November, 2008

Known issue with Service Watch on Watchguard Core’s WSM

I encountered an problem in Watchguard System Manager with service watch. The connection’s graph works fine but the bandwith graph does not. Watchguard has confirmed this is a known issue to be resolved in a future release.

Update on Fortigate issue

So I posted a couple days ago about a problem with Fortigate causing traffic to be dropped. Fortigate support has been entirely unhelpful on this suggesting that perhaps it was a DNS issue or a HTTP profile issue. They tell me this after I explan that when I tracert the IP address the packets drop. Maybe this makes sense to them but how can tracert (ICMP) by IP address be either a DNS or HTTP issue? So we are “resolving” the issue be replacing the Fortigate. Congrats Fortigate on your excellent business model  of having unexplainable problems with your product and  hiring idiot’s in your tech support. Mazel Tov!

Dropped packets from behind Fortigate

So usually I am on here posting solutions but today I am going to post a problem because I am having trouble finding a solution.

Here is the situation, a network protected by a Fortigate 100A firewall, they can’t reach a website. A tracert to the website shows that the packets are being dropped by a router owned by the local telco. Here is the twist, when we bypass the Fortigate it works fine. Now local telco claims it isn’t there problem (it never is of course, it’s only there router dropping the traffic) and Fortigate claims it’s not there issue (why would it be except of course the issue only occurs when we use their product) and so I have accepted I wil get help from neither of these  … uhm guys. So any suggestions are welcome here.

SSO agent update for Watchguards

So a couple days after I complain about Watchguard having a broken SSO agent they release an update! Perhaps they read my blog? In any case before all they had was an agent which gets installed on a server, now they have both an agent and client. The client runs in the background and facilitates the passing of credentials. I will implement this in the next few days and report on how it goes.

Hallmark Virus

Please be aware of this new virus. It comes in the form of an email message with a hallmark e-card.

 http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/pos…

Computer virus quarantines London Hospital for second day

nbsp;http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/19/…

Three hospitals have been effected by this and do you know who is sufferring here? The patients, not to mention the staff who are likely running themselves ragged trying to keep up with this. People with potentially life threatening conditions may not be getting the attention they need because of some angst filled teen with too much time on his hands and parents that are no where to be seen. Even if the hospital itself wasn’t targetted it is still being affected. I hope they catch this kid and charge him with X number of counts of attempted murder. It’s no less than they deserve for such reckless action.

SSO agent known issue for Watchguard firewalls

After troubleshooting an issue with the SSO agent causing internet disconnections for users I have discovered from Watchguard tech support that this is a known issue. It will be fixed in the next update. There are no workarounds in place other than disabling the SSO agent.

Xbox360 freezing after update

Like many in the IT industry I enjoy ending a long day of working with technology by occasionally playing with technology. Over the weekend I decided to sit down and play some Fable 2 when I was immediately notified that there was a new update from MS. After installing the update I continued to load up Fable 2 only to have my 360 freeze. Rebooting and trying again caused another freeze. I tried some other games and had the same issue. So I called Xbox support to have them inform me that this is a known issue and they were dealing with it and to call back tomorrow if it wasn’t resolved.

The next day I tried again and had the same issue, so I called back to Xbox support where I was informed that apparently this wasn’t a known issue. After some troubleshooting with the tech I was informed that the issue was the HDD and I should try formatting it and if that doesn’t work to replace it. I found this odd that the issue began right after an update.

While I had been talking to the tech I had started a download for the Mirror’s Edge demo and it had completed right after I got off the phone. I figured why not give it a shot. Demo came up fine and I was able to play through it with no issue.  Out of curiosity I figured I would load up Fable 2 again and this time it worked fine, as did all my other games. So apparently the Mirror’s Edge demo is capable of fixing a defective HDD issue which is both a known/non-known issue that occurs coincidentally after the latest Xbox update. Brilliant.

There is no Citrix XenApp server configured on the specified address

I am not by any means a guru with Citrix Xen App so as this was passed onto me, hopefully it will help some of you. I set up Citrix with Web interface. The web interface worked internally but not externally (using a NAT rule on the firewall). They get the log in screen and can see the app’s but opening any yields the error message “There is no Citrix XenApp server configured on the specified address.

Two step process to fix this. The first is using the altaddr command.

Syntax is “altaddr /server: *citrix server name* /set  *internal ip*   *external ip*

From there all you have to do is go into the citrix access management console, and configure the client access managment section. Go into the DMZ settings and change the default connection to “Alternate” and add each direct connection needed.

WPA has been cracked!

nbsp;http://www.itworld.com/security/57285/on…

Read this article,  this is pretty bad. Despite many of my vociferous objections about implementing wireless on your trusted network, many of my client’s are doing just that. Everyone loves the convienance of wireless tech but we always must remember that this is a security hole. Sure you can implement a ton of encryption to cover the hole but the hole is still there.