Sophos Firewall MCP Server (sophos-firewall-mcp)

An asynchronous Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Sophos Firewall (SFOS), enabling AI assistants (such as Antigravity IDE, Claude Desktop, VS Code, and Cursor) to manage, audit, and troubleshoot Sophos Firewall network security infrastructure.

🌟 Key Features

• Async XML API Integration: Built on httpx.AsyncClient for high-throughput, non-blocking IO with Sophos SFOS XML API endpoints (/webconsole/APIController).

• 7 Comprehensive Tool Domains (28 Tools):

  • System & Status: System version, serial number, uptime, service operational state, and network interface configurations.

  • Firewall Rules: Security policies listing, creation, status toggling, and rule deletion.

  • Host & Network Objects: IP host definitions, network subnets, IP host groups, and FQDN objects.

  • Services: Custom TCP/UDP service objects, port ranges, and service groups.

  • NAT Rules: SNAT and DNAT port-forwarding rule inspection.

  • User Management: Local user account configuration and live user session monitoring.

  • VPN Management: IPsec site-to-site tunnels and SSL VPN remote access policies.

• FastMCP Resources: Read-only system state via URIs (sophos://system/info, sophos://interfaces, sophos://services/status).

• Guided Prompts: Contextual security audits (audit_firewall_rules) and traffic troubleshooting (troubleshoot_connectivity).

• Semantic Tool Router: FastEmbed text embedding router for intelligent tool selection (USE_ROUTER=true).

• Tier A+ Quality Score: 100% parameter descriptions, full ToolAnnotations safety metadata, and 100% test coverage.

🏆 Tool Definition Quality Score (TDQS)

This server is audited against the Tool Definition Quality Score (TDQS) framework to guarantee optimal function calling, type safety, and runtime safety for LLMs.

---------------- SCORECARD METRICS ----------------
Tools Evaluated              : 39
Behavioral Annotations      : 39 / 39 (100.0%)
100% Parameter Descriptions : 39 / 39 (100.0%)
Usage Guidelines (Docstrings): 39 / 39 (100.0%)
Overall TDQS Score           : 5.00 / 5.00
TDQS Quality Tier            : Tier A+
========================================================

• Behavioral Annotations (ToolAnnotations): 100% of tools specify readOnlyHint, destructiveHint, and idempotentHint metadata.

• Parameter Descriptions (Annotated[..., Field(...)]): Every parameter includes explicit typing and human-readable descriptions.

• Usage Guidelines: Standardized docstrings detailing exact trigger conditions ("Use when...").

⚙️ Sophos Firewall API Prerequisites

Before connecting sophos-firewall-mcp to your Sophos Firewall (SFOS) appliance, ensure the XML API is enabled and your client IP is whitelisted:

1. Log in to Web Admin Console: Open https://<SOPHOS_HOST>:4444 in your browser.

2. Enable API Access:

   • Navigate to System > Administration > API Access (or API Configuration).

   • Check the API Configuration toggle/checkbox to enable the API service.

3. Whitelist Client IP Address:

   • Under Allowed IP Addresses, click Add and specify the IP address of the machine or container host running sophos-firewall-mcp.

   • Note: Sophos Firewall rejects API requests from any IP address not explicitly added to this whitelist.

4. Administrator Account:

   • Ensure the configured user account (SOPHOS_USERNAME) has active administrator privileges.

🔧 Environment Variables

🛠 Client Integration

Add the configuration snippet matching your environment to your MCP settings file (e.g. .vscode/mcp.json or mcp_config.json in Antigravity IDE, Claude Desktop, or VS Code).

Option 1: Docker / Podman Drop-in Container Deployment

Podman is fully supported as a rootless drop-in replacement for Docker on Fedora/RHEL/Linux:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sophos-firewall": {
      "command": "podman",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "--pull=newer",
        "-e", "SOPHOS_HOST",
        "-e", "SOPHOS_PORT",
        "-e", "SOPHOS_USERNAME",
        "-e", "SOPHOS_PASSWORD",
        "-e", "SOPHOS_API_VERSION",
        "-e", "SOPHOS_VERIFY_SSL",
        "-e", "USE_ROUTER",
        "ghcr.io/jelmervdm/sophos-firewall-mcp:latest"
      ],
      "env": {
        "SOPHOS_HOST": "172.16.16.16",
        "SOPHOS_PORT": "4444",
        "SOPHOS_USERNAME": "admin",
        "SOPHOS_PASSWORD": "your_secure_password_here",
        "SOPHOS_API_VERSION": "2200.1",
        "SOPHOS_VERIFY_SSL": "false",
        "USE_ROUTER": "false"
      }
    }
  }
}

Tip for Docker vs Podman: Replace "command": "podman" with "command": "docker" if using standard Docker. Ensure -i is retained and never use -t (TTY mode), as TTY mode injects carriage returns (\r\n) that disrupt stdio JSON-RPC protocol parsing.

Option 2: Local Python Execution (without PyPI)

Via uv (Local Workspace Directory):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sophos-firewall": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "--directory",
        "/path/to/sophos-firewall-mcp",
        "run",
        "sophos-firewall-mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "SOPHOS_HOST": "172.16.16.16",
        "SOPHOS_PORT": "4444",
        "SOPHOS_USERNAME": "admin",
        "SOPHOS_PASSWORD": "your_secure_password_here",
        "SOPHOS_VERIFY_SSL": "false"
      }
    }
  }
}

Via python (Editable Install pip install -e .):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sophos-firewall": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["-m", "sophos_firewall_mcp.server"],
      "env": {
        "SOPHOS_HOST": "172.16.16.16",
        "SOPHOS_PORT": "4444",
        "SOPHOS_USERNAME": "admin",
        "SOPHOS_PASSWORD": "your_secure_password_here",
        "SOPHOS_VERIFY_SSL": "false"
      }
    }
  }
}

Via uvx directly from GitHub Repository:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sophos-firewall": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "--from",
        "git+https://github.com/jelmervdm/sophos-firewall-mcp.git",
        "sophos-firewall-mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "SOPHOS_HOST": "172.16.16.16",
        "SOPHOS_PORT": "4444",
        "SOPHOS_USERNAME": "admin",
        "SOPHOS_PASSWORD": "your_secure_password_here",
        "SOPHOS_VERIFY_SSL": "false"
      }
    }
  }
}

🧠 Semantic Tool Routing

When connecting sophos-firewall-mcp to AI models with constrained context windows, set USE_ROUTER=true (or TOOL_ROUTING=true).

When enabled:

1. The server exposes only 2 meta-tools: route_tools and call_routed_tool.

2. route_tools uses local CPU embeddings (fastembed with BAAI/bge-small-en-v1.5) to search for matching firewall tools in 5-10ms.

3. call_routed_tool dynamically invokes the matching tool with parameters.

Note on Router Dependencies: Semantic routing requires optional dependencies (fastembed and numpy).

• Container (Docker/Podman): Included automatically in official images (ghcr.io/jelmervdm/sophos-firewall-mcp:latest).

• Local Python (pip): Install with extras: pip install -e ".[router]" or pip install "sophos-firewall-mcp-server[router]".

• uv Workspace: Run uv sync --extra router.

• uvx directly from Git: Pass --with "fastembed>=0.4.0" --with "numpy>=1.26.0". If USE_ROUTER=true is set without installing fastembed, the server will log a warning and gracefully fall back to standard tool mode instead of failing initialization.

🧪 Testing & Quality Assurance

Run the comprehensive test suite, linting, mypy type checks, and TDQS audit:

# Evaluate Tool Definition Quality Score (TDQS)
uv run python scripts/check_tdqs.py

# Run pytest unit test suite (39 tests)
uv run pytest -v

# Code style and syntax linting
uv run flake8 src tests scripts

# Static type verification
uv run mypy src

📄 License

Distributed under the Apache 2.0 License. See LICENSE for details.