Firebox Hardware, Licensing, and Initial Setup
Hardware families
Know the four Firebox families: T-series tabletop appliances for branch offices and small sites, rack-mount M-series for headquarters and data centres (expansion slots, front LCD, redundant power on some models), FireboxV virtual appliances for VMware/Hyper-V/KVM, and Firebox Cloud for AWS/Azure. Hardware questions usually test placement and capability, not exact port counts.
Licensing
Licensing is driven by the device serial number and a feature key. Activate the device in the WatchGuard Portal (or WatchGuard Cloud) with the serial number, then load the feature key onto the Firebox through the setup wizard or System > Feature Key in the Web UI. Subscriptions and the model's licensed user counts are tied to that key.
Out-of-the-box defaults
- Eth0 = External, DHCP client
- Eth1 = Trusted, 10.0.1.1/24
- Web UI at https://10.0.1.1:8080
- No admin passphrase until the first-boot wizard sets one
Connect a laptop to Eth1 and run the Quick Setup Wizard to set the admin passphrase, time zone, external addressing and basic services.
Traps
Mixing up 443 and 8080 (8080 is the default Web UI port; the Mobile VPN with SSL listener defaults to 443). Assuming every port is Trusted. Believing an expired subscription stops traffic - the Firebox keeps forwarding, but the affected security services stop updating and enforcing.
Rule of thumb: activate in the portal before configuring - the feature key is what makes subscriptions appear in the UI.