cOS Core, also there is no real benefit as the E and W-series appliances are optimized for the 32-bit firmware.

What is the benefit of moving to 64-bit on the new appliances?

There are a number of benefits, mainly the possibility to use more memory, but also leverage new hardware features that is not available when using 32-bit.

Will there be differences between 32-bit and 64-bit cOS Core 14.00?

There is no visible difference between the two versions, except that the 64-bit version will be able to use more memory. Over a longer time period there might be diverging feature set on old appliances (running 32-bit) and new appliances (running 64-bit), where some features requiring 64-bit processing will only be available on newer appliances. But as long as possible Clavister will try to keep feature parity. There was a similar situtaion  with cOS Core 12.00 where some features did not work on IXP-based platforms (Clavister E5 and E7) due to hardware limitations. 

Is it complex to migrate from from a 32-bit appliances to a 64-bit appliance?

No, it’s not complex at all, it’s as easy as it was upgrading from Clavister E7 to Clavister NetWall E80.

How many vCPUs and memory does the different Virtual Appliances support?

	32-bit Image (x86)	64-bit Image (x86_64)	64-bit Image (ARMv8)	Comment
Number of vCPU Supported
1 vCPU				32-bit image: The image will run in interrupt mode. 64-bit image: The image can run in either interrupt mode or polling mode (See below for details)
2 vCPU				The image will run in polling mode.
3 vCPU				The image will run in polling mode and use one vCPU for interface offloading.
Recommended Memory
Min	512 MB	1 GB	1 GB	cOS Core and run with less memory if needed, but this is the recommended minimum for normal operation.
Max	4 GB	16 GB	16 GB

What is the difference between interrupt and polling mode in Virtual Appliances?

The main difference between interrupt and polling is that in interrupt, the device notifies the CPU that it requires attention while, in polling, the CPU continuously checks the status of the devices to find whether they require attention. In brief, an interrupt is asynchronous whereas polling is synchronous. This means that when running polling mode the CPU load on the VM will always be 100%.

Is the 64-bit version based on Linux?

From 14.00, cOS Core is using Linux as a boot loader when running 64-bit, Linux is used for memory management, file system access, etc, (same functions is provided by “Firewall Loader/FWLDr” in 32-bit cOS Core).  The Clavister cOS Core is still directly using the network cards so no network traffic can reach the Linux subsystem.

Is the minimum recommended 2 or 3 vCPU’s for the 64-bit version?

While it is possible to run using only 1 vCPU it is recommended to use at least two as one vCPU will then be used by the Linux base system which is used for memory management, disk access and more. Using only 1 vCPU may result in packet latency as both cOS Core and the Linux base will share the same CPU.

Why does the 64-bit version require 3 vCPUs to enable poll-offloading?

See previous answer, since Poll-offloading requires a dedicated vCPU it would not be enough to allocate only two vCPU’s in order to enable this feature.

What are the criterias to run interrupt mode using 1 CPU Core on a 64 bit image?

Below is a small list of the requirements in order to run interrupt mode on 64 bit.

• A Virtual system.
• Only 1 CPU core allocated (so no poll-cores enabled).
• Advanced setting->Misc->"Interface Interrupt mode" must be set to Auto (default).
• The VIRT-IO interface driver is NOT used.
  
  • Note: Interrupt mode is currently verified to work with the E1000E driver for VMware. Mixing e.g. VIRT-IO and E1000E will cause it to fall back to polling mode.

Which Virtual Appliance Image should I choose, 32-bit or 64-bit Virtual Appliance?

This depends on your need, if you need many small firewalls, using as little resources as possible you should select the 32-bit image, if you need high performance the 64-bit image with multiple vCPUs are abetter choice.

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