Spontaneously-Changing Authentication Settings

javery1

I've got a weird one. This summer we had two installers build new classrooms for us. DVX-2250 and identical hardware installed by both. All of the systems installed by vendor A keep locking us out - cannot sign into the systems via telnet or web interface (but studio still connects). None of the systems installed by vendor B have exhibited this behavior. Both vendors wrote their own program for their rooms.

Come to find out, the controllers are spontaneously enabling LDAP after running for a week or so. After a reboot, they will revert back to local authentication, but will eventually spontaneously switch on LDAP. None of the systems have ever had LDAP intentionally enabled, because we don't use it for our AMX systems. We're seeing the same behavior on both 1.4.86 and 1.4.90 master firmware.

Even stranger, after recompiling and loading vendor A's code to an existing system that previously had been running old program code with no authentication errors, that room also started exhibiting this behavior ... meaning the spontaneously-changing authentication settings appear to be tied to Vendor A's program.

Now, as far as I and tech support know, there's no way to change authentication settings from within the program, and even if there were it wouldn't revert on reboot. And I've looked over the code and there is nothing out of the ordinary in it. This makes me think there's something like a buffer overflow or similarly terrible memory error happening here.

Has anyone else run into anything like this? Any thoughts?

javery1

I got word back from tech support on this one. They were able to duplicate it, but haven't found a definite cause. Somehow a particularly inefficient program is causing the local LDAP service in the NX controller to shut down. So it's not that LDAP is randomly being enabled; local LDAP was always enabled, but the local LDAP service can't be found because it died unexpectedly.

ericmedley

There actually was some chatter about this issue on some of the Linux blogs a few months back. Same issue - LDAP unexpectedly shutting down. I'd have to go back and look for sure. But, I do remember there was a fix for it. Maybe tech support can find it.