Which 515 upgrade is for me? 1

[clintruin]

Please excuse my newbie-ish-ness, but I've been "out of the loop" for a long time in the IT field... I've got a PIX 515 firewall here which was set up (barely) by the person in my position (always blame the guy before you)... basically, I went to Cisco's site to get the "latest" updates for my PIX. First question is: Is there a difference between upgrading your OS and upgrading your PDM? Second newbie question is: WHICH ONE?!?! I currently have v6.0(1) (PDM version is 1.0(1).... I see 6.01ED, 6.1.1ED, 6.1.4GD, and in particular, 6.1.5GD, 6.2.3ED, 6.3.2ED which all have the same exact date stamp. What's GD and ED? Should I stay within my main revision number? (ie: 6.0.x)

 

[baddos]

You should upgrade both if you want to upgrade at all. The PDM is the web GUI for controlling the PIX. The PDM needs to matched with the correct PIX OS, for the PDM to work properly.

The difference between GD (General Deployment) and ED (Early Deployment) is Cisco's way of specifing the MOST stable version of their code releases. Although if you read their security bulliteins that recommend you upgrading to ED versions. Generally I always use the last OS version for the firewalls, but use GD for the routers and switches. I don't want a vulnerability in my firewall if at all possible.