Configure Resources in Hyper-V

To achieve the expected performance and scalability for your FireboxV virtual machine, we recommend that you configure the recommended resources for the licensed model.

FireboxV Model Minimum Total Memory Recommended Memory Maximum vCPUs
Micro 2048 MB* 4096 MB 2
Small 2048 MB* 4096 MB 2
Medium 4096 MB 4096 MB 4
Large 4096 MB 8192 MB 8
Extra Large 4096 MB 16384 MB 16

* 4096 MB memory is required to enable Access Portal and IntelligentAV, and to use the Full signature set for IPS/Application Control

You can also allocate additional network adapters, up to a total of 8, that correspond to interfaces 0–7 in the Fireware configuration.

Add Network Adapters

Before you ran the Web Setup Wizard to configure the FireboxV virtual machine, you added two virtual network adapters for the default external and trusted network interfaces. Before you can configure other network interfaces in the Fireware network configuration, you must add network adapters to the virtual machine.

You must add adapters to the FireboxV virtual machine before the adapters are configurable in Fireware Web UI or Policy Manager. For example, if you add only two virtual adapters to a FireboxV device, the Fireware Web UI shows only two configurable interfaces for that device.

All FireboxV models support a maximum of 10 interfaces, but, because you cannot use legacy network adapters with a FireboxV virtual machine, the practical limit for FireboxV in a Hyper-V environment is eight.

Hyper-V supports two types of virtual network adapters:

  • Network adapters (Hyper-V supports a maximum of eight)
  • Legacy network adapters (Hyper-V supports a maximum of four); Do not use legacy network adapters with FireboxV.

To configure Fireware on your FireboxV virtual machine, you added two virtual network adapters to it, for Eth0 and Eth1.

To add another network adapter, in Hyper-V Manager:

  1. In the Virtual Machines pane, select the FireboxV virtual machine.
  2. If the virtual machine state is not Off, right-click the virtual machine and select Turn Off.
  3. Right-click the virtual machine and select Settings.
  4. From the Hardware list, select Add Hardware.
  5. Select Network Adapter and click Add.
    Do not select Legacy Network Adapter. FireboxV do not support legacy network adapters.
  6. From the Virtual switch drop-down list, select the virtual network adapter and click Add. Click Apply.

To add another network adapter, repeat these steps. You can add a maximum of eight network adapters.

Add Virtual Processors

By default, a FireboxV virtual machine is allocated one virtual CPU. For optimal performance, configure the virtual machine to use the maximum number of CPUs your FireboxV model supports. You must do this while the virtual machine is not started. You can do this step before or after you run the Web Setup Wizard.

To add a virtual processor, in Hyper-V Manager:

  1. In the Virtual Machines pane, select the FireboxV virtual machine.
  2. If the virtual machine state is not Off, right-click the virtual machine and select Turn Off.
  3. From the Actions list, select Settings.
  4. From the Hardware list, select Processor.
  5. In the Number of virtual processors text box type or select the number of processors to allocate.
  6. Click Apply.

If you add more processors than your FireboxV model supports, FireboxV does not use the additional processors.

Configure Memory Resources

For optimal performance, configure the virtual machine to use the recommended memory resources for your FireboxV model. You configured the memory resources when you created the virtual machine.

To configure memory resources for an existing virtual machine:

  1. In the Virtual Machines pane, select the FireboxV virtual machine.
  2. If the virtual machine state is not Off, right-click the virtual machine and select Turn Off.
  3. Right-click the virtual machine and select Settings.
  4. From the Hardware list, select Memory.
  5. In the Startup RAM text box, type the memory size recommended for your FireboxV model.