Cisco Systems reports February 29 date stamp problems and many other hardware/software bugs since rollover

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Cisco (one of the most important internet infrastructure companies)has posted Field notices reporting a variety of problems since rollover including an apparently minor February 29 date stamping problem with their Optical Product Software:

FSB #15: Y2K Date "February 29, 2000" Will Not Display in Cisco ONS (Cerent 454) Software Revisions R1.0x

Release says in part that when date rolls over to February 28, 2000, Software will read as March 1, 2000. If no action is taken, all alarm stamps and all other related logs correlated to time stamps will be off by one day. The solution is to simply reset the date.

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/770/55.html

In addition Cisco has reported a variety of other software/hardware problems since rollover which may not be so easily fixed including the following. Would someone please comment on the ramifications of any specific problems listed here? Could any of them caused the Yahoo outage yesterday?

Access Products

 Field Notice: Cisco 6100 Series DSLAM Can Experience Transient Errors on DS3 February 2, 2000  Field Notice: Fan Unit Mechanical Stability Problem on Cisco 6100 Series DSLAM February 2, 2000  Field Notice: Use of Static Host Routes to Implement SC2200 Link Failover January 28, 2000  Field Notice: Access Servers Require Redundant Link Manager V1 for RLM Connection to SC2200 Release 4.2(x) January 28, 2000  Field Notice: Kerberos Client Authentication Fails in Beginning of Leap Years January 1, 2000

Cisco IOS. Field Notices

Field Notice: IPsec/CEF Software Defect on RSPx and RSM January 24, 2000

Last one posted

Cisco IOS 12.0(5)XE3 December 8, 1999

High-End Routers Field Notices

Field Notice: IPsec/CEF Software Defect on RSPx and RSM January 24, 2000

Field Notice: NPE-175 and NPE-225 Recall Due To Anomalous Packet Handling Behavior January 11, 2000

Field Notice: End of Sale for PCMCIA 16MB Flash Memory for Cisco 7200 Series Router January 11, 2000

LAN Switches Field Notices

Field Notice: Boot Flash Memory Size Too Small for Next Feature Release of Catalyst 8540 CSR IOS January 26, 2000

Security Products Field Notices

Field Notice: IPsec/CEF Software Defect on RSPx and RSM January 24, 2000 Field Notice: Cisco Secure PIX Firewall Software Version 4.4(3) Deferral January 7, 2000 Field Notice: Kerberos Client Authentication Fails in Beginning of Leap Years January 1, 2000 Cisco Secure PIX Firewall: PIX-515 Ethernet Controller Issue December 31, 1999

WAN Switches Field Notices

 Field Notice: Bus Errors Reported When UXM or UFM Present February 2, 2000  Field Notice: UVM with T1 Backcard is Stuck in Yellow Alarm When Using CCS January 21, 2000

Field Notice: LocalDirector User Interface 3.1 and 3.1.1 SSL Root Certificate Expiration December 27, 1999 Updated January 17, 2000

Year 2000 Field Notices

Field Notice: Kerberos Client Authentication Fails in Beginning of Leap Years January 1, 2000

All of these Field reports may be accessed at this link:

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/770/

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 08, 2000

Answers

The Yahoo outage was caused by a deliberate attack on the Yahoo site(s), based on the media coverage of Yahoo statements. None of the Cisco problems look able to totally shut down sites that have several ways to connect. These problems would cause anomalies and strange things, but no Blue Screen of Death.

-- Dave Hall (dhall@enteract.com), February 08, 2000.

There is a dispute concerning what caused the Yahoo outage. Some folks believe it was caused by router failure...:

Dispute Over Cause Of Yahoo Outage 6:00 am PST, 8 February 2000

There appear to be conflicting reports circulating as to the cause of Monday's 3-hour outage at Yahoo. As of around 10:30 am PST Monday morning, the Yahoo site, including its free email service, became unreachable from most parts of the Internet. The outage lasted some three hours and when it finally returned, access remained patchy for some time. The official explanation from Yahoo itself was that the problem was caused by a denial of service attack which had been launched against the top-ranking portal site by a person or persons unknown.

7am's own investigations showed that the hub of the matter appeared to be a switch or router connected to the Global Crossing network. This assertion has been supported by reports subsequently carried by Wired in which an engineer from the network provider alleges it was a problem with misconfigured equipment.

The official response from Global Center (a subsidiary of Global Crossing) was that "the global center network is not down. There have been no fiber cuts... this is a specific attack on yahoo by external forces."

Experts consulted by 7am.com claim that from the outside, it can be very difficult to distinguish between a hardware failure in a device such as a router and a denial of service attack and that both the engineer's claims and the "official line" need not be in conflict. An incorrectly configured router can make it far easier for a denial of service attack to cripple a system 7am.com was told.

Monday's outage has raised some concern amongst some businesses who are increasingly relying on the Internet for mission-critical communications and services. The fact that a system, seemingly as large and robust as that operated by Yahoo could be brought down by a simple attack that can be launched by a single person shows the vulnerability of a technology that was originally designed almost 30 years ago.

http://7am.com/cgi-bin/twires.cgi?1000_t00020801.htm

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 08, 2000.


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