v1.5.24 Bug Reports and Comments

[Stephen]

Latest WS Stable Release: v1.5.24


***NOTE:
WILL RESET PASSWORD BACK TO DEFAULT PASSWORD "admin" WHEN UPGRADING SO YOU MUST RESET PASSWORD AFTER UPGRADE IF UPGRADING FROM BELOW 1.5.17
(including 1.5.17rc2)


Personally we feel this is the most stable and best firmware since v1.4.8. (THIS IS CHRIS, I THINK BEST EVER)
We have been testing this intensely for weeks.


***NOTE:
Some people use a smart power strip that will reboot a switch if pings stop.
This upgrade process can take longer than normal due to a lot of house
keeping from the vast changes in code. So if the unit is power cycled
during the upgrade it is bricked. Make sure to disable this or increase
time missing pings till reboot 10 minutes or more.


***NOTE (Smart DC Switches):
On the original 1.5.17 release, it was noted that certain DC models could get bricked.
It appears that during firmware ugprade, sometimes it will also upgrade the firmware on the power supply which was being blocked by a failed semaphore init. This could easily have been corruption on download or possibly upload. But we have also added additional checks in an attempt to circumvent this issue should it appear again.
HOWEVER,
especially for smart DC models. We suggest you upgrade one that is easy for you to access in case anything goes wrong FIRST. Then continue
rollout if all goes well.




FIXED/CHANGED
- lighttpd upgraded - 1.5.17rc1
- Openssl upgraded - 1.5.17rc2
- Upgrade failure on very old WS models -1.5.17rc2
- Patched security holes to prevent hacking, however you should always use the Access Control List as good practice. - 1.5.17
- Removed PHP replaced with compiled binaries (approximately 60,000 lines of code needed re-written) - 1.5.17
- Greatly improved SFP compatibility and Stability where you saw SFPs not come up after upgrades and reboots - 1.5.17
- Fixed potential multi reboots due to certian configurations during warm boots and firmware upgrades - 1.5.17
- Fixed NTP - 1.5.17
- Fixed SNMP memory leak - 1.5.17
- Upgraded password hash (WILL RESET PASSWORD BACK TO DEFAULT "admin"
WHEN UPGRADING REQUIRES PASSWORD RESET AFTER UPGRADE IF PREVIOUS VERSION
IS BELOW 1.5.17) - 1.5.17
- Upgraded session hash algorithm - 1.5.17
- Fixed MAC table lookup and updated to latest vendor list - 1.5.17
- NTP scripts fixed - 1.5.18
- fixed special characters (aka !#@, etc) during login - 1.5.18
- checks added during boot for smart i2c supply BE CAUTIOUS WHEN UPGRADING SMART DC SWITCH'S (WS-12-250-DC, WS-8-150-DC, etc) - 1.5.18
- ssh login now only accepts correct password - 1.5.19
- VLAN's and other variable length conf items no longer limited - 1.5.20
- If greater than 30 VLAN they will now be applied correctly - 1.5.21
- Radius login fixed - NOTE, POSSIBLE SECURITY HOLE FOUND IN ORIGINAL IMPLEMENATION (pre-1.5.17) - 1.5.21
- Autobackup filenames fixed - 1.5.21
- DHCP fixed - 1.5.22
- web conf check command fixed - 1.5.22
- SMTP From Address now used when populated, otherwise defaults to switch ip - 1.5.22
- Ingress/Egress Throughput samples now account for delays lasting longer than a second, preventing weird spikes on port status - 1.5.22
- Memory corruption spikes on smart DC switch Input Voltage graphs looks fixed after 24 hour testing, please report if more are seen - 1.5.22
- NTP enable/disable will now trigger update immediately - 1.5.23
- SSH Key length extended to 1000 characters to accommodate common algorithms - 1.5.23
- WebUI Sessions can now expire, but will remain open with the webui - 1.5.23
- Multicast Configuration bug fix, this is potentially responsible for spontaneous issue's that have been reported with SFP's, PPPoE, OSPF, etc but due to testing complexity we cannot be certain, please let us know if you see any improvements if you have been experiencing these problems - 1.5.23
- SMTP will now handle from address more intuitively - 1.5.24
- NTP update bug causing failures on config changes and incorrectly triggering revert timer fixed - 1.5.24

ENHANCEMENTS
- UI works faster as it is binary verses PHP - 1.5.17

KNOWN ISSUES
- WEB UI issues when not at 100% Zoom on browser especially on VLAN TAB
- Some language templates need help

Released 12/20/2024

[KBrownConsulting]

Just a quick report on the SMTP fix:

Most importantly, I can confirm that the main issue is resolved. I am once again able to enter any email address into the "From Address" field and have the switch use that email address in the From header field of the email, as expected. Thanks for the quick fix!

One super minor issue to put on your list: If you leave the "From Address" field blank the switch allows you to save the config but then when you try to send a test email you get the following error:

ssmtp: No recipients supplied - mail will not be sent

That error is misleading as it's the "From Address", not the recipient that's missing. More importantly, I'm guessing leaving the From Address empty would result in emails not going out. Since it seems like you're treating the From Address as a required field I'd suggest handling it the same way you do the "Address" field. (Change box to red and prevent saving config if it's blank.)

[KBrownConsulting]

A few more email related bugs I've found:

1. Link Change alerts aren't being sent.
The log shows the switch is detecting the link change event taking place, but no email is ever sent. I tried disabling & enabling the "Link Change" email alert option and it didn't help. Honestly, I'm not sure if any of the other optional SMTP alerts are being sent because they are not as easy to trigger as a Link Change event so they should probably be checked as well! I can confirm that Watchdog alerts are being sent though. (See next item.)

2. Latitude & Longitude values are messed up in email subject
Here's an example of how the email subject is arriving:
Watchdog 'Port 1' failure checking 192.168.0.100, watchdog triggered on port 1 (Port 1), action is Bounce Link switch latitude: @zI, longitude: àsI - from Netonix Switch (192.168.0.25)

3. Email events in log don't reflect the new From Address fix.
Here's an example of how email events are showing up in the log:
Sent mail for admin@[smtp-host-domain] (221 2.0.0 [redacted] closing connection) uid=0 username=admin outbytes=773

I realize the "admin" in the log is probably coming from the account name used to log into the switch, but personally I'd find the above log entry more helpful if it showed the following values instead:

Sent mail for [smtp-from-address] (221 2.0.0 [redacted] closing connection) uid=0 username=[smtp-username] outbytes=773


With that said, #3 isn't going to impact my day but #1 is something I do use so hope it can be addressed.


I haven't done much additional testing (wanted to test and give feedback on the SMTP fix as soon as possible since I was one of the people who reported the bug) but I can say that the WS-8-150-AC I'm using to test v1.5.24 updated from v1.5.22 just fine.