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grymwulf's avatar
grymwulf
Contributor II

SB6141 - New Firmware?

It seems that new firmware was pushed to the SB6141 - normally not an issue for me, but it removed the ability to remotely restart or reset the modem.  Since my devices tend to be in wiring closets or racks, I prefer being able to remotely access the restart and factory reset via the diagnostic page or whatever interface is available for a particular device.  Usually in these cases, the decisions to remove this functionality are intentional.  Can someone pass along to your engineering/firmware team that it would be appreciated if that capability was restored?

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  • ChrisL's avatar
    ChrisL
    Former Moderator
    @grymwulf

    While this feature was convenient it was actually removed for security reasons as it was being exploited for DoS attacks.

  • grymwulf's avatar
    grymwulf
    Contributor II

    That is inconvenient.  Is this an outgrowth of the provisioning platform changes you made about 4 to 6 months ago?  I had some sites that had problems getting provisioned around that time.

  • ChrisL's avatar
    ChrisL
    Former Moderator

    @grymwulf I can appreciate that it's inconvenient but so is this unfortunately:

    <code><img src="http://192.168.100.1/reset.htm"/></code>

  • grymwulf's avatar
    grymwulf
    Contributor II

    Upon thinking about it, this explanation seems weird.  One modem rebooting/restarting every 1-2 minutes is an order of magnitude less load than an entire CMTS or node going offline and restarting.  Or heck an entire neighborhood losing power (like in a hurricane?) and coming back up all at the same time.  Heck when I was working for MCI when we were providing the VOIP for TWC/Brighthouse we'd expect higher loads after storms/events than any particular single modem can generate.

    The only way I can think of for a modem such as this to be a source of DDoS traffic was if the firmware had an escalation bug related to the Factory Reset/Reboot button functionality.  If that is the case... that is worrying.