Amaranten Firewall Changes from v8.40.01 to v8.40.04

Release date: 2004-10-06 [ISO]

Version 8.40.04 contains bug fixes to the Firewall Core and the Firewall Manager. This document outlines bug fixes as well as improvements for each component.

The upgrade procedures in this document refers to upgrades from earlier v8.0x installations.

·  New files installed by v8.40.04

·  How to upgrade earlier v8.0x firewalls to v8.40.04

·  HA upgrade procedure

·  Firewall Manager

[Changes]

[Bug Fixes] 

[Known Bugs / Problems]

·  Firewall Core

[Changes]

[Bug Fixes]

[Known Bugs / Problems]

·  Firewall Core - VPN specific  

[Changes] 

[Bug Fixes]

[Known Bugs / Problems]

·  Firewall Core - HA specific

[Changes]

[Bug Fixes]

[Known Bugs / Problems]

For future reference: This document is stored in the "Docs" sub-folder of your Firewall Manager install folder.

Change logs / release notes for earlier versions of Amaranten Firewall are available in the release notes section of www.Amaranten.com/support.

 

 

 Summary of changes and bug fixes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All changes and bug fixes affecting the standard firewall core also affect VPN and HA cores, unless explicitly stated otherwise.

Firewall Manager

  Bug fix: 

PPPoE interfaces could only assign IP/net information to automatically generated netobject names

  Bug fix: 

Could not configure DHCP option 43 as binary in DHCP server

Firewall Core

  Change: 

HighBuffers setting now dynamic by default

  Change: 

DHCP server: improved handling of default gateway in leases

  Bug fix: 

HTTP ALG stability (crash) problem fixed

  Bug fix: 

PPPoE would not reconnect on link loss

  Bug fix: 

Only the first interface could be used in initial setup via serial console

  Bug fix: 

DHCP client would not accept leases with no default gateway set

  Bug fix: 

HTTP ALG may erroneously reject some pages served using "chunked encoding"

  Bug fix: 

HTTP ALG syslog format did not adhere to standard Amaranten syslog format

Firewall Core - VPN specific

  Change: 

Workaround for Watchguard VPN client XAUTH interop problem

  Bug fix: 

AES, 3DES and DES ciphers would only work on accelerated crypto appliances

  Bug fix: 

Crash on config read with complex VPN network setups and keepalives enabled

Firewall Core - HA specific

  Known bug: 

No state synchronization for ALGs

 

 New files installed by v8.40.04

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a list of the files that are new to the v8.40.04 release. All paths are relative to your Firewall Manager install folder.

» 

Cores/fwc-8.40.04-full.cfx
This is the v8.40.04 full firewall core. Upload it to your existing firewall, or create new boot media with it. It contains VPN as well as HA functionality.

» 

Cores/fwc-8.40.04-novpn.cfx
This is a version of the v8.40.04 core without VPN support. It is roughly half the size of the full version.

» 

Cores/fwcoreup8.exe
This is the core used to remotely upgrade v7.0x and earlier firewalls. It will install a "8.00.02-full" core.

» 

Docs/Changes-8.40.01-to-8.40.04.html
This document.

» 

FWMgr8.exe
This is the v8.40.04 Firewall Manager. Earlier version 8 Firewall Managers will be overwritten. Version 7 Firewall Managers (if installed) will not be overwritten, as they are named "FWMgr7.exe", and are also typically installed in a different directory.

 

 How to upgrade earlier v8.0x firewalls to v8.40.04

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Upgrading a previous v8.0x firewall to v8.40.04 is completely straightforward.
Simply upload the new core, "fwc-8.40.04-full.cfx", to your firewall and restart it.
(Alternatively, upload the "-novpn" version if you do not wish VPN functionality.)

 

 HA upgrade procedure

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are no incompatibilities in the HA synchronization protocol between 8.40.04 HA cores and earlier v8.0x HA cores. No special procedures are required.

Simply upload the new firewall core file to the firewalls in your cluster and make sure that the first upload and restart is successful before uploading to the second firewall.

We recommend beginning with the firewall that is currently active, even though this will necessitate two failovers. The reason for this is that ALG sessions are not synchronized.

The "immediate availability" method

  • Upload the core to the currently active firewall ("firewall A") and restart it.
  • Issue a 'reconfigure' on the firewall B to rapidly fail back to the now upgraded firewall A. Make sure firewall A functions properly.
  • Upload the core to firewall B and restart it.
  • End result: Firewall A is now the active node, just as it was before the upgrade procedure.

Note that this leaves the second firewall untested, even though it most likely will work just as well as the first firewall. If you want to specifically test the second firewall, you can:
1) cause two failovers manually,   or
2) connect to it via e.g. the remote console just to make sure it's running,   or
3) if ALG synchronization is not a concern, follow this procedure:

The "long-term safe" procedure:

  • Upload the core to the currently inactive firewall ("firewall B") and restart it.
  • Issue a 'reconfigure' on firewall A. This causes failover to firewall B. Make sure firewall B functions properly.
  • Upload the core to firewall A and restart it.
  • Issue a 'reconfigure' on firewall B to fall back to firewall A. Make sure firewall A functions properly.
  • End result: Firewall A is now the active node, just as it was before the upgrade procedure.

Again, note that the "availability" issues only affect ALGs. All other states are, as usual, fully synchronized and not affected in either procedure.

 

 Firewall Manager Bug Fixes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PPPoE interfaces could only assign IP/net information to automatically generated netobject names

    Issue:

Configuration information received during run-time for interfaces capable of this (DHCP, PPPoE) has to be assigned to netobjects in order for the firewall to make use of them.

   

The names to which this information gets assigned may be either automatically computed (e.g. "ip_<ifname>", "<ifname>net"), or specified by the user.

   Problem:

Using automatically computed names would work. However, configuring manually specified names would not work - the changes were not properly written to the configuration.

   Results:

The firewall would keep using automatically computed names.

   Affects:

Affects FWMgr v8.30.00--.01 and v8.40.00--.01.

    Fixed:

Fixed in FWMgr v8.30.02 and v8.40.02.

 

Could not configure DHCP option 43 as binary in DHCP server

    Issue:

DHCP option 43 is "Vendor Specific" and should be treated as binary. The firewall manager, however, treated it as a string

   Problem:

For many vendor extensions, it could not be set to values required by those vendors.

   Affects:

Affects FWMgr v8.40.00--.01.

    Fixed:

Fixed in FWMgr v8.40.02.



 

 Firewall Core Changes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HighBuffers setting now dynamic by default

   Issue:

The HighBuffers setting previously defaulted to 1024 packet buffers. This is barely enough for high-end gateways with 8+ gigabit NICs; their RX rings alone consume 512 buffers at start-up.

  Change:

As of v8.40.02, the HighBuffers setting may be set to "dynamic" (this is also the new default), which means that 3% of available RAM is used for packet buffers. For a high-end gateway with 1GB RAM, this means over 10000 buffers. For smaller gateways, where 3% would mean fewer than 1024 buffers, the algorithm will simply pick 1024 as a resonable default.