Licensing for a PIX501

[rihennig]

I have a PIX 501 and I have a bunch general licensing questions about this device, and I don't have any prior experience with licensing on Cisco devices, so please be patient:

It comes with a basic license, but for any encryption related things, the product sheet says this:

The Cisco PIX 501 Security Appliance has two optional encryption licenses-one license (PIX-501-VPN-3DES) enables 168-bit 3DES and up to 256-bit AES encryption, the other license (PIX-VPN-DES) enables 56-bit DES encryption.

This device is end of sale, so I don't think you can buy a license for these things anymore, or can you? If a device is end of sale, can you either buy a license for the extra features, or does that functionality just open up for you? Or since it is end of sale, does that mean I can't buy the licenses, and if not, does that mean I can never use these extra features?

Since the item was used, it may be possible someone already installed a license (I need a power adapter for it still so I haven't been able to check). If this is the case, does the license ever expire? Can I use the license that is already there, if one exists? Also, how are licenses stored? If I do like a write erase, will the license be wiped out? How do I check for the existence of a license?

Let's say that the device does not have a license, will the software on the device just not recognize or show available the commands specific to the extra features that require a license? Or if I try a command for an extra feature, will it spit back an error telling me I need a license?

Thanks for your help!!

[rhermes]

You would do much better posting this question in the Firewall forum than here. The PIX guru's hang out over

there.

- Bob

[Jennifer Halim]

You are right.

PIX is already EOL, and you can't purchase anymore extra licenses. If you however already have the license installed, then you can continue to use it (there is no expiry for license that you already have on PIX firewall). You can still upgrade the encryption license for DES and/or 3DES via the following licensing page (as they are free upgrade):

https://tools.cisco.com/SWIFT/Licensing/PrivateRegistrationServlet?DemoKeys=Y

However, for any other license eg: unrestricted license that you would need to purchase, you won't be able to purchase it anymore for the PIX platform.

If you need extra feature license on the PIX, you won't be able to use the PIX anymore and would need to purchase and migrate to ASA firewall (which is the replacement of PIX firewall).

You can check the existing license via "show version". Licenses for PIX firewall is applied via the activation key. So if you need to write erase the PIX, pls keep a copy of the activation key (normally at the bottom of the "show version" output) so you can re-apply the license if needed.

And lastly, PIX will come with very basic license if no extra license has been applied, and it will work as per the datasheet for basic user license.

Hope that helps.