SonicWall Gen7 Firewall Inaccessible/ Reboot Loop (Jan. 20, 2022)

[German]Currently, it seems like the SonicWall Gen7 Firewalls have been causing an issue since January 20, 2022. There are reports that access is no longer possible or the Gen7 firewall falls into a reboot loop. There is already a support post from SonicWall about this with a workaround. I'll pick it up here in the blog.

Currently, the firewalls of the manufacturer SonicWall seem to have problems in the latest generation Gen-7, as blog reader Stefan A. just told me by mail (thanks for that) and suggests to briefly pick it up here in the blog. On reddit.com there is this thread about it. 

Is Something going on right now?

Anyone else have any issues right now?

I just had 3 sonicwalls go down in somewhat different areas, all TZ370 or TZ470s at roughly the same time and none came back. One was in an HA cluster and the other took over. The ISP CPE seems okay at each location.

Edit – 2 more in the last hour.

Edit – 6 total now, going to be a fun morning.

Confirmed by other users. Another user provides the note: "Our Network Admin has told me this: disable zero touch and disable incremental update to idp, gav, and spy" to fix the issue.

Support article from SonicWall

Stefan also sent me the link to the SonicWall support post Gen7 Firewall Inaccessible/ Reboot Loop from 20th Jan 2022. There the manufacturer confirms the problem:

Description

If you have noticed the firewall has been stuck at a reboot loop starting from 9:30 PM EST ON 20 Jan 2022 onwards then implement the workaround that is listed below.

Step 1: Unplug the WAN connection (If you are unable to login to the firewall) 

Step2: Login to the firewall from the LAN

Step 3:  Navigate to The Diag page. This can be reached by typing in the LAN IP of the SonicWall in the browser, with a IP/sonicui/7/m/mgmt/settings/diag at the end.

  EXAMPLE: 192.168.168.168/sonicui/7/m/mgmt/settings/diag.

Step 4: Click on internal settings to access the internal settings page or diag page. Please search for the option " Enable Incremental updates to IDP,GAV and SPY signature databases "

DISABLE (Uncheck)  this setting and select ACCEPT ..It is important to select Accept for the setting to take effect. 

Step 5: Plug the WAN Connection and restart the firewall.

Step 6: Monitor the firewall if this addresses the issue else reach out to support for further assistance. 

So also the tip mentioned above. SonicWall 6th gen firewalls are probably not affected. Maybe it helps someone.