The public Beta of Astaro Security Gateway 8.300 has begun! During the next few weeks, you can test our upcoming release and try out new features early. 8.300 introduces BGP Routing, Amazon Machine Images (to run ASG in the Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud), an Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) connector, support for a new Wireless AP50 product, and the ability to create site-to-site VPN's between ASG installations using our RED tunnel technology. This and more is ready for you to see! Read on for the rest of the details and how you can participate in the beta of ASG 8.300
General Beta Information
Why Participate?
You get to see and play with things before they are Generally Available, and have a chance to shape features and functionality based on your comments and findings. We closely monitor all our Beta feedback, and over the years have worked hard to listen to our market in order to build products that people like you want to buy. By helping us, we gain insight as to how we are doing and have the chance to identify bugs, polish some features, and make corrections in hundreds of different installation scenarios which is extremely useful to our QA and testing efforts. In return, you get to see things early.
How to be a Beta tester:
No forms, no pesky emails or submission process with a bunch of information to provide -we know that's not fun. Just download the Beta ISO image via our forums (first version is 8.270), burn it to a CD and install it to your appliance or own box. Once you are using the 8.300 Beta, you can Up2Date and install the next Beta releases for 8.300 without needing to re-install. We will release a final Up2Date package at the end of the 8.300 Beta which will take your installation to the GA release of 8.300.
How you can contribute:
During the period of the Beta for 8.300 (which will run until approximately mid-December), we would encourage you to post your impressions, feedback, bug reports, and all the associated things you like (and don't like!) in our Beta forums.
Astaro Beta 8.300 Download Information:
For the first release of the Beta, version 8.270 is the version we'll start with. Future updates and releases will be communicated soley through the forums and not via this blog, so check there often for all the updates and news around V8.300. You will find many answers to early questions, test licenses, and general Beta information there.
Beta 8.300 ISO Download Links (V8.270):
ASG ISO for Software/Virtual appliances (Your own hardware):
Download: ftp://ftp.astaro.de/pub/ASG/v8/beta/asg-8.270-5.1.iso
SSI ISO for Astaro Hardware appliances (eg. an ASG 220):
Download: ftp://ftp.astaro.de/pub/ASG/v8/beta/ssi-8.270-5.1.iso
8.300 Beta Feature Overview
We might re-work or change features entirely, add new items, and delay things which don't meet our standards.
Major New Things
BGP4 Routing Support
ASG now has the ability to do Border Gateway Protocol Routing. You will find the configuration for this in the Interfaces & Routing section under BGP. A specialized routing protocol with specific applications, you should make use of this feature only if you know what you are doing.
Site-to-Site VPN using RED Protocol
We have added the ability to make tunnels between ASG devices using our much-heralded RED tunnel technology. This operates similarly to how site-site over SSL works;
1.) Login to the main site, go to the RED section, add a RED, and pick type “ASG”
2.) Download the provisioning file which is created
3.) Login to the remote site, go to the Client [Tunnel Management] tab in RED
4.) Add a tunnel, enter the hostname of the ASG and supply the provisioning file you downloaded.
5.) Presto, you'll have a tunnel!
*Note: this will NOT turn your remote ASG into a RED terminal. It will still have a GUI and work like a normal Site-Site VPN does.
*Note 2: We will likely move this feature into the VPN section in a future 8.3 Beta release.
Amazon Machine Images (AMI) for ASG (and ACC)
As mentioned in our early technical preview, you can now launch and run Astaro Security Gateway inside Amazon's Elastic Computing Cloud. Already we are seeing creative uses of this deployment method. Let us know how it works for you, and how you are (or plan) to use it for your business – we are always interested in use cases.
Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) connector
The Amazon VPC service allows you to host and run your server infrastructure in a secure, scalable cloud. The VPC connector gives you a permanent connection to your VPC resources right from ASG. The back end for this uses the BGP routing to redundant Amazon gateways, and is done automatically without you needing to know BGP or the Amazon technical parameters for doing it manually or with more complex products.
Support for Astaro Wireless AP50
We have a new AP50 product which will soon be available and some select users have gained access to early review units. If/when we have some more available we'll announce how you might get one, for now, if you do have one, you can post your feedback in the dedicated sub-forum. If you don't have one, you can't get one to test…yet.
Minor Adjustments
- You can now create Web Security Reports from Pre-8.2 Logs, see Support–>Advanced–>Weblog Import
- Saved Web Reports have been to school and now remember how info was sorted when you saved them
- The printable configuration engine has also been educated on how to properly display big blocks of text without going outside the lines and now looks much better
- You can now see and sort application rules by the groups you create
- Notifications have had “select-all” boxes added, saving you from having to click dozens of times to select what you want
- The Astaro Authentication Agent (AAA) has by popular request been made available as an MSI package as well as an EXE. You will find both on the Client Authentication section in WebAdmin. Enjoy those mass roll-outs!
Fixed Issues
We have spent a lot of time on stability fixes and enhancements. Here are some of the most prominent current ones:
[14019] SMTP relay attempts shown as webadmin logins
[14073] WAF: SSL support for multiple DNS names (subjectAlternativeName certificates)
[14186] WebAdmin last failed session count doesn't match executive report
[14782] UTF-8 characters in realname of imported keys are not displayed correctly
[14820] Virus uploads don't get blocked if XSS or SQL Injection filter (mod_security) is enabled
[15438] Sortable tables and Batch-Operation use same GUI element
[15440] Improve input validation for advanced bridge settings
[15654] Packets mislabeled as connections in reporting
[15972] Exceptions do not work for Cross Site Scripting, SQL-Injection or Cookie Signing
[16103] missing table header at NAT and SNAT/DNAT
[16153] Radius secret containing backtick character (`) doesn't work
[16255] Exception for Certificate Trust Check does not work in transparent mode
[16438] Self signed certificate in chain and an exception for all requests going to this category will not work for some banking sites
Enjoy the 8.300 Beta, we eagerly await your feedback.
Angelo Comazzetto
Astaro Product Manager
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 Astaro Security Gateway Public Beta 8.300