The Optrics Insider

Information For IT Pros

Menu
Follow Us:
Search

ASL V5 Release Candidate is Available

Firewalls Sophos
Shannon Lewis

ASL V5 Release Candidate is Available

Astaro is pleased to announce the availability of the Astaro Security Linux V5 Release Candidate. Thanks to anybody on this board who contributed to this release! We received a tremendous amount of excellent feedback during the past year and during our Beta test. 

We are planning to ship the General Availability release within a week. The next few days will give us extra time to validate improvements made in Astaro Security Linux V5 during the final days of beta testing. The Release Candidate available today is suitable for testing, for home use, and for production environments. However, we recommend that corporate customers with large or complex configurations test the release in their labs before deployment. If you install the Release Candidate, the upgrade to the General Availability release will be performed transparently by an Up2Date update package.

New Features

Astaro Security Linux V5 includes two major new capabilities�Intrusion Protection and Virus Protection for the Web�as well as many enhancements that improve security, management, and scalability.

Key features of this latest release include: 

  • Intrusion Protection
  • Virus Protection for the Web (HTTP traffic)
  • Transparent POP3 spam protection
  • Improvements to WebAdmin� for even greater ease of use and flexibility
  • Enhanced reporting, with pre-defined metrics and automated report generation
  • Support for symmetric multi-processing (SMP) systems and up to 4GB of memory
  • ISP-uplink failover and dynamic VPN support
  • Stateful failover functionality in High Availability installations

A detailed description of the new features is included in the package. Astaro Security Linux V5 is a free update to all customers with an active Up2Date service. 

For documentation, please see the documentation section of the Astaro web site:

For pricing information please contact: 

Related documents: 

Hardware Requirements (Hardware Calculator):

  • CPU: PII > 400MHz
  • RAM: 128 MB (256 recommended)
  • CDROM: IDE or SCSI (see HCL for supported SCSI controller)
  • Harddisk: > 5GB IDE or SCSI (see HCL for supported SCSI controller)
  • NIC: at least 2 PCI NICs (see HCL for support chipsets)

Interoperability and Migration

  • ASL V4 back-up files can be imported into V5.
  • The recommended way of upgrading from V4 to V5 is to (1) save a back-up file, (2) install V5, (3) re-import the back-up file, (4) perform a manual configuration. There will not be a V4-to-V5 migration kit, because of changes in the Linux kernel.
  • Moving from V4 to V5 will not have any impact on the use of the Astaro IPSec Client (AIC) or other IPSec VPN clients.
  • Astaro Configuration Manager (ACM) 5.3 can be used with Astaro Security Linux V5. However, initially it will configure only the features that have been available in ASL V4. Features that are new with ASL V5, including Intrusion Protection, need to be configured through WebAdmin. Later in the year ACM will be enhanced to support the new features in ASL V5. The ACM releases with enhancements will be announced on this bulletin board.

New! Use MyAstaro for Downloads and Licenses

Astaro downloads and licenses will now be handled through the new MyAstaro web site (https://my.astaro.com), which is replacing the Astaro Registration Portal. You can get to MyAstaro three ways:

  1. Go directly to https://my.astaro.com
  2. From the Astaro web site (www.Astaro.com or www.Astaro.de) click the link in the upper left of that says “Log in” or the tab in the upper right corner that says “MyAstaro”
  3. Click on any link on the Astaro Registration Portal

If you want an evaluation copy of Astaro Security Linux V5, go to MyAstaro and complete a short form to create a MyAstaro account. You will then be taken to a screen where you can request a V5 evaluation license and then download a free evaluation version of Astaro Security Linux.

If you are a returning Astaro customer or home user, you will be asked for the email address and password you used when you created your Registration Portal account. MyAstaro will take this information and create a MyAstaro account for you. If you have already registered licenses, you will see a list of those licenses when you log on. You can click any license name to see its properties. 

If you want to upgrade a V4 license that you registered to a V5 license and install V5: 

  1. Log onto MyAstaro and click on the link of the license you want to upgrade, you will be taken to a license detail page. 
  2. Press the button that says”Upgrade to a V5 license for free!” A download link will appear at the top of the license detail page. 
  3. Click on the link for the new license, then download and save the license file (the license file is in text format, so you can open it to see the features that are included in your license). 
  4. Download and install the Astaro Security Linux V5 software, go to the license page in WebAdmin, press the browse button, find and select the license file you downloaded in step #3, and press “Startï” to upload the license to WebAdmin.

If you want to upgrade a V4 license that was registered for you by an Astaro partner and install V5:

  1. Log onto MyAstaro. 
  2. Copy the license key from your V4 WebAdmin, paste it into the “V4 license key” box located at the bottom of the license list, and press the “Find license”- button, this will generate a license file for you. 
  3. Download and save the license file (the license file is in text format, so you can open it to see the features that are included in your license). 
  4. Download and install the Astaro Security Linux V5 software. 
  5. Go to the license page in WebAdmin, press the browse button, find and select the license file you downloaded in step #3, and press “Start” to upload the license to WebAdmin. 

Note that you can only do this once; after the license has been upgraded it will display only on the license list of the Astaro partner or other party who originally registered the license, and it will not appear on your license list.

If you have purchased a new license for Astaro Security Linux V5, then: 

  1. Obtain an Astaro Security Linux V5 activation key from your Astaro partner or Astaro sales person, 
  2. Sign onto MyAstaro, paste the activation key into the box that says “Enter activation key here” and click on the button – a new license will be added to your license list. 
  3. Click on the link for the new license, go to the license detail page, then download and save the license file (the license file is in text format, so you can open it to see the features that are included in your license). 
  4. Download and install the Astaro Security Linux V5 software. 
  5. Go to the license page in WebAdmin, press the browse button, find and select the license file you downloaded in step #3, and press “Start” to upload the license to WebAdmin. 

READ MORE

You Can Learn More About the Astaro Internet Security Product Line By Going to www.FirewallShop.com/Astaro.

The original article/video can be found at ASL V5 Release Candidate is Available

Leave a Reply