Known BUGS

Please report new bugs and fixes to vikas@navya.com. Please look in the TROUBLESHOOTING section of this documentation also.

  1. Mixed case Usernames
  2. taclast instead of 'last'
  3. Duplicate WTMP entries
  4. Multiple xtacacsd hosts
  5. Inconsistent UID's in logouts
  6. ISDN 65535 Line Numbers
  7. Overwriting UTMP & reboot required (Unconfirmed)
Mixed case Usernames
If IGNORECASE is specified and if searching in the system's password files (shadow, SIA, DCE, etc.), the program converts the username to all lowercase and calls getpwnam(). However, a true case insensitive search is not possible since the system calls do not permit it. It is recommended that the password files for xtacacs be kept separate and listed as alternate password files in the config file or else keep all the usernames lowercase in the system password file.

taclast instead of 'last'
Due to vagaries in the utmp.h file on various platforms, your system's last or ac utilities might not be able to parse the wtmp and utmp files produced by this daemon. Use the supplied taclast program instead, and process the times using awk/perl for accounting.

Duplicate WTMP entries
The daemon tries to avoid duplicate entries in the UTMP and the WTMP files, but duplicates/anomalies can show up if a terminal-server was unreachable or crashed without sending out a `xreload' message. It would help to have a tool to periodically query all terminal servers and ensure that the UTMP file is up to date.

Multiple xtacacsd hosts
If there are multiple redundant servers and the primary goes down, the wtmp & utmp files will get out of sync on the alternate and primary xtacacs server hosts. In this case, you should use the accompanying tacupd program to extract the records and merge them into a single file. You will need to use the binary mode in tacupd for updating the UTMP file, and the ascii mode for the ascii WTMP file.

Inconsistent UID's in logouts
There have been reports of the UID field being inconsistent/wrong in the logs when a user logs out (this is because the UID is sent by the Cisco and is not extracted from the password file upon logout, etc.). As such, the line number and the username should be used for accounting purposes and NOT the UID in logout records.

ISDN 65535 Line Numbers
Cisco IOS v10 (and v11 ?) send line numbers set to 65535 when a user logs into ISDN lines. Thus, there is no way to distinguish between 2 sessions if the same user logs into the same terminal server twice. This will give erroneous accounting records.

'Overwriting UTMP' msg and continous denials
(Newly reported). On Solaris 2.5.1, within 24 hours, the server starts giving error messages about overwriting existing entry in utmp file, and then denies access for ALL users. Restarting the daemon does not help, a full reboot is required.
Not yet confirmed or fixed.


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Copyright © 1994-1997 Vikas Aggarwal