FIRMWARE CHANGE HISTORY ----------------------- IBM RackSwitch G8264T Version 7.8.1.0 (Released December 2013) New and Updated Features: ------------------------- Decoupling active VLANs from MSTP configuration: ------------------------------------------------ This feature enables the decoupling of the VLAN(s) configuration from MSTP configuration and changes the MSTP configuration menu to a more simplified one. By doing so, specifying a mapping between VLAN(s) and MSTI will not create any VLAN(s) and the participation of the VLAN(s) in MSTP will not depend on the VLAN(s) creation. NIST SP 800-131A Compliance: ---------------------------- Added a mode of operation that forces the device to operate and secure network operations in a manner that is fully compliant to the NIST SP 800-131A security standard. Removed support for obsolete cryptographic algorithms DES and MD5, as well as protocols like SSLv3, even in the non-compliant mode. Use SHA-256 as default: ----------------------- Set SHA-256 as the default and preferred hashing algorithm for all secured network operations where applicable. This includes TLS certificates and cipher suites with HMAC SHA-256 in TLS. Security Enhancements: ---------------------- Updated default protocols used for configuration to be secure. Devices will use secure protocols by default for configuration; for example: SSH, HTTPS, and SNMPv3. Insecure protocols are disabled by default for configuration; for example: Telnet, HTTP, and SNMPv1/v2. Also added a default user whose password must be changed after initial login. Remove Switch Type from login display: -------------------------------------- Removed Switch Type from login display. ACL6 Metering: -------------- Added metering support for IPv6 ACLs similar to the IPv4 ACLs. Increase Local Users: --------------------- Added support for up to 20 local user accounts with different privilege levels. QoS Monitoring: --------------- This feature enhances the QoS statistics by presenting the COS statistics per port and per COS queue used. BGP DSCP Marking: ----------------- This feature allows users to configure the DSCP value to be used in the IP header of the outgoing BGP packets. CPU-MIB - Improved Process and CPU monitoring (local switch info only): ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Added SNMP MIBs to read System wide and per-thread CPU utilization information of the switch. BGP Multihop TTL Security: -------------------------- This feature ensures a protection mechanism for BGP peering sessions against CPU utilization based attacks by validating the TTL in the incoming BGP packet. LLDP MIB: --------- This feature supports LLDP MIB per IEEE 802.ab standard. LLDP vendor information display: -------------------------------- In prior releases, LLDP is disabled by default. This feature enables LLDP by default, and disables optional TLVs, corrects the vendor information and adds three new commands that show more detailed LLDP information. Fixes: - A Security vulnerability existed in the TLS protocol versions TLS1.0 and earlier, in that an attacker could potentially discover the TLS session key. Added a configurable CLI option to restrict the minimum allowable protocol version of TLS, from TLS1.0 through TLS1.2. This is so that the user can avoid this vulnerability described in CVE-2011-3389, by selecting a higher protocol version that is not vulnerable to attack (TLS1.1 and above) ======================================================================================== IBM Rackswitch G8264T Firmware version 7.7.5.0 (Released August 2013) ** Changes since the 7.7.3.0 release ** Enhancements: None Changes: - Dynamic link aggregation (LACP) ports that are not able to converge with peer ports will now result in a link-down state. This will occur when ports configured as members of an LACP trunk are connected to non-LACP ports. This is expected behavior. When connecting different IBMNOS products using LACP ports, it is recommended to install complimentary firmware versions (e.g., 7.7.5) on each device to ensure matching LACP behavior. Fixes: - Inefficiencies in the SNMP-processing code could result in high CPU utilization, SNMP client time-outs, protocol flaps, or a switch reset by the Hardware Watchdog. (66769, 70649) - User-configured ACL Deny rules were not being respected for packets with a Layer-4 (TCP) port of 22 or 23 (i.e., SSH and Telnet, respectively). (69126 / XB202484) - A prolonged period of high CPU utilization can lead to protocol-thread starvation. In one such case, LACP PDUs were not being sent by the CPU, leading to the break down of the LACP trunk forming the ISL in a vLAG topology. The ISL trunk ports that had previously been in the STP Discarding state would then errantly go into the Forwarding state, resulting in flooding of STP BPDUs into the network, and the inevitable network loop. (70887) - A hang of the Switch's I2C bus could occur, leading to a reset of the Switch by the hardware watchdog. (71721) - The SNMP dot1qVlanCurrentEntry OID was not being populated, resulting in SNMP Walks being stuck indefinitely at that point. (71785) - Disabling LACP (from the peer device) on a member port of an LACP trunk that also has STP disabled would result in the port being errantly displayed as FORWARDING in the output of the "show spanning-tree stp" command (and via the BBI), when in fact the port would be in the BLOCKING state (as designed). (71805, 71822) - Deleting the LACP key (from the peer device) on a member port of an LACP trunk that also has STP disabled would result in the port errantly going into the FORWARDING state. (71841) - With STP in PVRST mode and with a high active-port/STG product, a memory leak could occur while processing BPDUs (this was demonstrable with 47 ports active and more than 127 STGs configured per port). Over time, the memory leak could lead to a reset of the switch by the Memory Monitor. (71844) - A crash would occur when issuing the "show ufp info vport" command without explicitly specifying a vport number. (71951) - A watchdog timeout could occur if an IGMPv3 Report packet was received with the invalid source-IP address of 0.0.0.0. (71749) - Attempting to set port speed via the CMM would fail. (XB171317) - If the CMMs had "Failover on Physical Network Link" enabled (default), and the network link of the Active CMM went down, ports INTB1 and INTB2 could get disabled when the Standby CMM became active. (XB172285) - An IP address could not simultaneously be configured as a global DHCP server address, and a broadcast-domain DHCP server address. (XB172381) - A crash would occur while handling an SNMP “Get” Request for the Object that contains UFP information pertaining the switch (OID 1.0.8802.1.1.2.1.4.1.1.12.2700.65.4). (XB194463, XB202919) - A crash could occur if an FCoE-related CLI command was issued while the external management port was being flooded with packets. (XB199890) - If in Stacking mode, the switch would no longer receive time-sync updates from NTP servers over IPv6 interfaces after a CMM failover. (XB200147) - NTPv3 authentication information was being added to outgoing NTP Client Requests, even when authentication was disabled on the Switch. The consequence was that NTP servers that do not support authentication would discard the requests (i.e,, not respond to the Client Requests). (XB204541) - A crash could occur while handling an HTTPS request if the connection to the client was suddenly terminated while handling the transaction. (XB205895) - If the switch's Hostname was used to access the switch via BBI (i.e., relying on DNS instead of inputting the raw IP address), attempting to perform an image upgrade would result in redirection to a blank page. (XB206876) ======================================================================================== IBM Rackswitch G8264T Firmware version 7.7.3.0 (Released, June 2013) Enhancements: Enhanced Password security -------------------------- This feature provides stronger login enforcements for userIDs and password by forcing the local user passwords to be case sensitive, 8-64 character mix of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters, including at least one of each. DHCP Option 7 and option 12 --------------------------- These features enhance the DHCP client support on the switch to support Option 12 which defines the configuration of hostname and Option 7 which is used to get the syslog server address from DHCP server. Duplicate IP Detection ---------------------- The switch uses a simple mechanism to detect if two hosts on the same subnetwork are using the same IPv4 address at the same time. The switch sends a gratuitous ARP request for its own IP address. If it receives an ARP response, it sends a syslog message with the IP address and MAC address of the host that is using its IP address. BGP multipath relax ------------------- This functionality allows load balancing across different autonomous system paths that have equal AS path length. vLAG+PIM Dense Mode ------------------- Enable the PIM protocol over the vLAG topology in dense mode for efficient multicast forwarding. BGP Debug --------- This feature will allow administrator to turn on log for BGP update message sent/received from/to a particular neighbor. Fixes: - A Security vulnerability existed in the OSPFv2 Routing Protocol that is used in IBM System Networking Ethernet Switches (CVE-2013-0149). - A Security vulnerability existed in IBM Switches which support Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), in that data frames were being flooded out of every port if the destination address was not in the MAC table. (CVE-2013-0570). =================================================================================== IBM Rackswitch G8264T Firmware version 7.6.3.20 (released October 2013) ** Changes since the 7.6.3.10 release ** Enhancements: None. Changes: None. Fixes: - Inefficiencies in the SNMP-processing code could result in high CPU utilization, SNMP client time-outs, protocol flaps, or a switch reset by the Hardware Watchdog. (66769, 70649) - A crash would occur when routing packets to an unreachable IPv6 gateway. (68081) - A watchdog timeout could occur if an IGMPv3 Report packet was received with the invalid source-IP address of 0.0.0.0. (71749) - BGP neighborship sessions would flap when receiving BGP route messages that contained community attributes (XB194426) - A crash could occur while handling an HTTPS request if the connection to the client was suddenly terminated while handling the transaction. (XB205895) - The ACL logging feature would not report incoming packets that matched an ACL qualified by a TCP or UDP destination port. (XB208108) - A crash would occur if a data port was used to upload a file to an FTP server, if the file already existed on the server and had read-only access permissions. (XB209257) - A crash would occur if the traceroute command was executed with an IPv6 address specified, and no IPv6 management interfaces were configured. (XB215717) - A crash would occur if a ping was issued to a random host name, and an IPv6 DNS server was unreachable or non-existent (XB216882) - A crash would occur during a second attempt to authenticate a user via an unreachable or non-existent LDAP server. (XB217674) - A crash would occur if a TFTP upload or download was attempted, and no IPv6 interfaces were configured. (XB218041) - The switch's Browser-based Interface (BBI) was vulnerable to attacks by Web scanning tools, potentially resulting in crashes. (XB218795) - A crash would occur when receiving a random sequence of IGMPv3 reports that were interleaved from different Multicast receivers. (XB219263) - Invalid TCP packets (e.g., having both SYN and FIN flags set) received by the switch would not be discarded, resulting in a potential security vulnerability. (XB220985) =================================================================================== IBM Rackswitch G8264T Firmware version 7.6.3.10 (released July 2013) ** Changes since the 7.6.3.0 release ** Enhancements: None. Changes: None. Fixes: - A Security vulnerability existed in the OSPFv2 Routing Protocol that is used in IBM System Networking Ethernet Switches (CVE-2013-0149) - A Security vulnerability existed in IBM Switches which support Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), in that data frames were being flooded out of every port if the destination address was not in the MAC table. (CVE-2013-0570) =================================================================================== IBM Rackswitch G8264T Firmware version 7.6.3.0 (released May 2013) ** Changes since the 7.6.2.0 release ** Enhancements: None. Changes: None. Fixes: - Random discards of transmitted frames could occur when sending frames of varying odd-numbered lengths, starting at 6749 bytes. (69933) =================================================================================== IBM Rackswitch G8264T Firmware version 7.6.2.0 (released January 2013) ** Changes since the 7.6.1.0 release ** Enhancements: None. Changes: - Added support for China-certified power supplies 94Y8070 (front-to-rear fan direction), and 94Y8088 (rear-to-front fan direction). (67088) Fixes: None. =================================================================================== Rackswith G8264-T Firmware version 7.6.1.0 (released December 2012) New and Updated Features ======================== BGP Route Reflection: --------------------- Route Reflection is a technique to avoid a large number of sessions between IBGP peers. In this release, support for RFC4456 (BGP Route Reflection - An Alternative to Full Mesh Internal BGP (IBGP)) has been added. SNMP: Support for 8 Read-Only and Read-Write communities: --------------------------------------------------------- This release adds support for 8 read-community names(Read-Only), and 8 write-community names(Read-Write) with SNMPv1 and SNMPv2. RFC5340: OSPF For IPv6: ----------------------- The switch was previously compliant with RFC2740. Starting with this release, the switch is compliant with RFC5340, which supersedes RFC2740. VLAG and PIM Support: --------------------- Previous releases supported IP Multicast routing through the PIM protocol. Also previously supported was the VLAG (Virtual Link Aggregation) protocol. This release adds support for PIM over a vLAG topology, so that the most efficient multicast routing can be achieved in a vLAG topology. NTP Client Display Improvements: --------------------------------- The Network Time Protocol (NTP) is widely used to synchronize computer clocks in the Internet. With the NTP service enabled, the switch can accurately update its internal clock to be consistent with other devices on the network. In this release, the "show ntp" command has been updated with such details as clock offset, stratum, and reference clock. Also in this release is a dampening of the number of syslog messages generated when the system clock is updated or if NTP synchronization fails. Cisco-like CLI: --------------- As part of this change, some existing ISCLI commands have been modified to look more like those in Cisco's IOS. The commands chosen for modification in this release are ones frequently used for VLAN, Port, and STP configuration. With these changes, those familiar with Cisco-IOS CLI can more readily configure the IBM-NOS VLAN, Port, and STP modules. Support for 4K VLANS: --------------------- Increased the scalability of VLANS from 2K to 4K Openflow support: ---------------- Openflow support has been added. debug enhancement ----------------- Added debug commands to provide more detail than shown in current counters. New commands will be added for LACP packets and spanning tree BPDU packets Diff flash in iCLI ------------------ Provided a command in ISCLI to display the differences between the running configuration and the saved configuration. This functionality is currently available in IBMNOSCLI and should now be added to the ISCLI. VMReady Distributed vswitch Support: ------------------------------------ VMReady distributed vswitch support is added and also support for vSphere 5.0 Syslog Enhancement: ------------------- Support for different configurable severity levels for Syslog on IBM switches. SNMP Trap for Power Failure: ---------------------------- Support SNMP trap generation on power failure. Host Resources MIB(RFC-1514) ---------------------------- Provided support for standards based HOST-RESOURCES-MIB defined in RFC 2790 allowing the switches to be managed by standard objectIDs. Host resources mib defines a uniform set of objects to manage host devices that are independent of the vendor, software or network capabilities. Implementation of the system and interface groups is mandatory Next Hop Self ------------- BGP next hop self feature supported with set the IP address for the next hop and override the default behavior used to select next hop Precision time Protocol ----------------------- Provided support for hardware assisted PTP synchronization to improve the time accuracy between systems in the network. PTP keeps system time of nodes in a network closely synchronized. Its accuracy is s ub-microsecond compared to the millisecond accuracy provided with NTP. The improved accuracy between systems is needed in networks with low latency and increased virtualization networks. SNMP and BBI Support for OSPFv3 and MLDv2 ----------------------------------------- IPSec feature was provided in 6.7 release but only in command line interfaces. This release addded configuration and monitoring support for MLDv2 via the BBI and SNMP interfaces. Terminal-length 0 persistent ---------------------------- Provided Cisco-like commands for configuring the terminal length for CLI sessions. The commands saved in the flash for persistency across resets. Runtime option to change the terminal length for the current session without affecting the saved configuration. vLAG scaling ------------ Increased the number of vLAG groups to 50. VMCheck: -------------------- The switch primarily identifies virtual machines by their MAC addresses. An untrusted server or a VM could identify itself by a trusted MAC address leading to MAC spoofing attacks. Sometimes, MAC addresses get transferred to another VM, or they get duplicated. The VMcheck solution addresses these security concerns by validating the MAC addresses assigned to VMs. The switch periodically sends hello messages on server ports. These messages include the switch identifier and port number. The hypervisor listens to these messages on physical NICs and stores the information, which can be retrieved using the VMware Infrastructure Application Programming Interface (VI API). This information is used to validate VM.