AltaVista Firewall with multiple processors

From: <LARRY.CLEGG_at_LPL.COM>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 13:02 -0700 (PDT)

     Greetings All,
     
     About a month ago we upgraded an Alpha 2100 4/275 and Alpha 4100 5/300
     with single processors to dual processors. We also upgraded to
     firmware V5.2 at the same time. These systems were our internal and
     external firewalls respectively. Both systems were running DUNIX
     V4.0a and AltaVista Firewall 96. They are heavily used and we needed
     more horsepower so we added another processor. Seemed reasonable to
     us.
     
     Starting about three weeks ago the Internal Firewall (2100) began
     crashing with some regularity. The External Firewall (4100) has had
     no problems. Compaq DSNlink support looked at the crash dumps and
     said a bug in FW96 was stepping on the TCP/IP stack and corrupting it
     and causing a cpu panic and resulting bug check. Upgrade to a later
     version was the answer.
     
     This past weekend we upgraded both firewalls to DUNIX V4.0b and
     AltaVista Firewall 97 with service pack three. (We didn't go to V4.0d
     and AVFW 98 as none of our applications had been tested with that
     combination.) We thought this would take care of the 2100 crashing
     problem. We were wrong. It has crashed twice so far today which
     causes lots of problems with production. The crash dumps show the
     same problem as under DUNIX V4.0a/AVFW 96.
     
     Compaq is again looking at the crash dumps and is now telling me the
     Firewall software is not supported under multiple processors!!!!!!!
     They can tell me this definitively for AVFW on WNT but not on DUNIX -
     they only 'think' that.
     
     Q) Has or is anyone else experiencing these same problems?
     Q) Does anyone run any version of DUNIX/AVFW software on a
        multiprocessor system? Would V4.0d and FW98 do the trick?
     Q) ANY suggestions? We're at a loss. We need the extra cpu power and
        are reluctant to pull the boards but that seems to be the only
        thing to do right now.
     
     Thanks.
     
     Larry Clegg
     LPL Financial Services
     San Diego, California

Received on Mon Aug 24 1998 - 20:05:23 NZST

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