Firmware 7.3.1.7

jturner wrote:

Seems we may be running into the same issues you have for this particular firmware version. Our logs show a bunch of sshd login attempts before it crashes (no reboot) and one can assume after reading your findings that, that is what is going on here too. Have you had any further results with this? Any further issues? Have you had a chance to take a look at the new firmware and see if netgear actually fixed this problem?

The only thing I can add is that the 6.2.0.14 firmware is also vulnerable to the same problem, but it isn't quite as sensitive. It takes a little more abuse before it takes a nosedive. Our only solution thus far is the block TCP and UDP (allow ICMP for troubleshooting purposes) to every IP address active on the L3 switch. Of course, allow TCP access to your management station(s).

Another approach that might work for some is to turn off SSH access for the switch, but you're hosed again the moment you turn it back on, so it is far from ideal. We had a situation where we'd tried this approach and the switch always crashed again before we had a chance to finish up in SSH and turn it off again. If you only use the GUI, though, this might work well enough.

I have not had time to install and test the new firmware on our non-production switch and there's no way I'm going to put it on our production switches until I've tested it thoroughly. Netgear tech support indicated that the fix likely wouldn't be in that version because it was too new of an issue to get integrated, but sometimes the firmware guys and the tech support guys don't communicate about every little firmware change. Maybe it is fixed in the 8.x.x.x beta, but I didn't see it specifically in the "changelog".