ipassconnect 3.55 Release Notes

Transcription

1 Version 3.0, February 2009 Version History Version Date Notes October General availability launch February 2008 Update to include the requirement for Wi-Fi to be enabled February 2009 Updates to the Operating System Requirements section to include details of Windows XP SP3 support. Introduction This document contains the latest information on ipassconnect 3.55, including: New features Technical requirements Resolved issues Known issues This document is also available from the ipass Portal. New Features Mobile Data (3G) Connectivity: ipassconnect 3.55 offers a wide range of enhancements for Mobile Data users based on a completely new architecture: Bearer Display: Available networks are shown with the available bearer type: 1xRTT or EVDO for CDMA networks and GPRS, EDGE or UMTS for 3GSM networks. The bearer display is shown before and during the connection. PIN Management: When a compatible 3GSM device is detected, ipassconnect 3.55 will display a new PIN menu on the main dialog. This allows the user to unlock, unblock ("un-puk"), enable, disable, change or save their PIN subject to administrator controls. Network Control: Customer administrators can provision custom APN settings (for 3GSM networks) representing private or privileged networks. Administrators can also grant users the ability to provide their own APN settings for cases in which the user sources their own device and network subscription ipass Inc. 1

2 FlexVPN Extensions: ipassconnect 3.55 differentiates between public and private APN settings to enable administrators to configure distinct custom VPN integration behavior for each specific usage scenario. User Interface Enhancements: ipassconnect 3.55 introduces: Keyword Search: Users can now take advantage of a "Keyword" field to provide additional search terms to help locate broadband hotspots within a given country. Multiple words (or partial words) can be combined to provide a more specific search using spaces to separate each term. The search is case insensitive and covers all informational fields in the ipass phonebook, including venue name, address and SSID. Connection Status Dialog and Usage Tracking: A new connection status window offers more information on the connection type, upload/download activity, data rate, connection duration and real-time signal strength. It also offers cumulative and session data usage statistics which is particularly relevant for Mobile Data users who may wish to track their activity according to a usage-based pricing plan. Usage is tracked per device (for users with multiple Mobile Data services) and the counters can be reset by the user at any time. Note that the counters are for guidance only and while they are an accurate representation of client-side activity, they should not be considered authoritative for billing purposes. 5 Bar Signal Strength Meter: ipassconnect 3.55 introduces a 5 th bar for Wi-Fi and Mobile Data signal strength reporting and uses the following scale: Bars Description Wi-Fi Thresholds Mobile Data Thresholds 5 Excellent Stronger than -45dB Stronger than 80% 4 Good Between -45dB and -65dB Between 60% and 80% 3 Fair Between -65dB and -80dB Between 40% and 60% 2 Marginal Between -80dB and -90dB Between 20% and 40% 1 Poor Weaker than -90dB Weaker than 20% New 802.1X Capabilities: ipassconnect 3.55 offers: EAP-FAST Authentication: EAP-FAST-TLS and EAP-FAST-MSCHAPv2 are now supported along with a full complement of PAC provisioning modes. EAP-TLS Re-Authentication: Customers wishing to use ipassconnect for EAP-TLS in conjunction with Windows Live Logon now have the option to follow the default Microsoft implementation of authenticating the network connection using a machine certificate and then seamlessly re-authenticating with a user certificate once the user's context has been established by Winlogon ipass Inc. 2

3 Technical Requirements Minimum Hardware Requirements Pentium III processor (or equivalent) 512MB RAM 500MB free disk space 16-bit color mode Connectivity Device Requirements ipassconnect requires one or more connectivity devices installed, depending on your intended connection type: An NDIS v5.1-compliant b/g Wi-Fi device with appropriate software drivers. A supported Mobile Data card plus appropriate driver software. A complete list of supported Mobile Data cards can be found in the Mobile Data Configuration Guide, available from the ipass Portal. Ethernet adapter 56K v90/v92 modem GSM modem ISDN terminal adapter PHS 2.0/2.1 device Operating System Requirements ipassconnect 3.55 is supported on Microsoft Windows XP Home or Professional Service Pack 2 or 3 and Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4. Support for Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3 was added retrospectively in February 2009 following observations of extensive successful use of this combination by our existing customers. Note that ipassconnect 3.55 was not formally tested on XP Service Pack 3. The first version to be formally tested on Windows XP Service Pack 3 by ipass Quality Assurance was ipassconnect Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or 7 must be installed. ipass strongly recommends installation of all Microsoft-recommended updates for your operating system. Supported Languages ipassconnect 3.55 supports the following languages: Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) French German Korean Portuguese (Brazilian) 2009 ipass Inc. 3

4 English Japanese Spanish Resolved Issues This release of ipassconnect 3.55 resolves the following issues. Mobile Data Connectivity Note that numerous Mobile Data bugs have been fixed using a completely new architecture. The individual fixes are not listed here for reasons of space but significant progress has been made in the areas of PIN management, graceful performance following resume from standby/hibernate modes, device detection and reporting and network presentation. Consequently, ipass strongly recommends the use of ipassconnect 3.55 for all customers using Mobile Data services. ipassconnect no longer causes long delays when used in conjunction with Microsoft Roaming Profiles. ipassconnect now filters virtual devices from the device connection settings lists. Previously devices such as 3rd party VPN shims and virtualization interfaces were occasionally shown as physical Ethernet devices. ipassconnect now implements an adaptive Wi-Fi scanning interval. The scanning interval now increases dynamically in line with the number of SSIDs detected, reducing the burden of reporting the Available Networks list and in turn, reducing perceived UI "jitter". ipassconnect now supports binary key entry for WPA and WPA2 in addition to passphrase entry. Non-broadcast SSID detection is improved through a longer associative scanning interval. User Interface Integration The tooltip message seen when the mouse cursor is over the ipass icon in the system tray (notification area) no longer reports "networks detected" if none are available. The hyphens separating the elements of the Local Number Lookup fields are now suppressed if Local Number Lookup is disabled. Support for Nortel Logoff on Connect (LOC) has been restored. Note that the ipassconnect installer no longer modifies the Nortel registry configuration to enable LOC and the logoff warning message: it is expected that administrators and/or users will control these features directly. Synchronous PreDial actions are now working on Open Ethernet connections ipass Inc. 4

5 Reporting Updates SQM (IOQ) records containing double-byte characters within localized device names are no longer discarded. This has been observed to be particularly relevant for Wi-Fi users on Chinese, Japanese and Korean-language operating systems. SQM (IOQ) reports now accurately distinguish between CDMA and 3GSM networks in connection attempts. Periodic Update now supports proxy discovery using the WPAD protocol when the "Automatically Detect Settings" proxy option is configured in Internet Explorer's Internet Options > Connections > Settings > Automatic Configuration options. The Periodic Update trickle download feature has been refined to offer a greater range of download throttling. Known Issues The following issues are known for ipassconnect 3.55 Mobile Data Limitations in the Novatel Wireless API mean that only one connection manager can be used in conjunction with a Novatel Wireless Mobile Data card on any given host. The Mobilink application will therefore not function correctly after ipassconnect 3.55 has been installed. It is not possible to suppress prompting for ipass credentials on a Mobile Data connection. The network bearer type is sometimes under-reported with certain device-network combinations. For example, an EDGE service may report as GPRS or a UMTS may report as EDGE. Note that HSDPA and HSUPA are not reported in ipassconnect 3.55: these are not strictly bearer types. ipassconnect sometimes reports the home service of a Mobile Data network as roaming. This is particularly prevalent on US 3GSM networks and is not considered a bug as the roaming indicator is often set on access points within the home network footprint. It should be noted however, that the ipassconnect option to inhibit user access to roaming networks will prevent connectivity to the home service in such cases. Discrepancy between network shown in Mobile Data Connection Settings and Available Networks. As an extension of the roaming scenario described above, the network name shown under Connection Settings and Available Networks may differ in cases where the device is attaching to a shared infrastructure service. For instance, the Connection Settings may show the "tower operator" whereas the Available Networks settings will report the home service. This is not a bug but is documented here for clarification. Private Mobile Data services are expected to offer public Internet connectivity. The Mobile Data connection process includes a connection test to a public Internet site but if routing to 2009 ipass Inc. 5

6 Connectivity the Internet is unavailable then the connection will fail. A workaround is available using a custom bb.ini file to disable the connectivity test. Missing information for some device-network combinations. ipassconnect queries Mobile Data devices for their capabilities but in many cases, the responses are observed to be incomplete. For instance, some cards do not return the subscriber number and others do not show the CDMA network name. ipassconnect 3.55 offers graceful handling of Mobile Data connections following resume from standby or hibernate modes but some cards have been observed not to support this, notably: Sony Ericsson GC83 and GC85, Novatel Merlin V620, Option Globetrotter MAX 7.2 and Option Globetrotter Fusion+HDPA. The ipass 802.1X protocol binding has been shown to interfere with the application of Windows Group Policies. The workaround is to disable 802.1X capabilities and a workaround is available from ipass Customer Care. ipassconnect occasionally does not generate an SQM record if the user cancels the connection attempt within a few seconds of clicking "Connect". User Interface Integration Updates ipassconnect 3.55 can only be provisioned with Wi-Fi enabled. If Wi-Fi is not enabled then the client will not start correctly. If Wi-Fi is to be suppressed then v3.51 or v3.60 should be used instead. (this is a new issue for v2.0 of the release notes) The Connection Status dialog occasionally switches to "Connecting " while already connected. The Browser Login message is not localized. The Help button under Connection Settings > Mobile Data > Network Information displays a malformed help page. The usage tracking feature always shows the date in US format, namely: mm/dd/yyyy. A monitored PreDial action does not inhibit connections if the file referenced by the action is missing. Cisco Live Logon only depends on the grace period of the VPN monitor; instead Live Logon should only commence if all tunnel actions have been completed and the VPN tunnel is up. The software update process (ipccheck) never uses Internet Explorer's proxy settings. Periodic Updates cannot use the Internet Explorer Automatic configuration script option to obtain a proxy PAC file if the URL uses file:// construction ipass Inc. 6

7 Other ipassconnect sometimes appears temporarily unresponsive when shutting down, especially in the scenario where ipassconnect is connected and the user requests Windows logoff or shutdown. In response, Windows sometimes displays a message indicating that "ipass Main Frm" is not responding and providing the options to "End now" or "Wait". This message will normally disappear within a few seconds after ipassconnect has exited. A workaround is to disconnect and exit ipassconnect manually before exiting Windows. E N D O F D O C U M E N T 2009 ipass Inc. 7