--------------------------- LANtronix --------------------------- ETS/EPS --------------------------- Terminal and Printer Server --------------------------- Software Release Notes --------------------------- Version V3.6/4 July 12, 2000 Copyright 2000, Lantronix Release notes are also available via the Lantronix web site (www.lantronix.com) and via anonymous FTP from ftp.lantronix.com. Contact Lantronix or your reseller for more information. This document describes the Lantronix Terminal/Printer/Serial Server V3.6/4 software release. Release Summary =============== These release notes will document new features added and problems corrected since the V3.6/3 software release. Supported Platforms ------------------- V3.6/4 provides traditional terminal and print server functionality, including the TCP/IP, Novell, Appletalk, Lan Manager and LAT protocols on the ETS4P, ETS8P/16P and the ETS16PR/32PR/422PR platforms. Appletalk, Lan Manager and Novell support is limited to print serving. V3.6/4 provides print server functionality, including the TCP/IP, Novell, Appletalk, Lan Manager and LAT protocols on the EPS2-100, EPS4-100, EPS2P2, EPS4P1, EPS1/2 and MPS100 platforms. Note that these units are print servers. They will not allow outgoing connections to hosts. V3.6/4 provides print server functionality, including the TCP/IP, Novell, Lan Manager and LAT protocols on the LPS1 platform. Note that the LPS1 is a print server. It will not allow outgoing connections to hosts. V3.6/4 provides terminal server functionality, including TCP/IP, Novell and LAT protocols on the MSS1, MSS100, MSS1-T2, MSS485 and MSS-VIA platforms. V3.6/4 provides terminal server functionality, including the TCP/IP protocol on the MSSLite and MSSLiteX platforms. New Features ============ The following is a list of new features in V3.6/4. Software Development Kit ------------------------ A Software Development Kit environment (SDK) has been added to the MSS100, MSS-VIA and MSSLiteX. This environment allows Lantronix customers to create their own custom applications that will run on these products. Please contact sales@lantronx.com or see http://sdk.lantronix.com for more details. MSS-VIA PCcard Support ---------------------- Support for the Farallon Skyline wireless ethernet card has been added to the MSS-VIA. Support for the Breezecom SA-PCR wireless ethernet card has been added to the MSS-VIA. Note that when using a BreezeCom PCR 3Mb 802.11 card, do not set the ESSID to NONE. This BreezeCom card does not support scanning for any ESSID. The ESSID must be manually changed to the same value used by the Access Point using the "CHANGE 80211 ESSID xxx" command. MSS Encrypted Session Support ----------------------------- Support has been added for encrypted connections with the MSS family of products. Connections can be made from MSS to MSS or from a Win32 PC to the MSS. Win32 connections are established using a Lantronix supplied Telnet application or from customer applications using a Lantronix supplied encryption library. For specific details about the encryption algorithms please contact Lantronix product marketing. MSS to MSS Connections ---------------------- To configure a MSS to MSS encrypted session both serial servers must use the same encryption password. On both units, use the command: CRYPT PASSWORD "xxxxxxx" Note that the password can be up to 7 alphanumeric characters and is case sensitive. After entering the encryption password, the units must be rebooted. Once the encryption password has been configured and the units have been rebooted, encrypted sessions either to the unit's local prompt or to the serial port can be established by using the command: Local_1> TELNET n.n.n.n:2100Y (incoming telnet session "local" prompt) Local_1> TELNET n.n.n.n:2101Y (direct to the serial port) The "Y" option appended to the socket number specifies that the connection should be encrypted. Dedicated connections can be setup using the destination string: Local_1> CHANGE DEDICATED TELNET n.n.n.n:2101Y Win32 Encrypted Logins ---------------------- For Win32 to MSS encrypted logins Lantronix provides the tcpscram.exe utility program. This program allows a user on a Win32 platform to form an encrypted connection to a MSS. The target MSS must be configured with the encryption password. Use the command: CRYPT PASSWORD "xxxxxxx" Note that the password can be up to 7 alphanumeric characters and is case sensitive. After entering the encryption password, the unit must be rebooted. To create a connection run the program tcpscram.exe. In the fields provided specify the hostname of a MSS, the socket number to be used for the connection, i.e. 2100 for the local prompt or 2101 for a direct connection to the serial port, and the encryption password. Note that the password specified in the application must match the password (case sensitive) configured on the MSS itself. The tcpscram program will then form a connection to the MSS and all data passed between the PC and the MSS will be encrypted. The tcpscram.exe file is available on the Lantronix FTP server. Win32 Encrypted Socket Connections ---------------------------------- Lantronix also supplies a Win32 DLL so that Windows based application programs can create encrypted raw TCP socket connections to a MSS. The files necessary for this support can be found on the Lantronix FTP server in the file ./priv/misc_tools/crypt_dll.zip. Please see the README contained in the zip file for more information. Miscellaneous New Features -------------------------- Telnet support has been modified to convert a in the network data stream into a single when transmitted out a serial port. This should allow telnet implementations that send when the user presses just to work correctly when connected to remote device console ports. UDP connections are now enabled for the ETS4/8/16P and ETS16/32PR terminal servers. The ability to see the depth of UDP packet queues has been added to the netstat command. Resolved Problems ================= These problems have been corrected since the V3.6/3 software release. Miscellaneous ------------- The default retransmit limit has been changed from 50 to 25 to allow failed WAN links to be detected sooner. Under certain conditions trying to send an HTML page to a browser that is no longer accepting data would prevent the internal HTTP server from running. In modem mode, allow the "+" character to start modem emulation. Modem mode has been updated so that ATI returns the MSS version string, ATS0? returns the contents of the S0 register and ATV will be correctly interpreted as ATV0. In modem mode allow and ignore the command "ATXy". On the ETS32PR, configuring serial ports via the HTML pages could cause memory corruption and server crashes. On the EPSn-100 units if serial characters were received on the console port while the unit booted, the serial port would not operate correctly. On MSSLite units, serial data handling has been enhanced to keep data consistantly flowing out the serial port. On MSSLite units, when receiving high speed serial data using XON/XOFF flow control, an XOFF character was not being sent early enough to prevent data overruns and incoming character loss. On MSSLite units, the redirector was not able to check serial port properties (baud rate, flow control) to match the settings of the virtual TTY on the PC. On MSSLite units with multiple serial ports, console messages issued from operational software were being sent to the incorrect serial port. On the MSSLite C the signal names for serial port 1 were reversed, as it is a DCE rather than a DTE port. EZWebCon would incorrectly identify a MSSliteX as a MSS-VIA. Network Time Protocol (NTP) support was incorrectly removed from the MSSLite. It has been re-enabled. On the MSS-VIA, allow the serial port to be configured to 8-bit characters plus parity. SDK --- When forming an outgoing connection to destination socket 23 (telnet) using the SDK, the serial server was incorrectly performing telnet IAC stripping resulting in data loss. The MSSLite flash disk size has been changed to allow up to 304K of data. If a SDK program crashed it could leave the SDK command interpreter in an invalid state. If a SDK process was run using the "autostart" functionality and another user issued the "set priv override" command, the SDK process was not able to access privileged files on the local file system. (i.e. the SDK process lost it's privileged status) On the MSSLite, attempting to run a SDK program using the "auto-run" feature would not work correctly. The disk file system now correctly reports sizes in bytes. When the "disk more" command is used to attempt to list a directory, an error message is reported rather than displaying the binary directory contents. The ability to create an empty disk file using the "disk touch ..." command has been added. LAT --- On a network with a large number of LAT services, (300+) issuing the "show services" command on a slow terminal screen could send the server into an infinite loop. Novell ------ When authenticating into a Netware V5 NDS tree, under certain conditions memory could be corrupted during the authentication phase and units would crash. On the MSS-VIA, Netware packets encapsulated in the SNAP encapsulation were not being transmitted correctly. TCP/IP ------ If DHCP was enabled on a unit previously configured with an IP address/subnet mask pair, and the unit failed to receive a DHCP response, the subnet mask was incorrectly restored to the natural (class A, class B or class C) default subnet mask. When issuing a DHCP request, do not ask for any specific time on the lease, as some DHCP server implementations will blindly respond with with the lease time requested rather than the lease time specified in configuration files. On MSS products, changing from a zero to non-zero IP address from the commmand prompt (i.e. change ipaddress nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn) would not inform the SNMP daemon process. As a result, SNMP requests would not processed until the unit was rebooted. On the ETS16/32PR, ports configured with dedicated UDP sessions were not correctly passing data in both directions. On the ETS16/32/422PR units, attempting to set the IP address using the ARP/PING method would fail. IP security has been enabled for the EPS2-100 and EPS4-100. On the EPS1/2 print server, WINS was incorrectly registering the unit's IP address. Known Problems ============== This release has no known problems.