Sun Crypto Accelerator 4000 Board Version 2.0 Release Notes |
These release notes describe known issues of the Sun Crypto Accelerator 4000 board. For the latest version of this document, refer to:
For the latest patches, updates, and requirements, visit the product web pages at:
The patches listed in this document are available at: http://sunsolve.sun.com. Solaris Operating System update releases contain patches to previous releases. Use the showrev -p command to determine whether the required patches have already been installed.
Install the latest version of the patches. The dash number (-01, for example) becomes higher with each new revision of the patch. If the version on the web site is higher than that shown in this document, it is a later version.
If the patch you need is not available at the SunSolveSM web site, contact your local sales or service representative.
The following table lists the required patches available for Solaris 10:
Note - Always check for the latest revision of the patch, -01, -02, ... |
The Sun Crypto Accelerator 4000 Version 2.0 CD-ROM contains both Versions 1.1 and 2.0 of the software.
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Caution - Version 1.1 is for Solaris 8 and 9. Version 2.0 is supported on Solaris 10 only. |
The install script path is changed as follows:
/cdrom/cdrom0/Sun_Cryto_Acc_4000_1_1
/cdrom/cdrom0/Sun_Cryto_Acc_4000_2_0
The respective installation scripts are located in these directories.
The Sun Crypto Accelerator 4000 1.0 and 1.1 releases do not take advantage of the new Sun Cryptographic Framework provided in Solaris 10. Because of this, the Sun Crypto Accelerator 4000 1.0 and 1.1 releases are not supported with the Solaris 10 Operating System.
The Sun Crypto Accelerator 4000 2.0 release uses this new framework, and is available as a free upgrade to current Sun Crypto Accelerator 4000 users planning to use Solaris 10. Because the Sun Crypto Accelerator 4000 is an export controlled product, contact Sun Enterprise Services or your local sales channel to obtain the free upgrade. Additional information is available on the Sun Crypto Accelerator 4000 web page:
http://www.sun.com/products/networking/sslaccel/suncryptoaccel4000/
When migrating from Sun Crypto Accelerator 1.1 to 2.0, the encrypted keystore file is automatically converted to the format expected by the Version 2.0 firmware. This conversion is an irreversible process.
To use an existing keystore to initialize a 1.1 system in the future, a master key backup must be performed prior to installing the 2.0 driver and firmware. Both the master key backup file and the current keystore file must archived to successfully initialize a board with the current 1.1 keystore. By default the encrypted keystore file is located in the /etc/opt/SUNWconn/vca/keydata/ directory.
If both AES and Metaslot are enabled, and you use the vcaadm utility to initialize or zeroize the board from the system to which the board is attached, error messages similar to the following could occur at the end of the operation.
Initializing crypto accelerator board. This may take a few minutes... C_DecryptUpdate failed: CKR_DEVICE_ERROR |
This operation completes successfully; however, the response output is not decrypted.
Disable AES by removing the enable-aes=1; line from the /kernel/drv/vca.conf file and reboot the system.
Disable Metaslot in the environment that you want to use vcaadm as follows:
The board generates a link down notification on the first plumb when using IPMP. This causes the board to fail initially in an IPMP configuration. The failure is then cleared in approximately 30 seconds.
Workaround: Wait 30 seconds for IPMP to clear the failure.
Outbound IPsec does not offload if the hardware is newer than the Security Association (SA). If a Sun Crypto Accelerator 4000 board is configured in a system for in-line IPsec acceleration using existing SAs, the Security Association Data Base (SADB) must be reloaded in order to use the existing SAs. Reloading can be performed by rebooting the system or using the ipseckey utility. Refer to the IPsec and IKE Administration Guide for information on how to use the ipseckey utility.
A vcaadm lock file (.trustlock) is used to prevent overwriting of changes between two vcaadm processes. If the vcaadm utility is not shutdown properly, this lock file might prevent access to a trust database. If this issue occurs, you receive the following error message:
Workaround: Remove the .trustlock lock file in the ${HOME}/.vcaadm directory.
If an attempt is made to use an initialized board without the correct keystore file present in the /etc/opt/SUNWconn/vca/keydata/ directory, an error is reported to the Solaris Fault Manager Daemon (fmd). Messages similar to the following are logged in the message log each time a cryptographic operation is attempted on the board:
These messages are logged regardless of whether or not the keystore is needed for the specified cryptographic operation and can quickly fill the log file. To avoid this problem, the correct keystore file must always be present in the keystore directory when using an initialized board. If the keystore file is not available, the board must be zeroized and initialized with a new keystore. Once the problem has been corrected, it must be reported to the fmd with the fmadm repair command to prevent it from being diagnosed each time fmd is restarted.
When problems are detected and reported to the Solaris Fault Manager Daemon (fmd) they are correctly diagnosed and logged to syslog. However until these problems are reported as repaired with the fmadm repair command, they are diagnosed and logged to syslog by fmd every time the system is rebooted or fmd is restarted. These messages are misleading because they reflect the diagnosis of past problems, not new ones.
Workaround: Use the fmdump -e command to ensure problems diagnosed are the result of a new problem. When a problem is fixed, it must be reported with the fmadm repair command.
If too many keys are added to a keystore, the keystore size could exceed the available memory on the board. If this occurs, the vca driver is unable to upload or download the keystore to the board and error messages similar to the following are displayed:
Workaround: If possible, reset the board with the vcaadm utility. If you are unable to use vcaadm, stop all cryptographic operations and use the vcadiag utility.
Note - You must stop all cryptographic operations that use the board before using the vcadiag utility. Failure to do this could cause additional failures. |
After the board is reset, remove any unnecessary keys from the keystore to reduce the size.
If you are running the Sun ONE 4.x or 6.x Administration Server and the Web Server being managed is not running, there are several situations where dialog boxes asking for token passwords are displayed. If very large fonts are used or if there are many tokens (and consequently many Enter password: lines) the buttons on the panel bottom are not displayed because the fixed size dialog box is too small. It is impossible to select the Accept button on the bottom of the panel to submit the change because the dialog box is not resizable.
There are two workarounds for this problem:
Sun ONE Web Servers have difficulty working with configurations where more than one keystore exists. This issue is fixed in Sun ONE Web Server 6.0 Service Pack 5 (SP5).
Workaround: Configure no more than one keystore for all web server instances. You may then configure a different keystore user for each web server instance. This will keep keys for each web server instance separate from one another.
The Sun ONE provided utility, pk12util, exports certificates and keys from internal software databases and imports them to external hardware databases. However, the pk12util utility cannot export certificates or keys from an external hardware database, such as the Sun Crypto Accelerator board:.
In configuring Sun ONE Web Server 6.0, after selecting the Cipher Default settings, selecting the certificate, selecting the OK button and selecting the Apply link in the far upper right corner to apply the ciphers, the username:password entry may be removed if the steps are not executed in the exact order as prescribed in the Sun Crypto Accelerator 4000 Board Installation and User's Guide. This issue is fixed in Sun ONE Web Server 6.0 Service Pack 3 (SP3).
This entry is required for the web server to start up correctly with the Sun Crypto Accelerator 4000 board. You may see this when steps are executed in the following order:
1. Select Cipher Default, SSL2 ciphers, or SSL3 ciphers
If you think you have executed these steps and the web server does not start up correctly, use the following workaround:
The Solaris Cryptographic Framework does not hold a reference counter on a context while it is in use. When a driver is unloaded/detached, the Solaris Cryptographic Framework frees the context assuming that it is not in use. This causes double deletion on the context and causes panic.
vcatest could fail on the first pass when performed on a Sun Fire 15K with error messages similar to the following:
When a hardware provider, such as the Sun Crypto Accelerator, unregisters from the kEF (Solaris Cryptographic Framework), the kEF fails to remove the provider entry from the provider tables when some cryptographic operations are scheduled on the provider.
The provider table size is hardcoded to be 512, and when reloading of the driver happens more than 512 times, it might fill up the provider table and make the driver unloadable. With SunVTS, the symptom is the Slot Info being NULL. With other applications, the Venus slot is simply not seen.
System calls from C_Initialize() get interruped.
Multiple calls to C_Initialize() lead to ELF messages on the console.
Sun Crypto Accelerator 4000 MMF boards could fail the internal loopback test of the SunVTS test, netlbtest. The following error messages might occur:
These messages can be ignored.
Workaround: Perform SunVTS internal loopback tests with a loopback cable attached.
The Sun Crypto Accelerator 4000 board is supported in 66 MHz slots only on the Sun Fire 15K platform.
In Sun FIre V890 systems, the board performs at 33 MHz in a 66 MHz slot when shared with another board. The board performs at 66 MHz if no other board is on the shared bus. A Sun Crypto Accelerator 4000 board or a Quad Gigabit Ethernet (QGE) board in the shared slot forces both boards into 33 MHz mode.
On some Sun Blade 100 systems the Sun Crypto Accelerator 4000 board might require a reset after unloading and loading the vca driver. Particularly, this problem might occur when driver packages are removed and replaced with newer packages. This is not an issue because the driver performs an automatic reset of the board when the problem is detected. Messages similar to the following can be ignored when loading and unloading the driver on Sun Blade 100 systems.
Sun Metaslot does not perform well with the board when running Sun ONE applications. To use Sun Metaslot with a Sun Crypto Accelerator keystore, disable the SSLv3 mechanisms to enable good performance. To use the Sun Crypto Accelerator keystore slot directly, you do not need to disable them.
Use the following command to disable the CKM_SSL3_PRE_MASTER_KEY_GEN, CKM_SSL3_MASTER_KEY_DERIVE, CKM_SSL3_KEY_AND_MAC_DERIVE, CKM_SSL3_MASTER_KEY_DERIVE_DH, CKM_SSL3_MD5_MAC, and CKM_SSL3_SHA1_MAC mechanisms in the Sun Metaslot.
Note - Note that these are all on one line. You must be superuser to execute this command. |
Because of how Diffie Hellman related ciper suites are implemented in OpenSSL, using Apache with metaslot could cause poor performance and significant CPU idling on the server.
The default cipher suite, EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA, and all Diffie Hellman related cipher suites can cause this problem.
Workaround: Modify the SSLCipherSuite line in the /etc/apache/httpd.conf file to exclude Diffie Hellman related cipher suites as follows:
SSLCipherSuite ALL:!ADH:!EXPORT56:-AES256-SHA:-DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:-DHE-DSS-AES256-SHA:RC4+RSA:+HIGH:+MEDIUM:+LOW:+SSLv2:+EXP:+eNULL:-EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA |
Metaslot, when enabled system-wide, can be controlled on a per-process basis by setting the environment variable ${METASLOT_ENABLED} to true or false.
To set an environment variable for SunONE Administration Server programs, add the following line to the https-admserv/config/magnus.conf configuration file:
The following is an example of disabling metaslot for the process.
Refer to the documentation available at:
http://docs.sun.com/source/817-6252/npgmagns.html#wp25400
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