1999/11/4 ComOS 3.9b24 Open Beta Release Note for PortMaster 2, PortMaster 25, and PortMaster IRX ________________ Introduction The new Lucent Technologies ComOS(R) 3.9b24 software release is now available for open beta for the PortMaster(R) 2, PortMaster 25, and PortMaster IRX(TM). This open beta release is provided at no charge to all Lucent customers, but is recommended only for customers who wish to test the new functionality before the general availability (GA) release of ComOS 3.9. Command syntax for new commands might change between this open beta release and the general availability release of ComOS 3.9. This release note documents commands and features added between ComOS 3.9b10 and ComOS 3.9b24 on the PortMaster 2 series and IRX. This release note applies only to the PortMaster 2 series and IRX. Before upgrading, thoroughly read "Limitations" and "Upgrade Instructions." WARNING! The amount of nonvolatile RAM (NVRAM) available for saving configurations has been reduced from 128KB to 64KB. PortMaster products with configurations greater that 64KB will lose some of their configuration. For this reason, be sure to back up your PortMaster configuration before upgrading to this release. WARNING! The PortMaster must be running ComOS 3.5 or later to upgrade to ComOS 3.9b24. If you are running an earlier release of ComOS, upgrade to ComOS 3.5 first, reboot, then upgrade to ComOS 3.9b24. NOTE: Any PortMaster running ComOS 3.9b24 requires 4MB of dynamic RAM (DRAM). Use 16MB if you are running the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) on a PortMaster IRX. _______________ Contents Introduction New Features Bugs Fixed in ComOS 3.9b24 Limitations Upgrade Instructions Technical Support _______________ New Features This release includes two new features, which are explained in the following text : * RADIUS Authentication failover * RADIUS Accounting failover _______ RADIUS Authentication Failover This feature is supported for the PortMaster 2 series and IRX in ComOS 3.9b24. Authentication failover allows the PortMaster to dynamically switch primary and alternate RADIUS authentication servers according to their response. Use the following commands: set authentication interval Seconds set authentication failover on | off The first command sets the response interval. The PortMaster sends a RADIUS access-request packet every "interval" number of seconds. If no response is received from the primary RADIUS server after two tries, the PortMaster sends to both the primary and secondary authentication server for eight more tries, or until it receives a response. set authentication interval Seconds Seconds A value between 1 and 255. The number of seconds that must elapse between RADIUS access-request retransmissions if the PortMaster receives no response. The default is 3 seconds, and 0 resets the value to the default. If the primary server does not respond, failover occurs after two times the Seconds value. For example, if "set authentication interval 6" is used, failover occurs in 12 seconds. The second command enables the failover feature on the PortMaster 2. set authentication failover on | off on If the primary server fails to respond three times in a row, the PortMaster sends the packet to both the primary and secondary servers for the next seven retransmissions. If the secondary server replies before the primary server, the PortMaster switches the primary and secondary servers. Then on the next login attempt, the PortMaster tries the secondary server first. If the secondary server fails to respond three times in a row, the PortMaster sends the packet to both servers and designates the server that replies first as the new primary server. The active primary RADIUS server is marked with an asterisk (*) in the output of the "show global" command. off The PortMaster always tries the primary server first, same as the current behavior. This is the default. _______ RADIUS Accounting Settings This feature is new to the PortMaster 2 in ComOS 3.9b24. The PortMaster attempts to send each RADIUS accounting packet every "interval" seconds, and sends it the "count" number of times before giving up. If an acknowledgement is received from the RADIUS accounting server, the PortMaster no longer tries to resend the accounting packet. If no acknowledgment is sent from the primary server in response to the first packet, the PortMaster sends the packet to both the primary and secondary RADIUS accounting servers. set accounting count Number set accounting interval Seconds Number A decimal number between 1 and 99. The number of times the PortMaster sends a RADIUS accounting packet without acknowledgement from a RADIUS server. Seconds A decimal number between 1 and 255. The number of seconds that must elapse between RADIUS accounting packet retransmissions if not acknowledged by the accounting server. The default is 30 seconds. Use the "show global" command to view the Accounting Count and the Accounting Interval settings. Examples: Command> set accounting count 45 Accounting retry count changed from 23 to 45 Command> set accounting interval 60 Accounting retry interval changed from 30 to 60 sec _______________ Bugs Fixed in ComOS 3.9b24 * Ports now reset properly when an incoming call with an idle timeout of 5 minutes or greater exceeds the idle time. Previously, these ports suspended operation and remained in the DISCONNECTING state, requiring a PortMaster reboot to reset them to IDLE. In addition, if ISDN debug was enabled during this condition, the PortMaster would reboot. * The shortcut "sh mo" has been restored for the"show modem" command. * The Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) protocol no longer sends individual host advertisements for users currently dialed in that have already been advertised as part of the assigned address pool network. * The "set maximum pmconsole" command now takes effect immediately. Previously, active connections on port 1643 had to be reset before changes would take effect. * Output for the "set debug ?" command has been enhanced. * The command "set user protocol ppp" no longer deletes the Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) asynchronous map. * A RADIUS Login-User with the telnet login service no longer generates a Framed-User start record erroneously. * Accounting records for a RADIUS Administrative-User logging in to port S0 now show the correct service type. * Administrative logins logged to syslog no longer have the password sent in clear text. * The authentication packet sent for telnet logins now reports the correct user type to the access log. Previously, the authentication packet erroneously reported a user type of Outbound-User. * Startup and shutdown accounting packets are now resent like other accounting packets. * The "show session" command no longer returns garbage characters at the end of a 12-character location name. * If a RADIUS menu user fails over a telnet connection, an administrative user is now allowed to telnet in. Previously, the administrative user was rejected until the PortMaster was rebooted. * When routing is disabled on a WAN port, the port status now reflects this condition. * BGP summarization settings that are configured with the "set bgp summarization" command are now saved after you enter "save all" and "reset bgp." Previously, only settings configured with the "add bgp summarization" command were saved. * Subnets included as part of an OSPF area range are now advertised as internal OSPF routes. If not included as part of the range, they are advertised as OSPF/E2 or external routes. In previous releases, the PortMaster advertised subnets used for assigned address pools, but did not advertise subnets statically assigned to individual dial-up users. * OSPF configuration information is now saved during an upgrade from ComOS 3.7 to ComOS 3.9. _______________ Limitations * The Network Address Translator (NAT) translates only TCP, UDP and ICMP packets. Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) traffic is not translated. * Ports without an active ISDN Basic Rate Interface (BRI) connection might incorrectly show a status of IDLE rather than NO-SERVICE. This is a cosmetic discrepancy that does not affect port functionality. * Miscellaneous ISDN BRI problems are still being fixed. * The PortMaster must be running ComOS 3.5 or later to upgrade to ComOS 3.9b24. If you are running an earlier release of ComOS, upgrade to ComOS 3.5 first, reboot, then upgrade to ComOS 3.9b24. * You must NOT downgrade from ComOS 3.9b24 to any other ComOS 3.9 version without first disabling IPX and OSPF. To do so, enter the following commands: set ospf disable set ipx off save all reboot * Downgrading from ComOS 3.9b24 to ComOS 3.7.2 or earlier might change the Ether0 IP address. * You cannot use Inverse Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) on a Frame Relay interface with subinterfaces. The primary Frame Relay interface does not automatically map IP addresses to data link connection identifiers (DLCIs). When you enter a "show arp frm1" command, no ARP tables appear, and the PortMaster cannot ping across the Frame Relay cloud. * Inbound NAT maps are restricted to static address maps and/or static TCP/UDP port maps only. Outbound NAT maps do not have this limitation. * A ComOS online help file is not included in this release; therefore, the "help" command is not supported. _______________ Upgrade Instructions You can upgrade your PortMaster using PMVision 1.7 or later, or pmupgrade 4.3 or later from PMTools. Alternatively, you can upgrade using the older programs pminstall 3.5.3, PMconsole 3.5.3, or PMconsole for Windows 3.5.1.4. You can also upgrade using TFTP with the "tftp get comos" command from the PortMaster command line interface. See ftp://ftp.livingston.com/pub/le/software/java/pmvision17.txt for installation instructions for PMVision 1.7. *** CAUTION! If the upgrade fails, do NOT reboot! *** Contact Lucent NetCare technical support without rebooting. The upgrade process on the PortMaster erases the configuration area from nonvolatile memory and saves the current configuration into nonvolatile memory. Never interrupt the upgrade process, or loss of configuration information can result. WARNING! The amount of NVRAM available for saving configurations has been reduced from 128KB to 64KB. PortMaster products with configurations greater than 64KB will lose some of their configuration. For this reason, be sure to back up your PortMaster configuration before upgrading to this release. You can check the amount of memory used for your configuration with the "show files" command. Ignore any files that also include an uncompressed size. WARNING! The PortMaster must be running ComOS 3.5 or later to upgrade to ComOS 3.9b24. If you are running an earlier release of ComOS, upgrade to ComOS 3.5 first, reboot, then upgrade to ComOS 3.9b24. IMPORTANT: Any PortMaster running ComOS 3.9b24 requires 4MB of RAM. If you are running BGP on the IRX, 16MB of RAM is required. The installation software can be retrieved by FTP from ftp://ftp.livingston.com/pub/le/software/, and the upgrade image can be found at ftp://ftp.livingston.com/pub/le/upgrades: ComOS Upgrade Image Product _________ _____________ _____________________________________ 3.9b24 pm2_3.9b24-intl PortMaster 2 and 2E (international ISDN) 3.9b24 pm2_3.9b24-usa PortMaster 2 and 2E (USA ISDN) 3.9b24 pm25_3.9b24 PortMaster 25 3.9b24 irx_3.9b24 PortMaster IRX-111, -112, -114, -211 ________________________________________________________________________ Copyright and Trademarks Copyright 1999 Lucent Technologies. All rights reserved. PortMaster, ComOS, ChoiceNet, and NetCare are registered trademarks of Lucent Technologies. PMVision, IRX, and PortAuthority are trademarks of Lucent Technologies. PolicyFlow is a service mark of Lucent Technologies. All other marks are the property of their respective owners. Notices Lucent Technologies makes no representations or warranties with respect to the contents or use of this publication, and specifically disclaims any express or implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose. Further, Lucent Technologies reserves the right to revise this publication and to make changes to its content, any time, without obligation to notify any person or entity of such revisions or changes. Contacting Lucent NetCare Technical Support Lucent NetCare Professional Services provides PortMaster technical support via voice or electronic mail, or through the World Wide Web at http://www.livingston.com/. Specify that you are running ComOS 3.9b24 when reporting problems with this release. Internet service providers (ISPs) and other end users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, and Pakistan should contact their authorized Lucent sales channel partner for technical support; see http://www.livingston.com/International/EMEA/distributors.html. For North America, the Caribbean and Latin America (CALA), and Asia Pacific customers, technical support is available Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. U.S. Pacific Time (GMT -8). Dial 1-800-458-9966 within the United States (including Alaska and Hawaii), Canada, and CALA, or 1-925-737-2100 from elsewhere, for voice support. Otherwise, send email to support@livingston.com (asia-support@livingston.com for Asia Pacific customers).