Does WSM work on ARM?

Paddleboat21 · March 12

Hi all, I have a Surface Pro 11 that I'm trying to get WSM 12.9.0 running on. It seems to work fine for most aspects, but the policy manager fails with a "failed to read servers response. Received fatal alert: handshake_failure." I've connected to the same Firebox with WSM on an x64 server OS and it works fine. I got the Mobile SSL VPN working on ARM, hopefully the WSM will work too!

PhilT_VIT · March 13

Granted my test ARM system is a Windows 11 on ARM in Azure, but just tried installing WSM 12.11.1 on it and it connects successfully, albeit a bit slower (probably because the system is in the US, and I'm in Australia).

Not sure what version of FirewareOS the Firebox you're connecting to has, but newer versions will connect to older ones (rule of thumb for me is to upgrade the WSM client before doing the Firebox).

james.carson · March 13

@Paddleboat21 At this current point in time, WSM is only designed to run for intel based windows systems.

You can see the compatibility matrix here in the release notes for 12.11.1:
(12.11.1 Release Notes)
https://www.watchguard.com/support/release-notes/fireware/12/en-US/EN_ReleaseNotes_Fireware_12_11_1/index.html#Fireware/en-US/os_compatibility.html

SSLVPN is not currently supported on ARM. We recommend customers use the OpenVPN client if the WatchGuard SSLVPN client does not work on their OS. Some customers have reported that installing the WatchGuard SSLVPN client without the TAP driver, and installing the OpenVPN TAP driver will allow the WatchGuard SSLVPN client to work on ARM.

Paddleboat21 · March 17

@james.carson said:
@Paddleboat21 At this current point in time, WSM is only designed to run for intel based windows systems.

I understand, thank you. That is a disappointment, since having a desktop OS with a tablet form factor is amazing. Could you open a feature request to get support for the architecture going forward?

SSLVPN is not currently supported on ARM. We recommend customers use the OpenVPN client if the WatchGuard SSLVPN client does not work on their OS. Some customers have reported that installing the WatchGuard SSLVPN client without the TAP driver, and installing the OpenVPN TAP driver will allow the WatchGuard SSLVPN client to work on ARM.

Understood on that point too! Here is a direct link to article 18306 which has all the details.

Paddleboat21 · March 17

@PhilT_VIT said:
Granted my test ARM system is a Windows 11 on ARM in Azure, but just tried installing WSM 12.11.1 on it and it connects successfully, albeit a bit slower (probably because the system is in the US, and I'm in Australia).

Thank you! I tried 12.9 as that's what I had on the old laptop, but 12.11 worked just fine. It was also a bit slow for me, and I'm close enough to throw water at the firewall, so maybe it is just the x64 application not handling the emulation well.

james.carson · March 17

@Paddleboat21 At this current point in time, the goal is to eventually deprecate WSM. We do not plan on bringing it to any new platforms.

Does WSM work on ARM?

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