Table Of Contents
Release Notes for Cisco ACNS Software, Release 4.2
Configuring RealServer in ACNS Software, Release 4.2
Recovering Missing Disk-Based Software
CiscoWorks2000 Resource Manager Essentials 3.4.1
Manually Organized Distributed Architecture Technology
RealSystem Administrator Graphical User Interface Features
Resetting the Default Administrator Password for the E-CDN Application
Caching Entire Objects Under Range Requests
User Authentication and Authorization Using RADIUS
HTTP Request Authentication Using TACACS+
Transaction Logging and NTLM Authentication
New and Changed ACNS Software Command-Line Interface Commands
Performance Characteristics of ACNS Software, Release 4.2
Resolved Caveats - Release 4.2
Open Caveats - ACNS Software Release 4.2
ecdn reset-cdm-gui password Command
wmt proxy outgoing http host Command
SmartFilter and the No-Auth Rule Interaction
Obtaining Technical Assistance
Release Notes for Cisco ACNS Software, Release 4.2
July 26, 2002
Note
The most current Cisco documentation for released products is available at Cisco.com at http://www.cisco.com. The online documents may contain updates and modifications made after the hardcopy documents were printed.
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Contents
These release notes contain information about ACNS software, Release 4.2. These release notes describe the following topics:
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Introduction
These release notes describe new features, limitations, caveats, and other important information regarding ACNS software, Release 4.2.
Installation Notes
Instructions for installing the hardware and initial installation and configuration of new devices are located in the Cisco Content Delivery Networking Products Getting Started Guide.
Instructions for upgrading and downgrading devices to and from ACNS software, Release 4.2 are located in Chapter 3 of the Cisco ACNS Software Maintenance and Troubleshooting Guide. See the "Related Documentation" section of these release notes for a description of the entire ACNS software,
Release 4.2 documentation set.New and Changed Information
This section describes existing features that have changed and new features in ACNS software, Release 4.2. These features include the following:
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Configuring RealServer in ACNS Software, Release 4.2
In ACNS software, Release 4.1, you configured the Content Engine RealServer with the publisher's IP address (or host name) and admin port using the real-subscriber publisher command. You then entered the IP address and port information of every Content Engine in the publisher RealServer user interface.
In ACNS software, Release 4.2, you configure the Content Engine RealServer through the RealServer administrator GUI. To access the RealServer GUI, you must first enable the E-CDN application.
Recovering Missing Disk-Based Software
In earlier versions of ACNS software, a feature called the software recovery shell was used to recover from missing disk-based software. A new procedure that uses the CLI has been implemented in ACNS software, Release 4.2. At startup, if a problem is detected with disk00, a console message urges users to check disk00, replace the disk if necessary, and run the disk recover command. The disk recover command is a new command in ACNS software, Release 4.2.
If the system disk (disk00) fails or is missing, ACNS software, Release 4.2 continues to boot up and run; however, it runs in a degraded mode in which HTTP proxy and related HTTP features still work, but most other features fail. The following features continue to work even if disk00 is missing:
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For further information on how to recover from missing disk-based software in the ACNS software, Release 4.2, refer to the Cisco ACNS Software Maintenance and Troubleshooting Guide (OL-1888-02), which is available on Cisco.com at the following URL:
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/webscale/uce/acns41/sysmnt/index.htm
CiscoWorks2000 Resource Manager Essentials 3.4.1
The CiscoWorks2000 Resource Manager Essentials (RME), also called Essentials 3.4.1, IDS patch provides support for the following Cisco Content Engines: CE-507, CE-507AV, CE560, CE560AV, CE-590, and CE-7320. To obtain the patch, go to the EMBU Patch Repository at the following location: http://embu-web.cisco.com/Patches/patch-publisher/patch-request.cfm.
In the Search by BugID field enter CSCin10877. A Readme document (in PDF format) is also available at this location.
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Manually Organized Distributed Architecture Technology
Manually Organized Distributed Architecture (MODA) is a proprietary technology that allows the network administrator to control network hierarchy manually. This feature is geared towards those users who do not want to use SODA technology and require something more sophisticated than simply disabling the existing Tree Building Protocol (TBP) feature. You can configure devices to use MODA by accessing the System window on the Content Distribution Manager graphical user interface.
Playlists for TV-Out Playback
Content Engines that are equipped with an integrated Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) decoder are also known as TV-out enabled devices. These devices play media files using National Television Standards Committee (NTSC) or Phase Alternation Line (PAL) video signals. The Content Engine can thus play video directly to a TV monitor in applications such as kiosks, cable TV systems, and video walls. Playback, which is the act of streaming a file or set of files, can be scheduled or controlled controlled manually. You can manually control playlists using VCR-like controls from any web browser.
A playlist is a list of media files and their associated attributes that defines when and how the files are played back. You can create local and system playlists. Local playlists are created, managed, and played from a single TV-out enabled device. System playlists are created and managed by the Content Distribution Manager and then played across one or more TV-out devices.
RealSystem Administrator Graphical User Interface Features
ACNS software, Release 4.2 allows you to use several configuration features on the RealSystem Administrator graphical user interface.
Resetting the Default Administrator Password for the E-CDN Application
If the E-CDN application is enabled and the administrator password is forgotten, lost, or misconfigured, you can reset the password, using a new procedure, on the Content Distribution Manager. Password changes propagate out to any Content Router or Content Engine devices that are managed by the Content Distribution Manager.
For more information about this procedure, see Chapter 2 in the Cisco ACNS Software E-CDN Administrator's Guide, Release 4.2, or Chapter 4 in the Cisco ACNS Software Maintenance and Troubleshooting Guide.
Content Preloading
In ACNS software, Release 4.2, if content preloading is not completed before the scheduled end time, you can resume the preloading process to capture content using the pre-load resume global configuration command. You can also configure maximum bandwidth for the preloading process using the pre-load max-bandwidth global configuration command. ACNS software, Release 4.2 also includes Type of Service (ToS) or differentiated services code point (DSCP) support for HTTP, FTP and Microsoft Media Server (MMS) preload traffic.
Caching Entire Objects Under Range Requests
The command http smart-range enables the Content Engine to cache an entire HTTP response even if the client issues a Range request and the object is not in cache. The http smart-range enable global configuration command activates this caching feature. Use the no version of this command, no http smart-range enable, to disable it.
User Authentication and Authorization Using RADIUS
Authentication, also referred to as "login," is the act of verifying usernames and passwords. Authorization, or "configuration," refers to the setting of privileges for authenticated users in a network. Generally, authentication precedes authorization in a network. ACNS software, Release 4.2 allows you to use a RADIUS server to further authenticate and authorize users in your network, in addition to using the local and TACACS+ databases. The authentication login radius and authentication configuration radius commands use a remote RADIUS server to determine the level of user access, whereas previous releases of ACNS software only allowed the use of a RADIUS server to check against HTTP request authentication.
HTTP Request Authentication Using TACACS+
The ACNS software, Release 4.2 Cache application offers additional supports for TACACS+ server HTTP request authentication. HTTP request authentication authenticates a user's domain, username, and password with a preconfigured primary domain controller (PDC) before allowing requests from the user to be served by the Content Engine.
Using Access Control Lists
In ACNS software, Release 4.2 you can also configure group authorization using access control lists (ACLs) after a user has been authenticated against an NTLM or LDAP server. The use of these lists configures a group privilege when the group accesses content provided by the Content Engine. In other words, using ACLs allows or prevents users from certain groups from viewing specific content. This authorization feature offers more granular access control by specifying that access is allowed only to certain groups.
Transaction Logging and NTLM Authentication
If your device is configured for NT LAN Manager (NTLM) authentication, the transaction-logs log-windows-domain command records the Windows domain name and username in the "authenticated username" field of the transaction log. This feature is available for transaction logs in Apache-style as well as Extended-Squid format.
Traceroute Support
Traceroute is a widely available utility on most operating systems today. Much like ping, it is a valuable tool for determining connectivity in a network. Ping allows the user to find out if there is a connection between two end systems. Traceroute does this as well, but it additionally lists the intermediate routers between the two systems. Users can therefore see the routes that packets can take from the Content Engine to another system. Use the traceroute EXEC command to find the route to a remote host, when either the host name or IP address is known.
TCP Dump Support
Use the tcpdump EXEC command to view packet trace information on the Content Engine. This information can be saved to your hard drive and later be used by technical support for packet analysis.
IP Spoofing
In transparent caching, when the Content Engine contacts the origin web server, it uses the Content Engine's own IP address instead of the client's IP address on behalf of which the Content Engine is making the request. With IP spoofing, the transparent redirection process can enable the Content Engine to send out the client's IP address for authentication purposes on origin web servers. You can enable IP spoofing with the wccp spoof-client-ip enable global configuration command. You can disable this feature with the no wccp spoof-client-ip enable command.
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New Rules Template Operations
A new rule has been added to the Content Engine to tell the Content Engine to use different DNS name servers based on the URL provided. Another new rule helps the user specify that certain content can be cached even though the response from the server prohibits the caching operation.
The Rules Template feature support the following new types of actions:
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New and Changed ACNS Software Command-Line Interface Commands
The following tables list and describe new and changed command-line interface commands for ACNS software, Release 4.2. For more information on the WMT commands, see the latest version of the Cisco ACNS Software Command Reference, Release 4.2.
Table 3 New ACNS Software show Commands
show access-lists
show access-lists 300
Displays access control list configuration.
show rule
show rule {action {action-type {all | pattern pattern-type} | all}
Displays the Rules Template configuration information for new rules (see rule in Table 2).
show statistics access-lists
show statistics access-lists 300
Displays access control list statistics.
show statistics rule
show statistics rule {action {action-type {all | pattern pattern-type} | all}}
Displays rule statistics for new rules (see rule in Table 2).
show wccp
show wccp masks {custom-web-cache | media-cache | reverse-proxy | web-cache}
Displays WCCP caching service mask assignments.
Important Notes
Performance Characteristics of ACNS Software, Release 4.2
To view performance characteristics of ACNS software, Release 4.2, see the document titled ACNS 4.2 Performance Bulletin at the following URL:
http://www/warp/public/cc/pd/cxsr/ces/prodlit/
WCCP Masking Feature
Note that the WCCP masking feature in each WCCP-related CLI is documented in the Cisco ACNS Software Command Reference, Release 4.2. guide. However, this feature is not supported in ACNS software, Release 4.2.
RealServer Default Licenses
In ACNS software, Release 4.2, RealServer is no longer licensed, by default, to serve up to 10 simultaneous streams. To add licenses, you need to use the RealNetworks distributed license feature. Refer to the Cisco Content Delivery Networking Products Getting Started Guide, Release 4.2 for more information.
Caveats
This section lists and describes caveats that were resolved in ACNS software, Release 4.2, and caveats that are still open in this release.
Caveats describe unexpected behavior in ACNS software, Release 4.2. Severity 1 caveats are the most serious; severity 2 caveats are less serious. Severity 3 caveats are moderate caveats.
Resolved Caveats - Release 4.2
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The TV-out GUI allows a non-BMP file type to be used as an overlay image. For example, if an .mpeg file larger than 64 KB is used as the overlay image, the system goes into a loop.
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If you repeatedly click NEXT (10-15 times) from the GUI or the API while the playlist is in PLAY mode, the video server may pause indefinitely. The video monitor flickers for awhile as it attempts to play the next file and then it pauses indefinitely.
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Occasionally, the user cannot access the RealServer and receives the following error message:
Server has reached its capacity
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When the user programmatically imports content into a channel on the Content Distribution Manager, if the status return field is HTML or MX (E-CDN application proprietary format), then the status is not returned.
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Removing a Storage Array 6 that had the only sysfs partition results in a system with two disks allocated only to cfs and ecdnfs.
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Symptom: The Content Engine does not accept requests on secondary addresses.
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When multiple plug-ins (for example, Content Optimization and SmartFilter) are enabled at the same time, the caching process automatically reboots.
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All traffic to the Content Engine is bypassed after the following CLI command is issued:
show wccp flows web-cache detail•
The Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) creates unnecessary system log entries during user login.
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If the media player tries to play a clip through the HTTP protocol (the user chooses to only use the HTTP protocol as the transport), it will not work.
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When you try to use the cfs clear command, the following error results:
umhscache#cfs clear disk00/03 forceunable to create lock file•
When logging in as a TACACS user, the user does not appear in the user list.
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The rtsp_proxy did a core dump when it tried to connect to the WCCP process. The WCCP module in the rtsp_proxy was not able to free all the resources cleanly.
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When the proxy automatic configuration (.pac file) feature is used, a request for the proxy.pac file should not be forwarded to an upstream proxy device, even if an upstream proxy is configured.
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The rule cache feature does not work when the pattern type is mime-type.
Open Caveats - ACNS Software Release 4.2
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Symptom: During the playback of some MPEG-2 files using TV-out, the video decode freezes at some position in the file while the audio decode continues. Repeated playback shows that the video freeze occurs at the same position. In some extreme cases, the problem occurs on the first frame of video, causing playback to fail entirely.
Condition: This symptom occurs on systems running any Enterprise-CDN or ACNS software version. The hardware is the CE-507AV-CDN or CE-560AV-CDN, manufactured with the Vela CineView 2083 MPEG decoder card.
Workaround: The problem occurs with MPEG-2 files encoded at a variable bit rate (VBR).The hardware decoder interprets some sequences as an error, and stops the decode. We recommend that MPEG-2 files encoded for TV-out use constant bit rate (CBR) to avoid this problem. Files exhibiting this behavior should be re-encoded.
In the extreme case noted above, the TV-STATUS record may need to be removed to recover playback operation. This is only if the VBR file cannot be removed from the playlist through the TV Controller GUI. Go to the following URL:
http://<CE IP>/cgi/box
where <CE IP> is the Content Engine IP address.
1. Choose ShowLib and enter 'TV-STATUS in the Table regex field.
2. Click Show, choose Record, and click Delete checked records.
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Symptom: Under the circumstances described, the downgrade process from ACNS 4.x software to ECDN 3.x software fails to be completed.
Condition: This failure occurs when the Content Engine, Content Router, or Content Distribution Manager console port is physically connected to a console server and there is no active Telnet session running between the two devices. Without an open Telnet session, the console output that is generated during the downgrade fills the console buffer. Once the console buffer is filled, any application that generates console output is blocked. This effectively blocks the downgrade from continuing.
Workaround: There are three possible ways to work around this problem.
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When a downgrade has already been initiated and the device has paused indefinitely, configure the serial connection as above, and reboot the device. In most cases the downgrade will run to completion.
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Symptom: When the copy startup-config running-config command is used, the shell prompt is not returned.
Condition: If the copy startup-config running-config command is used when the CLI_INTERACTIVE flag is set, it triggers the execution of
/diamond/bin/config (generated from bfc/systems/cli/exec/src).This /diamond/bin/ config command executes the content in the startup configuration line by line. Certain config commands prompt the user and wait for the user's response, causing the copy command to pause indefinitely (stdout and stderr have been redirected) because there is no user response to the prompt.
This condition does not occur when the system boots up, because the CLI_INTERACTIVE flag is not set during bootup.
Those configuration commands that need user interaction call the function GetCLIMode(), which determines whether or not to enter interactive mode.
Workaround: If the copy startup-config running-config command pauses indefinitely, press Enter as needed, until the command has finished executing.
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Symptom: The disk configure command does not use the remaining (unused) space on disk00 for mediafs storage.
Condition: After upgrading from ACNS software, Release 4.0 to ACNS 4.1 software, Release 4.1 beta (4.1.0b14), disk00 has 12GB of "free" space. This space cannot be used for mediafs storage, because ACNS software does not support the disk partition command to manually create a disk00/03 partition. The disk configure command does not touch disk00 at all, so the result is lost disk space. This means that not all purchased disk space is usable.
Workaround: There is no workaround.
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Symptom: The contents of a file whose name exceeds 215 characters in length cannot be imported.
Condition: This occurs on a Content Distribution Manager 4630 or 4650 running ACNS software, Release 4.2.
Workaround: There is no known workaround. Internal software appends about 40 characters to a filename to keep track of content metadata such as channel-info. The Linux's ext2 file system supports FILENAME_MAX constant as 255. Thus, a filename that is greater than 215 characters is not supported.
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Symptom: Using an embedded Windows Media Player object in an HTML page to point to an ASX file that contains the WMT Play URL from the CDM Previewer page for an imported ASF file does not work. You receive an error message saying that the filename is invalid.
Condition: This symptom only occurs when you are using the embedded Windows Media Player object in an HTML page. This symptom does not occur if you are using the full Windows Media Player.
Workaround: Use the Windows Media Player (not the embedded object). Or, if you must use the embedded player, have it point directly to the WMT Play URL instead of an ASX file.
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Symptom: You cannot use .sami (Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange) files with WMT playing from the Content Distribution Manager or Content Engine.
Workaround: There is no known workaround.
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Symptom: The output from the show clock CLI command may not display the correct time zone name.
Conditions: This symptom occurs when the show clock CLI command is used on systems running ACNS software.
Workaround: There is no known workaround.
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Symptom: "Permission denied" messages are received when you import a folder using FTP drag and drop with Netscape 4.7. Subsequent attempts to import files using FTP drag and drop fail, and "unable to find the file or directory" messages are displayed.
Condition: This symptom occurs with ACNS software, Release 4.2.
Workaround: Use a different browser (Internet Explorer) if you need to import folders using FTP drag and drop. If you need to use Netscape 4.7, exiting and restarting the browser eliminates the subsequent "unable to find the file or directory" errors.
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Symptom: RADIUS authentication fails when the primary RADIUS server is not responding or is slow to respond even though the secondary RADIUS server is available.
Condition: If the primary RADIUS server is down or responding slowly and the rate of authentication requests sent to the Content Engine is high, then the client may see the authentication request timeout before receiving a response from the available secondary RADIUS server. One indication of this condition is a steadily increasing "Bad AC Entry" statistic in the output from the show statistics http-authcache command.
Workaround: Reconfigure the "radius-server host" parameter to remove the primary RADIUS server until the RADIUS server problem can be corrected.
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Symptom: When you use ACNS software, Release 4.2 to verify an NTLM-supplied password on a Windows server, the authentication fails if the password length is longer than 14 characters.
Condition: Password authentication fails on a Windows 2000 or Windows XP system.
Workaround: Do not use an NTLM user password that is longer than 14 characters. The maximum supported password length is 14 characters.
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Symptom: The SNMP client cannot authenticate itself using Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA)-based authentication.
Condition: Unknown.
Workaround: SNMPv3 supports a user-based authentication mechanism. Two authentication mechanisms, MD5 (Message Digest-5) and SHA (Secure Hash Algorithm), are supported by the SNMPv3 protocol. Since a MD5 authentication works, the user should choose MD5 as an authentication option while configuring the snmp-server user command.
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Symptom: If a user is in more than one group (with the same user ID) and if one of the groups has been configured in an access list, then the user will always be denied access even if the group is allowed.
Workaround: You need to set the access list to "permit any."
Documentation Updates
The following two commands were omitted from the Cisco ACNS Software Command Reference, Release 4.2.
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ecdn reset-cdm-gui password Command
Use the ecdn reset-cdm-gui-password EXEC command option to reset the administrator's CDM GUI password on the Enterprise CDN (E-CDN) application. The new password takes effect after the device is reloaded.
The following two examples demonstrate how this command is used to reset the administrator's CDM GUI password to its default value. The first example aborts the command after you answer no to the confirmation question three times.
ecdn-cdm# ecdn reset-cdm-gui-passwordThis command will reset CDM GUI password for user admin to the default value.The default password is the word 'default'.Are you sure you want to go ahead?[yes/no]Please enter yes or no:Please enter yes or no:Please enter yes or no:noCommand aborted.The second example resets the password to its default value after you answer yes to the confirmation question.
ecdn-cdm# ecdn reset-cdm-gui-passwordThis command will reset CDM GUI password for user admin to the default value.The default password is the word 'default'.Are you sure you want to go ahead?[yes/no] yeswmt proxy outgoing http host Command
You can designate an outgoing HTTP proxy server for streaming media in MMS format. Use the wmt proxy outgoing http host command to configure the outgoing proxy for this format. This command allows the forwarding of MMS data over HTTP to a standard 8080 proxy port.
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In this example, the host 10.1.1.1 on port 8088 is designated the primary outgoing proxy server, and host 10.1.1.2 is a backup proxy server.
ContentEngine(config)# http proxy outgoing host 10.1.1.1 8088 primaryContentEngine(config)# http proxy outgoing host 10.1.1.2 220In this example, the Content Engine is configured to redirect requests directly to the origin server if all of the proxy servers fail.
ContentEngine(config)# http proxy outgoing origin-serverIn this example, the Content Engine is configured to monitor the proxy servers every 120 seconds.
ContentEngine(config)# http proxy outgoing monitor 120For more information on the WMT commands, see the latest version of the Cisco ACNS Software Command Reference, Release 4.2.
SmartFilter and the No-Auth Rule Interaction
The no-auth rule permits specific login and content requests to bypass authentication and authorization features such as LDAP, RADIUS, SSH, or TACACS+. For example, any requests from the source IP address (src-ip) of 172.16.53.88 are not authenticated.
ContentEngine(config)# rule enableContentEngine(config)# rule action no-auth pattern-list 1 protocol allContentEngine(config)# rule pattern-list 1 src-ip 172.16.53.88 255.255.255.255If ACNS software is configured for authentication and SmartFilter URL filtering, requests that are allowed to bypass authentication will also bypass the URL filter.
Related Documentation
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Product Documentation Set
In addition to these release notes, the product documentation set includes:
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Refer to the Documentation Guide for a complete documentation roadmap and URL documentation links for this product.
Hardware Documentation
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Software Documentation
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Obtaining Documentation
These sections explain how to obtain documentation from Cisco Systems.
World Wide Web
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Translated documentation is available at this URL:
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http://www.cisco.com/public/ordsum.html
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http://www.cisco.com/go/subscription
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Documentation Feedback
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If you want to obtain customized information and service, you can self-register on Cisco.com. To access Cisco.com, go to this URL:
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The Cisco TAC resource that you choose is based on the priority of the problem and the conditions of service contracts, when applicable.
Cisco TAC Web Site
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