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Release Notes for Cisco Context Directory Agent, Release 1.0

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Table Of Contents

Release Notes for Cisco Context Directory Agent, Release 1.0

Contents

Introduction

Context Directory Agent Requirements

Context Directory Agent License Information

Important Notes

Installing the Context Directory Agent Software

Open Caveats in Cisco Context Directory Agent Release 1.0

Resolved Caveats in Cisco Context Directory Agent Release 1.0 Patch 1

Documentation Updates

Related Documentation

Release-Specific Documentation

Other Related Documentation

Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request


Release Notes for Cisco Context Directory Agent, Release 1.0

Revised: February 13, 2013, OL-26298-01

Contents

These release notes describe the role of the Cisco Context Directory Agent in an identity-based solution, its limitations and restrictions (caveats), and related information. These release notes supplement the Cisco Context Directory Agent documentation that is included with the software, and cover the following topics:

•Introduction

•Context Directory Agent Requirements

•Context Directory Agent License Information

•Important Notes

•Installing the Context Directory Agent Software

•Open Caveats in Cisco Context Directory Agent Release 1.0

•Resolved Caveats in Cisco Context Directory Agent Release 1.0 Patch 1

•Documentation Updates

•Related Documentation

Introduction

The Cisco Context Directory Agent (CDA) is a application that runs on a Cisco Linux machine; monitors in real time a collection of Active Directory domain controller (DC) machines for authentication-related events that generally indicate user logins; learns, analyzes, and caches mappings of IP addresses and user identities in its database; and makes the latest mappings available to its client devices.

Client devices, such as the Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and the Cisco IronPort Web Security Appliance (WSA), interact with the Cisco CDA using the RADIUS protocol in order to obtain the latest set of IP-to-user-identity mappings, in any one of the following ways:

•On-Demand—The Cisco CDA can respond to an on-demand query from the client device for a specific mapping.

•Full Download—The Cisco CDA can respond to a request from the client device for the entire set of mappings currently in its cache.

The AD Agent interacts with the following components in a network:

•Client Devices

•Active Directory Domain Controller Machines

•Syslog Servers

Cisco CDA can support up to 80 domain controller machines, and can internally cache up to 64,000 IP-to-user-identity mappings. It supports up to 100 Identity consumer devices. Cisco CDA processes 1000 IP-to-user-identity mappings per second (input and output).

Context Directory Agent Requirements

See the Installation and Configuration Guide for Context Directory Agent, Release 1.0 for information on the Context Directory Agent Requirements.

Context Directory Agent License Information

See the Open Source Used in Cisco Active Directory Agent 1.0 document for the Context Directory Agent licence information,

Important Notes

For the Cisco Context Directory Agent to function properly in an identity-based solution, you must ensure that:

•Hardware requirements are met. See http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/ibf/cda_10/Install_Config_guide/cda_install.html#wp1053078 for more information.

•Firewall exceptions, if required, must be configured on the AD Agent machine and the AD domain controller machines. See http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/ibf/cda_10/Install_Config_guide/cda_install.html#wp1053513 for more information.

•Active Directory requirements are met. See http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/ibf/cda_10/Install_Config_guide/cda_install.html#wp1053829 for more information.

Installing the Context Directory Agent Software

See the Installation and Configuration Guide for Context Directory Agent, Release 1.0 for information on how to install and configure the Active Directory Agent.

Open Caveats in Cisco Context Directory Agent Release 1.0

Table 1 Open Caveats in Cisco Context zDirectory Agent Release 1.0 

Caveat
Description

CSCty64187

Symptom    Attempting to create a log backup file results in the following error message:

% ERROR: Bad hashed password.

Conditions   This issue occurs when you attempt to create a log backup file with a hashed password. For example:

backup-logs logs repository local password hash 1q2w3e4r

Workaround   Use a text (non hashed) password.

CSCtx13593

Symptom    Cannot install Cisco CDA application via network interfaces 2 or 3.

Conditions   This issue occurs if the connectivity to the repository hosting the Cisco CDA application bundle is via network interfaces 2 or 3 of the machine. Fetching the file fails with a timeout.

Workaround   Install the Cisco CDA application via network interfaces 0 or 1.

CSCtx13800

Symptom    In Cisco CDA CLI, you cannot use % within a password.

Conditions   This issue occurs when you attempt to set or change a password that contains the % character.

Workaround   Use a password without %.

CSCtz47312

Symptom    The Cisco CDA GUI may not reflect changes made to the administrator list in the other concurrent GUI sessions when clicking the Refresh icon.

Conditions   When the administrator list is open in one Cisco CDA GUI session, and some change is made to the administrator list in another concurrent GUI session of the same Cisco CDA, clicking the refresh icon in the Cisco CDA GUI does not reflect those change in the administrator list.

Workaround   Use the browser refresh button to refresh the display, or go to the Home page (Cisco CDA Dashboard) and then go back to the system administrators page.

CSCtw78043

Symptom    DC status in the Cisco CDA Dashboard might show as down during the first few minutes after Cisco CDA is connected.

Conditions   When cisco CDA connects to the Active Directory DC, it retrieves login history from the DC. While history is being retrieved, the DC status might show as down. This may last for several minutes, depending on history size and system load.

Workaround   The issue is transient and the DC status is updated as soon as history retrieval is complete. Click the refresh icon to update the display. Hence, the workaround provided here is not mandatory.

It is possible to avoid this issue by setting the following registry keys on the domain controller:

•HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{76A64158-CB41-11D1-8B02-00600806D9B6}\InProcServer32\ThreadingModel

Change the default value "Apartment" to "Free".

On 64 bit Domain Controllers, the following key should also be similarly changed:

•HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{76A64158-CB41-11D1-8B02-00600806D9B6}\InProcServer32\ThreadingModel

Restart the WMI service on the DC for the changes to take effect.

CSCtx67710

Symptom    Cisco CDA does not receive identity mappings from an Active Directory 2008R2 DC, even though the DC shows as connected, and the user login events show up in the DC security audit log.

Conditions   This issue might occur under rare conditions. Clearing logs on the DC multiple times is one way to trigger the issue.

Workaround   Restart the WMI service on the DC to restore normal operation of the system.

A Hotfix is available from Microsoft to address the root cause of this defect. The WMI process stops sending events to WMI clients from a Windows 7-based or Windows Server 2008 R2-based server, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2705357


Resolved Caveats in Cisco Context Directory Agent Release 1.0 Patch 1

The Cisco Context Directory Agent 1.0, Patch 1 now supports Windows Active Directory, version 2012.

Table 2 lists the caveats that are resolved as part of this patch.

Table 2 Resolved Caveats in Cisco Context Directory Agent Release 1.0 Patch 1

Caveat
Description

CSCud69408

CDA needs to support user with non-admin privileges when connecting to Windows Domain Controller. Refer to the Installation and Configuration Guide for Context Directory Agent, Release 1.0 for more information.

CSCud69418

CDA to support NTLMv2 for the connection with Windows Domain Controller.

CSCud69438

Log records are not displayed in the log table after CDA is installed on VMware.

CSCtz47312

Refresh in Administrators screen does not work.

CSCtz21543

Tool tips on mouse over for Green/Red status icons.


Documentation Updates

Table 3 Updates to Release Notes for Cisco Context Directory Agent, Release 1.0

Date
Description

Feb 2013

Added "Resolved Caveats in Cisco Context Directory Agent Release 1.0 Patch 1" section

June 2012

Updated CSCtx67710

June 2012

Cisco Context Directory Agent, Release 1.0


Related Documentation

Release-Specific Documentation

Table 4 lists the product documentation available for the AD Agent, Release 1.0, patch 1.

Table 4 Product Documentation for Cisco Context Directory Agent, 1.0, patch 1

Document Title
Location

Installation and Configuration Guide for Cisco Context Directory Agent, Release 1.0

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/ibf/cda_10/Install_Config_guide/cda10.html

Release Notes for Context Directory Agent, Release 1.0

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/ibf/cda_10/release_notes/cda10_rn.html

Open Source Licenses used in Context Directory Agent, Release 1.0

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/ibf/cda_10/open_source_doc/open_source.pdf


Other Related Documentation

Links to Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) 5500 Series Release 8.4.2 documentation and Ironport Web Security Appliance (WSA) documentation are available on Cisco.com at the following locations:

•Cisco ASA 5500 Series Adaptive Security Appliances Page

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6120/tsd_products_support_series_home.html

•Cisco Ironport Security Management Appliances Page

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10155/tsd_products_support_series_home.html

Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request

For information on obtaining documentation, submitting a service request, and gathering additional information, see the monthly What's New in Cisco Product Documentation, which also lists all new and revised Cisco technical documentation, at:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/general/whatsnew/whatsnew.html

Subscribe to the What's New in Cisco Product Documentation as a RSS feed and set content to be delivered directly to your desktop using a reader application. The RSS feeds are a free service and Cisco currently supports RSS Version 2.0.

This document is to be used in conjunction with the documents listed in the "Related Documentation" section.

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