Firmware Releases

Firmware version 3.18.2 (Released January 20. 2023)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

None

Minor News:

None

Bugs Fixed:

• A very large burst of packets at high packet rate could cause a system reboot. (Bug introduced in firmware version 3.18)

Firmware version 3.18.1 (Released December 16. 2022)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

None

Minor News:

• Count denied flows per user, available in GUI through Download Detailed User Table
• Use HTML format for Download Detailed User Table

Bugs Fixed:

• Reboot loop. (StraightShaper 8000 only.) (Bug introduced in firmware version 3.18)

Firmware version 3.18 (Released November 21. 2022)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

• Out-of-Band management. This feature provides the ability to connect the SmartShare to an additional management/operations network, isolated from the in-band networks, using a separate port and IP configuration. Note: In-band IP configuration with access to the internet is still required, or performance may degrade

Minor News:

• RADIUS Server supports TLS version 1.3. (RADIUS with Unilogin only)
• Built-in agents support TLS version 1.3
• Packet Capture can capture from any port with link established
• Removed GUI footnote about configuration fields that must have values

Bugs Fixed:

• Some, but not all, computers running Windows 11 with the 22H2 update could not be authenticated by the RADIUS Server. (RADIUS with Unilogin only)
• USB port could not be used. (StraightShaper 300, 1000, 4000, 5000 and 8000 (v1) only)
• Some traffic between a local user and the SmartShare itself was counted and managed as WAN traffic instead of local traffic. (Router mode only)
• CLI “info” command did not show which ports are used for management. (Transparent mode only)
• Number of Active Users shown on the Status page now only includes managed users

Firmware version 3.17 (Released August 22. 2022)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

• Unlicensed models let traffic pass through. System integrators and network operators can now pre-install SmartShare StraightShaper virtual appliances on new VMware and KVM servers, and then activate them individually at a later time. (Transparent mode only)

Minor News:

• Appliance Configuration shows which port pairs have fail-to-wire. (StraightShaper 8000 only)
• CLI “config” command shows running configuration
• USB Memory Stick info file includes MAC addresses of all ports
• GUI charts start rendering in the web browser before all data has been transferred. This is only visible when accessed through a low bandwidth link

Bugs Fixed:

• A specific sequence of RADIUS packets could cause a system reboot. (RADIUS with Unilogin only)
• The connection upload rate was exceeded by up to 25 % on links with varying bandwidth. (StraightShaper Satellite only)
• TCP Waste Reduction could drop too many packets. (Bug introduced in firmware version 3.16)
• NAT routed IP addresses should not be reverse DNS looked up when using remote DNS servers. (Router mode only)
• OVA file did not include USB Controller. (StraightShaper VM only)
• USB port could not be used. (StraightShaper VM only)
• Extended Provisioning mode could not selected. (Trial mode only)
• The error message when uploading an invalid configuration file was incomprehensible

Firmware version 3.16.1 (Released March 3. 2022)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

• RADIUS Server certificate for 802.1X updated. Old certificate expires 26-APR-2022, new certificate expires 01-APR-2023. (RADIUS with Unilogin only)

Minor News:

• RADIUS Authentication supports MS-CHAP, e.g. used by test function in Aerohive products. (RADIUS with Unilogin only)

Bugs Fixed:

• Enabling RADIUS Server caused a reboot loop. (RADIUS with Unilogin only.) (Bug introduced in firmware version 3.16)

Firmware version 3.16 (Released February 24. 2022)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

• GUI charts upgraded from JAVA to Dynamic HTML

Minor News:

• Improved algorithm for links with varying bandwidth and separate QoS queues for TCP/UDP traffic. (StraightShaper Satellite only)
• Improved TCP Waste Reduction efficiency
• SmartShare Support can be given remote access to the GUI by setting Provisioning mode to Extended
• Packet Capture can capture IP packets, omitting Ethernet headers
• Packet Capture internal storage increased from 4 MB to either 10 MB, 100 MB or 1 GB, depending on hardware model
• Status page in GUI shows TCP Waste Reduction box, if enabled
• Login page in GUI starts with text cursor in User Name field
• Console shows warning if wrong vNIC hardware type, i.e. other than VMXNET3, is detected. (StraightShaper VM only)
• CLI “info” command also shows if vNIC is not connected. (StraightShaper VM only)

Bugs Fixed:

• Internet Access Filter sometimes dropped the initial request packet when accessing a web site for the first time
• Downloading captured packets would abort if the download did not finish within a few minutes
• Health Monitor sometimes briefly warned about the secondary DNS server not responding after power-on
• Changing DNS servers, without changing the IP address, was logged as an IP address change
• Capturing packets without Ethernet headers included Ethernet padding for small packets

Firmware version 3.15.1 (Released August 20. 2021)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

None

Minor News:

• Changed default domain from “local” to special-use domain “home.arpa”, inspired by RFC 8375
• Improved DNS caching efficiency

Bugs Fixed:

None

Firmware version 3.15 (Released May 5. 2021)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

• RADIUS Server certificate for 802.1X updated. Old certificate expires 22-JUL-2021, new certificate expires 26-APR-2022. (RADIUS with Unilogin only)
• User Group configuration can handle individual subnets (of any size) as individual users

Minor News:

• Improved DNS caching efficiency
• Outgoing DNS requests can be redirected to the built-in DNS server. (Router mode only)
• RADIUS Accounting packets can be forwarded to a RADIUS Single Sign-On server. (RADIUS with Unilogin only)
• Increased the maximum number of Network Latency Monitors from 5 to 20
• Connection Latency Monitor hop count is minimum distance instead of exact distance
• Packet Capture can capture IP headers, omitting Ethernet headers
• Cleaned up Status page in GUI by removing TCP Waste Reduction and Flow Manager boxes, which both have little information value
• Updated management VLAN and IP address legends in GUI to clarify their meaning. (Transparent mode only)
• Packet Capture shows start and stop times in GUI
• SYSLOG messages are sent to all IP addresses the SYSLOG Server names resolve to
• SNMP Trap messages are sent to all IP addresses the SNMP Trap Server names resolve to
• HTTP REST-based API to change the configuration without saving it
• Improved DNS resolver tolerance for missing DNS replies
• Improved Packet Capture timestamp accuracy
• Improved DHCP client interoperability with some DHCP servers

Bugs Fixed:

• Configuring more User Groups than the licensed IP device capacity would cause a system reboot
• User Groups table did not grow when adding a row. (Transparent mode only.) (Bug introduced in firmware version 3.11)
• Retrieving user names by reverse DNS used incorrect byte order for the user’s IP address
• Built-in DNS server/proxy sometimes responded with NXDOMAIN instead of NODATA. (Router mode only)
• In some cases, when a cable is disconnected, the Internet Connectivity Monitor could get stuck and report DNS lookup failure
• Under extremely rare circumstances, SmartShare Support remote access to the GUI in Trial mode could stop working

Firmware version 3.14 (Released December 17. 2019)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

• An Internet Access Filter can contain a list of filter names, not just one filter name
• SNMP Agent exposes sliding averages, minimums and maximums of bandwidth usage and bandwidth available per user. Refer to the SMARTSHARESYSTEMS-MIB.txt for details

Minor News:

• Connection Speed Test shows estimated bandwidth in more cases where a reliable result is unavailable
• Improved transparent DNS cache handling of DNSSEC. (Transparent mode only)

Bugs Fixed:

• Adding a User Group while actively passing traffic could cause a system reboot. (StraightShaper KVM and hardware appliances only)
• Adding a User Group while actively passing traffic could cause the system to hang with 100 % vCPU usage in the hypervisor. (StraightShaper VM only)
• Under extremely rare circumstances, the system could spontaneously reboot. (StraightShaper KVM and hardware appliances only)
• Under extremely rare circumstances, the system could spontaneously hang with 100 % vCPU usage in the hypervisor. (StraightShaper VM only)
• When required, the watchdog did not reboot the system, but instead caused the system to hang with 100 % vCPU usage in the hypervisor. (StraightShaper VM only)

Firmware version 3.13 (Released August 1. 2019)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

• New product line: 400 Series desktop hardware appliance
• RADIUS Server certificate for 802.1X updated. Old certificate expires 17-AUG-2019, new certificate expires 22-JUL-2021. (RADIUS with UNI•Login only)

Minor News:

• Improved response time for outgoing TCP connection establishment
• Packet Capture option for probabilistic sampling
• Packet Capture allows specifying an OUI, i.e. the first three bytes of a MAC address, instead of an address in the IP/MAC Address field
• ARP ageing timer on LAN port increased from 30 seconds to 5 minutes. (Router mode only)
• Removed the trailing colon from all GUI input field legends
• OVA file includes manifest. (StraightShaper VM only)

Bugs Fixed:

• Double VLAN tagged packets with an outer tag type of 0x8100 (802.1Q) were classified as Non-IP. (Transparent mode only)
• The bandwidth available to users with a configured maximum bandwidth could be offset by up to 25 %
• NTP Server replies did not include Root Delay and Root Dispersion
• RADIUS packets should not be reordered
• Link Local protocol packets, e.g. LACP, LLDP, CDP and Loopback, should not be included in bandwidth usage when WAN connection topology is bridged. (Transparent mode only)

Firmware version 3.12.4 (Released May 13. 2019)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

None

Minor News:

None

Bugs Fixed:

• Connection Speed Test could take a very long time without coming to a conclusion
• Certain malformed packets could cause a system reboot

Firmware version 3.12.3 (Released April 3. 2019)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

None

Minor News:

• Connection Speed Test shows estimated bandwidth in many cases where a reliable result is unavailable
• Improved DNS caching for the most popular public DNS servers. (Transparent mode only)
• NTP update interval increased from 17 minutes to 4 hours when clock is in sync
• Support older KVM versions. (StraightShaper KVM only)
• Configured connection bandwidths must be higher than a few kbit/s, in order to reject bandwidths entered thinking the value is in kbit/s instead of bit/s

Bugs Fixed:

• Bypassing the Bandwidth Optimizers when on a non-satellite connection had no effect on the Download Optimizer. (StraightShaper Satellite only)
• Connection Speed Test incorrectly detected VPN overhead on fiber connections with burst capacity
• CAPWAP packets should not be reordered
• IP Multicast packets should not be reordered
• Connection Speed Test failed with “connection to server unreliable” if connection bandwidth was significantly lower than configured. (StraightShaper Satellite only)
• Download Detailed User Table to PC contained incorrect number of Downloaded DNS Replies. (StraightShaper 4000 and StraightShaper 8000 only)
• ARP packets generated by the system should be considered local traffic

Firmware version 3.12.2 (Released November 2. 2018)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

None

Minor News:

None

Bugs Fixed:

• In some cases, with packet loss on the connection, the Connection Speed Test would take much too long to complete. (StraightShaper Satellite only)
• If the System IP address is assigned using DHCP in a network with more than one Default Gateway, the Default Gateway was not assigned

Firmware version 3.12.1 (Released October 30. 2018)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

None

Minor News:

• Support StraightShaper 8000 (v3) Series hardware
• The LCD display and the Startup Progress box in the GUI shows if the default gateway is unreachable or if there is no internet connectivity during startup
• Improved detection of IoT sensor appliances by waiting 65 minutes, instead of 5, before deleting inactive New users
• Also show the Management Web Address on the console when the System IP address is assigned. (StraightShaper VM and StraightShaper KVM only)

Bugs Fixed:

• Bandwidths configured in User Groups and Extra Shaper were effectively multiplied by 1000. (Bug introduced in firmware version 3.12)
• Connection Speed Test measured slightly too low bandwidth on Ethernet connection types
• Transparent DNS Cache could return invalid OPT record header in cached replies. (Transparent mode only)
• Download Detailed User Table to PC contained incorrect number of Downloaded DNS Replies. (StraightShaper 4000 and StraightShaper 8000 only)
• Packet Capture of an IP address/subnet did not include ARP packets. (Bug introduced in firmware version 3.11)
• The Health Monitor should not warn about cables not being connected during startup; it should only be shown on the LCD display and in the Startup Progress box in the GUI
• Health Monitor sometimes briefly warned about virtual NIC port not connected after power-on. (StraightShaper VM and StraightShaper KVM only)

Firmware version 3.12 (Released July 31. 2018)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

• New product line: Virtual appliance for KVM
• Connection Speed Test. (StraightShaper Satellite only)
• Use human readable format for configuration of bandwidths, e.g. 10 M bit/s instead of 10000 kbit/s

Minor News:

• Jumbo Frame support. (StraightShaper VM and StraightShaper KVM only)
• A web proxy can be configured for the provisioning services
• Removed detection of Rogue IP Senders due to warnings caused by Cisco switches with IP Device Tracking (IPDT) enabled
• Packet Capture internal storage increased to 4 MB
• Show protocol details in relevant warnings and error messages
• Interoperability and security for SmartShare Support remote access to the GUI in Trial mode improved by using HTTPS and TLS version 1.2
• Removed E1000 NIC support. Use VMXNET3 NIC instead. (StraightShaper VM only)
• Maximum number of parsed MPLS labels increased from 1 to 4. (Transparent mode only)
• HTTP REST-based API to install Activation Code
• HTTP REST-based API to retrieve License ID and Serial Number
• Show NIC port information, System IP address and USB port events on the console. (StraightShaper VM and StraightShaper KVM only)

Bugs Fixed:

• Connection Speed Test could not test connections above 500 Mbit/s
• The Internet Access Filter had no effect on some Facebook apps
• If installed behind a firewall, depending on the firewall’s behavior, the Internet Connectivity Monitor could stop getting results
• A special sequence of DNS packets (one of them being a Jumbo Frame) could cause a system reboot. (Transparent mode only)
• One of the 8000 Series port extension module models was not detected. (Bug introduced in firmware version 3.11)

Firmware version 3.11 (Released April 19. 2018)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

• Transparent DNS caching is enabled by default on all models, not only StraightShaper Satellite. Notice: DNS caching will be enabled when upgrading the firmware. (Transparent mode only)
• Show packet loss individually for download and upload direction. (StraightShaper Satellite only)
• MPLS encapsulated traffic supported. (Transparent mode only)
• Ethernet packet size support increased to 1530 byte, i.e. 16 byte more than standard Ethernet maximum packet size. (Transparent mode only)

Minor News:

• Added a separate User Group for IP Multicast
• User Details charts also shows Peak Flows
• Packet Capture allows specifying TCP/UDP port number instead of address in IP/MAC Address field
• Improved throughput performance significantly when many Additional LAN Subnets are configured. (Router mode only)
• Improved throughput performance in many scenarios, e.g. during Packet Capture
• Improved transparent DNS cache efficiency by caching more reply types than OK and NXDOMAIN. (Transparent mode only)
• Improved GUI response time slightly by enhancing Cache-Control headers according to RFC 8246

Bugs Fixed:

• Routing did not work when the WAN Subnet Mask was 255.255.255.255. (Router mode only)
• If reverse DNS lookups to an external DNS server took more than 60 seconds to complete, it could cause a system reboot
• Transparent DNS cache reply did not always match upper/lower case of request. (Transparent mode only)
• Changing the HTTPS Web Management Port did not have any effect unless the Web Management Port and/or the SNMP Agent Port was also changed, or until the system was rebooted
• DNS proxy could respond incorrectly to AAAA queries. (Router mode only)
• PPPoE encapsulated packets were not affected by TCP Waste Reduction
• PPPoE encapsulated replies from the transparent DNS cache had incorrect payload length in the PPPoE header. (Transparent mode only)
• A user capacity warning could show a negative number instead of the actual number of excess users
• When adding a Network Latency Monitor, the graph showed 100 % packet loss for the time before it was added
• Packets destined to a MAC address that recently was used as source MAC address on the same port were dropped instead of forwarded to the other port in the port pair. (Transparent mode)
• Non-IP packets in download direction should not be included in download bandwidth usage when WAN connection topology is routed
• Processor usage was high every ca. 30 seconds. (StraightShaper Satellite only)

Firmware version 3.10 (Released November 8. 2017)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

• Transparent DNS caching. (Transparent mode only)

Minor News:

• Improved intelligent packet bursting to provide even higher throughput on wireless networks based on the IEEE 802.11n and 802.11ac standards
• Health Monitor warning if a DNS server responds with a manipulated IP address when queried for a well known hostname
• Configuration option to automatically change bandwidth speed configuration if detected that the internet connection is temporarily routed via a non-satellite connection. (StraightShaper Satellite only)
• The system is quicker to obtain its IP address by DHCP
• If a cable has been disconnected and reconnected, the system will renew its IP address lease if using DHCP
• Minor accuracy improvements to the connection speed test
• Built-in DHCP Server Lease Time configuration simplified. (Router mode only)
• Packet Capture default capture mode changed from Continuous to One Shot

Bugs Fixed:

• When zooming out on the charts, the Y-axis sometimes scaled incorrectly
• JAVA Applet sizes on Users page in GUI now matches zoom level in Internet Explorer 11 and other web browsers on very high resolution screens
• If the Excess User Group was configured for very low bandwidth, the system did not respond to ARP requests
• If connectivity to the connection speed test server was lost, multiple consecutive Bandwidth Optimizer Degraded warnings were generated. (StraightShaper Satellite only)
• The built-in network probes, e.g. the Connection Latency Monitor, sometimes reported DNS lookup failure shortly after power-on, reboot or reconfiguration

Firmware version 3.9 (Released May 29. 2017)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

• Built-in DHCP Server can provide static IP addresses for multiple subnets in the same broadcast domain. (Router mode only)
• Double VLAN tagged traffic supported. (Transparent mode only)
• PPPoE encapsulated traffic supported. (Transparent mode only)

Minor News:

• Health Monitor warning if no reply from Connection Speed Test Server is received. (StraightShaper Satellite only)
• Speed Test button indicates that users will be temporarily disconnected while testing
• Improved compatibility for sending system generated emails through SMTP Server with TLS problems
• Firmware download continues in the background after closing the GUI

Bugs Fixed:

• In some cases, disconnecting the LAN port could cause a system reboot. (Router mode only)
• The Bandwidth Optimizers would not start working if they had been manually disabled and then enabled again. (StraightShaper Satellite only)
• SNMP ifSpeed and ifHighSpeed reported 1 Gbit/s for unconnected 10 Gbit/s ports

Firmware version 3.8.1 (Released February 10. 2017)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

None

Minor News:

• Packet Capture of specified IP address/subnet includes ICMP packets where the original IP header matches the specified IP address/subnet

Bugs Fixed:

• On a link with varying bandwidth, if connection packet loss was very high for a duration of more than 30 seconds, the Download Optimizer could temporarily get stuck at PIR. (StraightShaper Satellite only)

Firmware version 3.8 (Released February 3. 2017)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

• Major algorithm improvements for links with varying bandwidth. (StraightShaper Satellite only)

Minor News:

• GUI uses brackets, instead of braces, for measurement units, e.g. [kbit/s] instead of (kbit/s)
• Reduced GUI response time by adding cache control headers
• Speed Test accuracy improved for high speed connections with burst capacity
• Improved security by including https links instead of http links in email alerts, CLI, ConnectWise service tickets etc.
• Port Forwarding to Web Server includes UDP to support HTTP/2 web servers. (Router mode only)
• DNS proxy responds directly to queries for special-use domains “.localhost”, “.invalid” and “.onion”, as specified in RFC 6761 and RFC 7686. (Router mode only)
• Improved validation of Additional LAN Subnets configuration. (Router mode only)

Bugs Fixed:

• Health Monitor incorrectly warned that the RADIUS Server was disabled (which it was not) if a user table synchronization sporadically failed. It now warns that the RADIUS Server is degraded, and only if the synchronization keeps failing. (RADIUS with UNI•Login only)
• Automatic Remote Router Detection detected local satellite modem instead of remote router in typical deployments with two local routers (firewall and satellite modem). (StraightShaper Satellite only)
• Network Latency Monitor now keeps reporting 100 % packet loss while Ping Server is not responding

Firmware version 3.7.1 (Released  October 6. 2016)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

• GUI shows UNI•Login user names when using RADIUS with UNI•Login

Minor News:

• GUI Status page shows bandwidths in appropriate scale, instead of always using kbit/s
• The number of local flows are shown in the details and on the Top Users by Flows pie chart
• Minor reduction of WAN bandwidth usage by web sites denied by Internet Access Filter
• RADIUS Accounting-Requests are replied to. Requires RADIUS with UNI•Login

Bugs Fixed:

• When using the Internet Access Filter the indicated number of flows could be extremely much too high, and the extra shaping of users with many flows could incorrectly affect users who were really not above the threshold
• JAVA Applet sizes now matches zoom level in Internet Explorer 11 and other web browsers on very high resolution screens
• The Direct Management Port could not be connected to through a NAT router. (Bug introduced in firmware version 3.6)
• When connecting a computer running Windows 10 Anniversary Update (Windows 10 version 1607) to the Direct Management port the GUI was not automatically opened in a web browser
• SmartShare Support remote access to the GUI in Trial mode could stop working
• The system sent incorrectly encoded content in HTTP requests to the provisioning server. StraightShaper Satellite only

Firmware version 3.7 (Released  September 6. 2016)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

• New product: RADIUS with UNI•Login option available for StraightShaper Educational and StraightShaper Government

Minor News:

• Improved TLS support

Bugs Fixed:

• System page in the GUI could show an error message if accessed quickly after power-on or reboot

Firmware version 3.6 (Released  June 2. 2016)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

• New product: StraightShaper 4000 Satellite, designed for optimizing satellite connections with fixed or varying bandwidth
• Speed Test tests the connection at full duplex

Minor News:

• New connection overhead types for bandwidth provided through IP based shapers
• Internet Connectivity Monitor configuration simplified
• GUI output sent to the web browser is compressed, if supported by the web browser
• Automatically open GUI in web browser when connecting computer to Direct Management port, if supported by the computer’s operating system
• While in Trial mode, SmartShare Support has remote access to the GUI
• Improved security by using Message-Authenticator attribute in RADIUS for management access
• New product: 8000 (V2) Series port extension module with 4 SFP+ (10 Gbit/s) ports

Bugs Fixed:

• Packet Capture should not stop when a capturing port is reconfigured
• If installed behind a firewall, depending on the firewall’s behavior, the Connection Latency Monitor and the Network Latency Monitors could stop getting results
• In some cases, the Connection Latency Monitor could be unable to recover from an error
• A specially crafted malformed DHCP packet could cause a system reboot

Firmware version 3.5.2 (Released November 24th, 2015)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

None

Minor News:

• Option to log when a User is identified through the SmartShare Callout API
• Buttons to skip multiple pages on the System Log page in the GUI
• Clear Statistics button also resets Recommended User Capacity and Required Minimum User Capacity
• When the Internet Access Filter is configured to only allow access to specific web sites, non-web traffic is also blocked
• Status page in GUI shows number of allowed and denied web requests if Internet Access Filter is configured
• Built-in DHCP Server improved interoperability with some DHCP clients. (Router mode only)

Bugs Fixed:

• JAVA applets’ certificate was not valid anymore
• Built-in DNS server/proxy replies could have incorrect packet length. (Router mode only)
• If installed behind a firewall, depending on the firewall’s behaviour, the built-in DNS server/proxy could stop responding. (Router mode only)
• In some cases, a Rogue IP Sender could be detected although it was not rogue
• Rogue DHCP Server Detector was using the WAN port instead of the LAN port. (Router mode only.) (Bug introduced in firmware version 3.5.)
• In some cases, the Health Monitor incorrectly reported DNS Server Not Responding
• A specially crafted packet could cause a system reboot
• In some cases, installing a new firmware version could cause the configuration to be lost
• Required Minimum User Capacity should not include New users
• 10/100 Mbit/s equipment with Auto Negotiation connected to an unused port incorrectly showed that the link was established without Auto Negotiation
• Some web sites, although denied by the Internet Access Filter, could be accessed by the Google Chrome web browser using the QUIC protocol
• NTP Client should ignore responses with invalid time
• SNMP Agents on the ATL page in the GUI could only be deleted if their community was set to “public”
• Extra Shaper status on Status page in GUI should only be shown if the Extra Shaper is configured

Firmware version 3.5.1 (Released February 18th, 2015)

Products affected: StraightShaper (and FairRouter)

News:

None

Minor News:

• GUI improvements regarding configuration of Operating Mode, Port Pairs and Management Port
• Built-in DHCP Server improvements regarding Ghost detection on directly connected LAN subnets. (Router mode only)
• GUI can be accessed by HTTPS from Direct Management port
• Health Monitor warnings are shown on Charts and Top Users pages too
• Speed Test improvements regarding PPPoE and VPN overhead detection
• Support for 8000 Series new port extension module with 4 ports

Bugs Fixed:

• Automatic Remote Router Detection detected local router instead of remote router when in Transparent mode with Routed WAN topology (the factory default configuration)
• In some cases a Rogue IP Sender could be detected although it was not rogue
• It was possible to choose an invalid combination of Port Pairs and Management Port in the GUI
• In some cases, in routed networks, the MAC address of some users was not detected correctly
• In some cases, in routed networks, the SmartShare Callout API would provide an invalid MAC address for some of the users
• In some cases, in routed networks, the SmartShare DNS Tunnel API would provide the router’s MAC address instead of the user’s MAC address for some of the users
• Status page did not show status for unused ports that are connected. (Transparent mode only)

Firmware version 3.5 (Released December 30th, 2014)

Products affected: StraightShaper and FairRouter

News:

• FairRouter features merged into StraightShaper, so StraightShaper can be configured for transparent or IP/NAT router mode
• JAVA applets are signed, so they can be used in JAVA runtime environments with higher security level
• Configurable minimum severity for log messages sent by email
• Choice between in-band management and dedicated management port. (Transparent mode only)
• Static DNS hostnames can be configured. (Router mode only)
• Built-in DHCP server supports routed networks with DHCP relay agents. (Router mode only)
• ATL option to log users only, or log both users and flows

Minor News:

• Removed hardcoded in-band management addresses 192.0.2.2 and 169.254.2.2
• Option to be remembered when accessing the GUI, so the GUI can be accessed at a later time without logging in again. (Requires Cookie support in the web browser)
• Clicking a headline in the Users table in the GUI sorts the table in the most useful order for each column, instead of always sorting from the lowest to the highest value
• The Connection Latency Monitor’s automatic remote router detection detects a router farther away if the nearest remote router does not respond to PING
• Increased the number of Network Latency Monitors from 3 to 5
• For routed networks, show the users’ MAC addresses instead of the routers’ MAC addresses. Based on DHCP snooping, which requires that the SmartShare is installed between the users and the DHCP server
• Health Monitor warning if an unused port is connected
• Packet Capture of specified IP address/subnet includes DHCP/BOOTP packets where client or relay agent matches the specified IP address/subnet
• The Private MAC address bit is set in packets sent by the DHCP Server Detector
• Built-in DNS server/proxy intelligently caches DNS replies. (Router mode only)

Bugs Fixed:

• Some Link Local protocol packets, e.g. LACP and LLDP, were not forwarded. STP packets were forwarded as expected. (Transparent mode only)
• Unused ports forwarded packets as if port pairs had been configured on all ports. (Transparent mode only)
• RADIUS authentication of Manager GUI access should use Service-Type “Framed-Management” instead of “Framed”
• The overall system status (indicated by the Status LED and readable by SNMP) should be “warning” while a manually started connection speed test is in progress
• The Users table could not be sorted by Status
• In some cases, if the Rogue DHCP Server Detector was enabled and a network cable was disconnected, the system would reboot
• If the DNS servers do not respond to queries for a hostname used by a system service (connectivitytest.smartsharesystems.com, ntp.smartsharesystems.com, etc.), the queries should not be repeated with the domain name appended (e.g. connectivitytest.smartsharesystems.com.example.com), because such queries are likely to match a wildcard entry in the DNS servers and resolve to the IP address of another server (typically a web server), which does not respond to the required system service
• ARP requests for the System IP address received on other ports than the in-band management port pair should not be replied to. (Transparent mode only)
• Processor Usage information was inaccurate, and has been removed from Status LCD
• GUI buttons for Activation Code and Firmware Installation should indicate that further steps are required
• The DNS proxy should not be enabled in transparent mode, unless a DNST Server has been configured. This reduces the risk of being abused for DNS amplification attacks. (Transparent mode only)
• SNMP unicast, broadcast and multicast packet counters returned zero. (4000 Series and 8000 Series appliances only)
• Packet Capture of specified MAC address did not include DHCP/BOOTP packets between a DHCP server and a DHCP relay agent
• The Users table could not be shown if more than 20000 users were active
• The Network Latency Monitor would show a few seconds with 0 ms RTT if the IP address of a configured hostname changed
• Activating a partial configuration file, e.g. for changing a few configuration parameters only, would delete all configuration table entries except the first entry in each table
• Charts for peaks should not show the average value in the legend, but the peak value
• The built-in DHCP server did not assign a static IP address to a DHCP client if the Client ID was not a MAC address. (Router mode only)
• The WAN subnet could not be a sub-subnet of a LAN subnet. (Router mode only)
• Using an Internet Access Filter for ALL user groups when in Trial mode would cause a continuous system reboot. (Trial mode only. 4000 Series, 8000 Series and VM appliances only)

Firmware version 3.4.2 (Released February 27th, 2014)

Products affected: StraightShaper and FairRouter

News:

None
Minor News:

• Support for 8000 Series port extension module with 8 ports

Bugs Fixed:

• Internet Access Filters had no effect for selected User Groups

Firmware version 3.4.1 (Released January 31st, 2014)

Products affected: StraightShaper and FairRouter

News:

None
Minor News:

None
Bugs Fixed:

• Some HTTPS traffic would be denied, even though no Internet Access Filters were scheduled for the user
• Internet Access Filters did not support TCP Fast Open

Firmware version 3.4 (Released January 22nd, 2014)

(Release Candidate 1 released December 30th, 2013)

Products affected: StraightShaper and FairRouter

News:

• Intelligent packet bursting increases the effective throughput for some wireless networks, e.g. if based on the IEEE 802.11n or 802.11ac standards
• Internet Access Filters with lists of allowed/denied web sites, with both weekly schedule and event schedule configurable per User Group
• Total throughput capacity of SmartShare 4000 Series increased from 400 to 500 Mbit/s

Minor News:

• Packet Capture option to select ingress, egress or both
• Health Monitor: Warn if the ATL FTP servers are down, and the ATL files are not being stored
• SmartShare Callout API support for Basic Authentication. Use by adding user:password@ in front of the hostname part of the API Server URL, as specified in RFC 3986 section 3.2.1
• SmartShare Callout API support for query parameters in API Server URL
• No Information provisioning mode for use in highly secure environments, where no information should be sent to SmartShare Systems. In this mode only basic provisioning is available, not MySmartShare etc.
• Updates to reflect that ConnectWise API requires integration partner identification
• The overall system status (indicated by the Status LED and readable by SNMP) is “warning” if the User Capacity has been exceeded
• Status LCD shows warning if the User Capacity has been exceeded

Bugs Fixed:

• The SmartShare Callout API could not fetch user thumbnail pictures by https
• When uploading system generated files to an FTPS server, fallback to FTP (without SSL) when the FTPS server is behind a NAT router and the PASV response does not contain the public IP address of the server
• Improved compatibility with some FTPS servers, e.g. Synology NAS, regarding upload of system generated files
• SmartShare VM should not generate jumbo frames, e.g. when loading a web page from the SmartShare GUI; this would cause interoperability problems with some other virtual machines running on the same physical server. (VM appliance only)
• When a virtual machine with a virtual network adapter with TCP Offload features was connected through a vSwitch to a SmartShare VM on the same physical server, the SmartShare VM would drop some packets generated by the other virtual machine. (VM appliance only)
• If a Local Network SNMP Agent was too slow to respond to an SNMP request from the SmartShare, and the SmartShare had resent the SNMP request, the SmartShare would ignore the reply to the initial SNMP request
• NTP Client sent NTP request with incorrect values in some parameters, so it was incompatible with some NTP servers, such as time.windows.com
• NTP Server replied with incorrect Reference Time Stamp and without indicating alarm condition when the clock was not synchronized with an external NTP server
• In some cases, when a new user appeared on the network, the DNS Tunnel API would provide an incorrect MAC address
• When sending system generated emails through a specified SMTP Server, connect to the MSA port (port 587) and fall back to the MTA port (port 25) if it fails, instead of vice versa
• When in Trial mode, throughput capacity should disregard license and follow hardware specifications
• Status LCD showed incorrect error message (Not Optimizing instead of Capacity Exceeded) when throughput capacity was exceeded

Firmware release 3.3 (Released June 17th, 2013)

Products affected: StraightShaper and FairRouter

News:

• Improved and changed SmartShare Callout API, making it is easier to understand and use

Minor News:

• Use FTPS, if the FTP server supports it, for uploading system generated files to an FTP server, e.g. Packet Capture files or ATL files. This prevents interception of the FTP username and password. Note: FTPS (FTP Secure) is FTP using TLS for encryption, FTPS is not related to SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol)
• Option to log all GUI login attempts
• Improved compatibility for sending system generated emails through SMTP Server requiring TLS, e.g. Microsoft Office 365 SMTP Server
• Increased number of trusted SMTP Servers to 4

Bugs Fixed:

• In some configurations, All Ports Forwarding to Local Servers did not work. FairRouter only. (Bug introduced in firmware version 3.2)
• If overlapping subnets were configured, the firewall dropped some types of packets related to the subnets that were subsets of other subnets. FairRouter only. (Bug introduced in firmware version 3.2)
• In some cases, when using more than one port pair, but not all port pairs, the bandwidth throughput could be limited. StraightShaper only
• In some cases, when disconnecting a cable while using more than one port pair, the bandwidth throughput could be limited. StraightShaper only
• When configuring a new Ping Server for a Network Latency Monitor configuration the statistics regarding the previous Ping Server was not deleted
• If a user license was reused, some of the statistical data for the new user was not deleted
• If a user license was reused, the Upload Available per User statistics was incorrect at the instant when the new user appeared, looking like it exceeded the connection bandwidth

Firmware release 3.2 (Released March 1st, 2013)

Products affected: StraightShaper and FairRouter

News:

• PING-based service monitor with real-time graphs showing network latency, jitter and packet loss reaching specified servers (or other network devices). E.g. hosted PBX, radio link transmitter or internal server
• Show user’s contact information on User Information page in GUI, including real name, title/description, email address, mobile phone number, notes and thumbnail picture
• Requires use of SmartShare Callout API for integration with external user database
• Option to automatically send a notification email directly to the user when the user is caught by Extra Shaping (typically P2P users). Requires use of SmartShare Callout API for integration with external user database
• Built-in DNS server/proxy for local users. This is now the DNS Server offered to DHCP clients. FairRouter only
• DNS proxy with SmartShare DNS Tunnel API for integration with external DNS security and filtering service providers, e.g. WebFilter.dk
• Packet Capture upload directly to FTP server in real-time, using PCAP file format

Minor News:

• Flows chart in GUI also shows peak flows
• When logging that Extra Shaping of a user has started, also log the user name
• Top Users pie charts do not show the Unused slice as default. (Click the Unused legend to show it)
• Added Unmanaged user group type for equipment that does not need to be optimized, but needs access to the Internet for some reason anyway (e.g. a managed switch using NTP). Unmanaged users are bundled together as one virtual user. User groups can no longer be configured as Excess Users
• Include VLAN ID (if any) of each user in downloadable user table and API. StraightShaper only
• Health Monitor: Warn if the Default Gateway overlaps a LAN subnet. FairRouter only.
• Hardened firewall drops IP and ARP packets if the ingress port does not match the configuration. FairRouter only
• Hardened firewall drops packets that mismatch the flow’s state. FairRouter only
• Improved HTTP REST-based SmartShare Callout API for retrieving user information from an external user database, e.g. Active Directory and other IDM systems
• Compression of the information sent to the provisioning server
• Improved flow state detection to calculate the number of flows more accurately

StraightShaper only

• Support for 8000 Series port extension module
• Improvement of Speed Test run time for high speed connections with burst capacity
• Improved GUI compatibility for Google Chrome web browser

Bugs Fixed:

• Misbehaving DHCP clients requesting multiple IP addresses could fill up the User table
• Now, a grace period of a few seconds allows New users to appear and disappear from the network before they change state to Normal
• If the system did not get its IP address during the startup sequence it would reboot after a few minutes
• In some cases, when a NAT flow was in an unexpected state, outgoing packets that should have been dropped by the firewall were IP routed instead. FairRouter only
• Some of the additional LAN port IP addresses configured were not shown on the Status page. FairRouter only
• Speed Test stopped working if the system time was changed significantly during startup while the Speed Test was in progress
• Speed Test could fail during startup (with the message “Error: IP address missing”) when the System IP Address is DHCP Assigned and the Connection Speed is Automatic
• Speed Test could incorrectly detect VPN or PPPoE overhead
• When applying an extremely large configuration, e.g. with thousands of port forwarding rules, it could cause a system reboot. FairRouter only
• Health Monitor incorrectly reported Default Gateway Not Responding when using PPPoE. FairRouter only
• A specially crafted malformed DHCP Request packet could cause a system reboot
• DHCP Conflicting Ghost expiry time was too long. FairRouter only
• Packet Capture could initially capture a few packets not matching the specified MAC/IP address
• Packet Capture packet counter did not reset the number of packets in the capture buffer when the captured packets were downloaded
• ATL logged information about irrelevant users. ATL does not log information about Unmanaged or Excess users
• If the Callout API server stopped responding, the SmartShare could reboot
• Processor Usage information was inaccurate, and has been removed from GUI and SNMP

Firmware release 3.1.1 (Released June 14th, 2012)

Products affected: StraightShaper and FairRouter

News:

None
Minor news:

None

Bugs fixed:

• In some cases the last User Group entries were deleted when changing something on the Advanced configuration page. (Bug introduced in firmware version 3.1.)
• The Network Topology configuration table was limited to two entries. StraightShaper only. (Bug introduced in firmware version 3.1.)

Firmware release 3.1 (Released June 12th, 2012)

Products affected: StraightShaper and FairRouter

News:

• Detailed statistics for each individual user, with graphs showing real-time and historical bandwidth usage and number of flows
• Configuration tables are dynamically sized, and not limited to 40 entries
• No internet access during bedtime. Can be enabled per User Group
• Health Monitor: Detect rogue IP senders. A rogue IP sender can prevent many popular operating systems from obtaining an IP address using DHCP. Rogue IP senders are typically consumer routers running old or defective firmware

Minor News:

• Top Users pie charts indicate with an asterisk which users are affected by Extra Shaping
• Default DHCP lease time increased from 24 hours to 30 days. This increases the probability of keeping long term statistics for sporadic users. FairRouter only
• UDP flow inactivity timeout increased from 3 minutes to 10 minutes, inspired by RFC 4787
• Packet Capture of specified MAC address includes DHCP/BOOTP packets with matching client MAC address. This includes DHCP broadcast replies
• Packet Capture of specified IP address includes ARP packets with matching IP address. This includes proxy ARP replies
• Packet Capture allows specifying IP address/subnet to capture entire IP subnet
• SNMP Agent support for dot1dBasePortTable, dot1dBaseBridgeAddress and dot1dBaseNumPorts
• Support VOICE-ADMIT (defined in RFC 5865) as VoIP DSCP
• Improved statistics for Latency Monitor, e.g. exclude unreliable results measured while Speed Test is running
• Speed Test improvements regarding high speed connections with burst capacity

Bugs Fixed:

• Bypass traffic was counted as ordinary traffic in Connection Bandwidth Usage statistics. StraightShaper only
• Configuration of Port Based Port Forwarding to Many Local Servers with too many servers could cause a system reboot when activating the configuration. FairRouter only
• In some situations, the names shown for the users stopped being updated
• Encoding of special characters was missing in Callout API requests
• Packets to/from the AutoIP range should not be routed. FairRouter only
• Login could fail with blank page on some 1000 Series and 5000 Series hardware revisions
• Virtual processor usage does not reflect real processor usage, and should not be shown. SmartShare VM appliance only
• Reduced the probability of truncating the messages being written to the system log
• Checksum of PING packet sent by DHCP server was incorrect. FairRouter only

Firmware release 3.0 (Released February 14th, 2012)

Products affected: StraightShaper and FairRouter

News:

• New product line: Virtual Appliance for VMware vSphere (ESXi)
• New product line: 4000 Series hardware appliance
• HTTP REST-based callout API for retrieving user names from external user database, e.g. Active Directory
• Show user’s real name of instead of Hostname. Requires use of Callout API

Minor News:

• Improved GUI compatibility for Google Chrome web browser
• The connection bandwidth is managed according to the capacity when the connection bandwidth capacity exceeds the capacity specifications
• Health Monitor: Warn if connection bandwidth exceeds bandwidth capacity
• Route table and Port Based Port Forwarding To Many Local Servers table increased to 30 entries each
• DHCP Server Static IP Addresses table increased to 40 entries. FairRouter only
• Connection packet loss statistics improvements regarding connections with very low packet loss
• Provisioning system uses alternative port 65532 if unable to use port 80
• Chart values in parentheses now includes “avg.” to clarify that they are average values
• Speed Test improvements regarding burstable connections
• Health Monitor: Warn if assigned WAN IP address conflicts with LAN IP configuration. FairRouter only

Bugs Fixed:

• PPPoE configuration missing from Connection page in GUI. FairRouter only
• SNMP GET-requests using ifIndex 101 returned an error instead of the value. (Bug introduced in firmware version 2.4)
• Sorting of Detailed User Status in the GUI did not always work
• Built-in NTP server did not respond to NTP requests
• Traffic to/from users in a User Group configured to be Excess Users was counted as traffic related to Unknown Users instead of Excess Users
• The number of Extra Shaped Users was not counted correctly
• Extra Shaper Status sometimes showed READY when it was ACTIVE
• In some cases changing the configuration for sending log messages by email required a reboot before it worked

Firmware release 2.4 (Released December 2nd, 2011)

Products affected: StraightShaper and FairRouter

News:

• Basic configuration is now a single page in the GUI
• Filter for outgoing DNS connections can prevent use of alternative DNS servers. This feature enables DNS based filtering via internal or external DNS servers, such as OpenDNS
• Filter for outgoing SMTP connections can prevent most spambots from sending email
• RADIUS for management access
• HTTP REST-based API to change configuration

Minor News:

• TCP Waste Reduction. Discards superfluous TCP packets generated by many popular operating systems
• DNS servers can be statically configured
• The trusted SMTP server in the filter for outgoing SMTP connections can be a hostname
• Graphs zoom in/out at newest data, regardless of where is clicked
• Detailed User Status shows when the user was detected
• Health Monitor detects when equipment without Auto Negotiation is connected to the SmartShare and there is a risk of packet loss due to duplex mismatch
• Port forwarding to PPTP VPN Server. FairRouter only
• Network topology can be configured for bridged WAN connection, so Layer 2 traffic (incl. ARP packets) is also counted. StraightShaper only
• Log when the calculated Recommended User Capacity comes near the User Capacity
• SNMP ifIndex of Virtual WAN changed from 5 to 101

Bugs Fixed:

• It was not possible to enable logging when extra shaping of users was started via the GUI
• Selecting the User Group Type “Excess Users” in the GUI actually selected the “No Access to WAN” behavior, and vice versa
• When switching System IP configuration between DHCP Assigned and Static Configuration it had no effect before the system was rebooted
• The default manager login and password (admin/admin) on the Ext2 port did not work
• In some situations, the hostnames shown for the users stopped being updated
• Internet Connectivity Monitor didn’t work if Offline Threshold was set below 20 seconds
• The SMTP Password and Integrator Password fields on the Advanced page in the GUI now do not show their values on the screen
• Warning about User Capacity Exceeded was triggered by Peak Users, and is now triggered by comparing the calculated Required Minimum User Capacity to the User Capacity
• SNMP ifInDiscards and etherStatsDropEvents counted incorrectly for the WAN interface. StraightShaper only

Firmware release 2.3 (Released August 19th, 2011)

Products affected: StraightShaper and FairRouter

News:

• Monitoring of duration and number of times the internet connection was down
• Real-time graph showing connection latency, jitter and packet loss
• Packet capture option with IP/MAC address filter, using standard PCAP file format
• Configuration options for using DSCP based prioritization per User Group
• Configuration options for assigning fixed VoIP or Data priority per User Group
• Link to MySmartShare directly from the GUI. (Only visible for Installer level managers)

Minor News:

• Health Monitor now warns if internet connection is down
• Health Monitor now warns if DNS servers are not responding
• Health Monitor now warns if Default Gateway is unreachable
• Detailed User Status table can be sorted by clicking the column headline
• System Log shows past and non active events in a different color shade
• Log when a new user (Normal User) is detected. Feature is optional
• Logging when a user with many flows is detected is now optional
• HTTP REST-based API to retrieve detailed user table
• FairRouter and StraightShaper 300 V2 Series capacity increased to 20,000 flows

Bugs fixed:

• Provisioning protocol now avoids sending redundant information
• Connection Speed Test sometimes incorrectly failed with the reason “Connection has too low packet rate capacity”

Firmware release 2.2.2 (Released April 4th, 2011)

Products affected: StraightShaper and FairRouter

News:

None
Minor news:

None

Bugs fixed:

• Built-in NTP Server did not respond to requests from NTP clients. (FairRouter only)
• When a Trial was about to expire, a lot of log messages would be generated. (This bug was introduced in firmware version 2.2)
• In some cases (e.g. fiber connections with large burst capacity), the speed test kept running for a long time. (This bug was introduced in firmware version 2.2.)

Firmware release 2.2.1 (Released March 2nd, 2011)

Products affected: StraightShaper and FairRouter

News:

None

Minor news:

• Limit in flow capacity now only depends on product series, not license size

Bugs fixed:

• Health Monitor showed warning about throughput capacity being exceeded when it was not. (300 (V2) Series products only)

Firmware release 2.2 (Released February 24th, 2011)

Products affected: StraightShaper and FairRouter

News:

• Online User Manual available via ? in the menu
• Support for 300 (V2) hardware
• Easy access to GUI via LAN (http://192.0.2.2/ or 169.254.2.2/), directly on LAN port, but also from normal user network via LAN switches; no need to use Ext2 port. (Ext2 port still supporte)
• Service Mode on LAN port replaces the Ext2 service port. When Service Mode is enabled, it includes a DHCP Server on the LAN port and enables the default Manager password. (Ext2 port still supported if present)
• Use USB Memory Stick to: load/save configuration, save log file, install Activation Code, enable Service Mode
• Count DNS requests/replies per user, available in GUI through User Details download
• Count SMTP flows per user, available in GUI through User Details download

Minor news:

• Health Monitor shows red warning box on every page in the GUI if there are any current problems
• Built-in agents (Speed Test, NTP Client, Email Sender etc.) fall back to use Google DNS server 8.8.8.8 if configured DNS servers do not respond
• Remote logging now supports SMTP relays requiring username/password authentication
  Health Monitor shows Warning when less than 14 days of Subscription runtime remains (Subscription models only)
• If the User Capacity has been exceeded, duration is shown
• For improved compatibility, the DHCP Client includes the Client Identifier (option 61) containing the MAC address

Bugs fixed:

• Download Detailed User Table to PC contained the list of users twice
• Download Detailed User Table to PC now contains counters in numerical format
• Speed Test results are not used if confidence is too low (less than 80%)
• Speed Test results are not used if the connection type has exceptionally high overhead
• Ethernet Auto Negotiation became permanently disabled on a port if fallback were configured for Full Duplex
• Download Configuration, Download System Log and Download Detailed Status to PC did not work using HTTPS with some web browsers
  Time-zone configuration revised
• VLAN tagged in-band management on a VLAN Trunk fixed
• ARP traffic is now included in the User’s traffic counters
• Number of Active Users now only includes Users, not system traffic or excess users

Firmware release 2.1.1 (Released November 1st, 2010)

Products affected: StraightShaper and FairRouter

News:

None
Minor news:

None
Bugs fixed:

• Ext2 management port does not work (introduced in 2.1 – FairRouter only)
• License page (Unlicensed units only) and System page took too long to load when accessed from a computer that is not connected to the internet
• Local IP addresses configured for NAPT should not be preregistered as Users (FairRouter only)
• MySmartShare would initially reports “Connection speed unknown” in the Health Monitor section the first hour after a unit had completed its startup

Firmware release 2.1 (Released October 25th, 2010)

Products affected: StraightShaper and FairRouter

News:

• Major upgrade of the internal firmware core to further increase performance and support future functionality
• Top-10 pie charts show computer name (hostname) instead of IP address if resolvable
• Detailed User Table also shows computer name (hostname) if resolvable and MAC address
• Integration into ConnectWise. See www.smartshareystems.com/connectwise for details. (Requires a separate MSP feature option license)
• HTTPS for secure web management
• SNMP Traps for alerting now complements email and Syslog alerts
• Network Topology now automatically detected when using DMZ and/or multiple LANs. (StraightShaper only)

Minor news:

• Firmware Download box shows version of latest available released firmware, including a link to the release notes
• Health Monitor detects missing System IP address. (StraightShaper only)
• Health Monitor detects if system throughput capacity is exceeded
• Health Monitor details for the current problems, if any, are shown in a separate box on the Status page
• Health Monitor OK messages changed from “Warning Disappeared” to “OK”
• User Group option to select an entire /24 subnet as a single user has been removed
• Remote Log Email SMTP Server is now optional. The recipient’s email server will be found based the recipient’s email address
• Trial duration can be extended without rebooting and remaining trial duration now shows both days and hours
• The automatic Speed Test has been improved for high latency links

Bugs fixed:

• Excess and/or Other Users sometimes included management traffic generated by the system itself
• NTP Client was too sensitive to sporadically delayed responses from remote NTP server
• Speed Test interoperability with some firewalls fixed
• PPPoE configuration could not be selected. (This bug was introduced in version 1.20 and fixed in version 1.20.2.) (FairRouter only)
• DHCP Server Detector interoperability problem with some DHCP Servers fixed.(StraightShaper 300 Series only)
• Dragging/Zooming the User Overview graph did not affect the User Bandwidth Overview graph
• Packets with incorrect source IP Address will now be dropped. (FairRouter only)
• NTP Server Status showed incorrectly “Initializing” when disabled
• ATL FTP Status showed incorrectly “Initializing” when disabled
• Clear Counters now requires confirmation and will be logged
• Managers with User level access will not be able to clear the system log and go to Save page

Firmware release 1.20.2 (Released August 17th, 2010)

Products affected: FairRouter

News:

None
Minor news:

None
Bugs fixed:

• Configuration could not be saved or activated when using PPPoE. (FairRouter only) (This bug was introduced in firmware version 1.20)

Firmware release 1.20.1 (Released July 9th, 2010)

Products affected: StraightShaper and FairRouter

News:

None
Minor news:

• User Group properties can be configured for the Excess Users virtual user
• 5000 Series models qualified for 10.000 users

Bugs fixed:

• Trial Mode does not work at all. (This bug was introduced in version 1.20)
• All Ports Forwarding To Local Servers could reject a valid configuration. (This bug was introduced in version 1.20)
• Speed Test duration was sometimes longer than necessary
• Speed Test sometimes failed on connections with less than 500 kbit/s upload bandwidth

Firmware release 1.20 (Released June 30th, 2010)

Products affected: StraightShaper and FairRouter

News:

• Download Configuration to PC / Upload Configuration from PC
• Log system events to SYSLOG servers
• Log system events to email
• Option for extra shaping of users with many flows (typically P2P users)
• Status LED stays green during entire startup phase, for simpler installation
• Product GUI has been updated

Minor news:

• Peak Users has been replaced by Recommended Minimum User Capacity
• Speed Test will automatically use the nearest test server (i.e. with the lowest round trip time). Current we have one in Denmark and one in USA
• NAPT public port range to single port on local IP address range (FairRouter Only)
• Statistics counters can be cleared
• User Details shows Peak Flows
• System Log can be cleared
• When in Trial mode, Status page shows when the Trial expires

Bugs fixed:

• Speed Test timeout is too fast for some connections
• Speed Test DNS lookup fails when the DNS server is located on the LAN (StraightShaper only)
• Speed Test confidence sometimes incorrect (far above 100%)
• Speed Test error message is incorrect (it said Timeout) when the connection to the server is unreliable
• Speed Test wrong results on connections with large burst capacity
• Top-10 pie charts did not show the Excess Users group as a unique top user, but included it in the Other Users sum
• Statistics and pie charts sometimes shows extreme bandwidth usage by a New user
• Statistics could show fewer flows counted than current number of flows for a New user
• System time synchronization with the NTP server took more than 15 minutes to start after power-on and after a new NTP server had been configured

Firmware release 1.19 (Released April 13th, 2010)

Products affected: StraightShaper, FairRouter and MultilinkBalancer

News:

• 100% plug-and-play installation for StraightShaper
• Automatically test WAN speed and connection type
• System log shown in GUI
• System log can be downloaded from GUI as text file
• VoIP Extra Priority now enabled as default
• Graphs have been redesigned, and are now easier to read

Minor News:

• The IP address of a Managed User will not be permanently locked, but will be available for reuse by another IP address after it have been inactive for 8 hours
• Guest status of Managed Users has been removed
• Top Users by Flows pie chart added. (StraightShaper only. Already in FairRouter/MultilinkBalancer)
• Flows Overview chart. (StraightShaper only. Already in FairRouter/MultilinkBalancer)
• User details includes Flows, Flow Rate and Flows Processed
• (StraightShaper only. Already in FairRouter/MultilinkBalancer)
• IP addresses can be configured into the “Other Users” group, thus not using IP Device licenses
• Default User Weight can be set
• New connection overhead types to compensate for PPPoE and VPN encapsulation, as well as DSL based on VC-MUX
• While in Trial Mode, periodically send product performance information to SmartShare Systems. Option to periodically send product performance information to SmartShare Systems
• Boot process CLI command to load default configuration for system recovery
• The separate Bandwidth User Groups and User Groups Denied Access to WAN tables have been replaced by a unified User Groups table
• External NTP Server factory default set to ntp.smartsharesystems.com
• Access to the WAN can be blocked for IP address ranges. (StraightShaper only. Already in FairRouter/MultilinkBalancer)
• Status LED also indicates warning (by blinking red) at degraded performance, not only when unable to pass traffic
• When the configuration is changed, the system log is notified
• SNMP ifOperStatus for Virtual WAN interface returns “testing” state when speed test is in progress, and “notPresent” state when no license is installed or activated
• SNMP hrStorageSize, hrStorageUsed, hrSWRunPerfMem and hrMemorySize supported to show Memory Usage
• SNMP dot3StatsDuplexStatus supported
• Automated login available using “login.html?
• username=insertusernamehere&password=insertpasswordhere”
• The selected menu is now also a link, so it can be clicked again to reload the current page
• The System Overview graph (showing CPU and Memory Usage and some Health Monitor warnings) has been removed
• Show the correct measurement unit (user seconds) for Active User Time and User Experience Improved Time
• Show byte counters as human readable (kB, MB, GB, TB, PB or EB) instead of large numbers
• Detailed User Table can be downloaded from GUI as text file
• The statistical information shown as Bandwidth Available for Any User and Bandwidth Guaranteed to Each User have been replaced by the more meaningful Bandwidth Available per User and Minimum Bandwidth Available per User information
• DHCP Server extended to 20 static IP addresses

Manual intervention required:

• If both Bandwidth User Groups and User Groups Denied Access to WAN were configured, the users denied access to WAN must be re-configured (in the User Groups table) after the firmware upgrade
• The configured WAN Connection Speed should be changed from Static Configuration to Automatic Test after the firmware upgrade, except in special deployments. (This only applies to deployed units. The default configuration for new and unconfigured units is Automatic Test)

Firmware release 1.18.2 (Released January 6th, 2010)

Products affected: StraightShaper, FairRouter and MultilinkBalancer

Minor News:

• Product name and firmware version shown on Status page

Bugs fixed:

• In rare situations, the box could spontaneously reboot. This bug was introduced in FW 1.15
• Configuring a too large range of IP addresses in All Ports Forwarding could cause the box to go into a reboot loop. (FairRouter/MultilinkBalancer only)
• Permanent Users on Status page did not include all Permanent users. (This bug was not fully fixed in FW 1.18)
• The DHCP Server Detector stopped working if it received a packet with correct Ethernet checksum but incorrect IP or UDP checksum

Firmware release 1.18.1 (Released November 27th, 2009)

Products covered: FairRouter and MultilinkBalancer

Bugs fixed:

• Setting up All Ports Forwarding to Local Server (a NAT feature) or User Groups Denied Access to WAN (an Access Control feature) could cause the box to go into a reboot loop
• This bug was introduced in FW 1.18

Firmware release 1.18 (Released November 16th, 2009)

Products covered: StraightShaper, FairRouter and MultilinkBalancer

News:

• Changing configuration does not require reboot
• ATL option available for StraightShaper
• Using local time zone instead of UTC. (Local time zone can be configured)
• Configurable half/full duplex when connecting to equipment without Auto Negotiation
• Bandwidth Guaranteed to Each User shown on both Status and Charts pages

Minor news:

• Graph legends now also show the most recent value
• Statistics value “Bandwidth Available for Next User” (how much bandwidth would be available for the next user that becomes active) has been replaced by “Bandwidth Available for Any User” (how much bandwidth is available for any of the currently active users)
• Statistics value “Bandwidth Rate of Top User” has been removed from Status and Charts pages. (The same, but more detailed, information can be found on both the Detailed Status and the Top Users pages)
• Statistical time counters are now shown in readable format (days, hours, minutes, seconds) instead of just seconds (which could be a very large number)
• SmartShare Systems enterprise MIB implemented, containing an overall system status value. Refer to the SMARTSHARESYSTEMS-MIB.txt for the full MIB description
• CLI command “stop trial” added
• Unlicensed Trial models now show a notice to the manager, highlighting that a trial must be started for the product to work
• Unlicensed models now show a notice to the manager, highlighting that the activation code must be installed for the product to work

Bugs fixed:

• Processor usage could be 100% for a long duration if the time jumped more than a few seconds, e.g. when the clock was set manually or by NTP
• The DHCP Server could not assign static IP addresses outside the dynamic range. (FairRouter/MultilinkBalancer only)
• When using a static WAN IP address, the HealthMonitor always counted one connectivity problem during startup. (FairRouter/MultilinkBalancer only)
• Configuring additional IP addresses for the LAN port (by setting Next Hop Gateway to an IP address inside the Subnet in Additional LAN Subnets) did not work(FairRouter/MultilinkBalancer only)
• When the LAN Port has been configured for additional IP addresses, they were not all shown in the GUI and in SNMP. (FairRouter/MultilinkBalancer only)
• Permanent Users on Status page did not include all Permanent users
• Values for Download/Upload Rate of Top User shown on Status page showed too small values. (It only included 8 seconds of traffic.) (Values shown on the Chart page was correct)
• Status page showed slightly incorrect values for Bandwidth Available for Next User. (Values shown on the Chart page was correct)
• Detailed Status page sometimes showed user status as “Managed” instead of “Permanent”
• In rare situations, users with a configured maximum bandwidth could temporarily exceed the configured maximum bandwidth
• System date and time set in GUI was not stored if the system was powered off or rebooted soon after
• SNMP ifType for Virtual WAN was ethernetCsmacd; now is propVirtual
• SNMP ifSpeed and ifHighSpeed did not reflect the connected speed when a port was connected
• SNMP ipAddrTable did not contain all LAN IP addresses. (FairRouter/MultilinkBalancer only)
• Watchdog did not monitor SNMP Agent
• ATL log file could become garbled. This would only happen in very rare situations (with very high flow rate and high processor usage). (ATL option only)
• Internal error could cause unexpected behavior under high processor usage