Barracuda IM Firewall Release Notes


Note: Before upgrading, please be sure to make a backup of your configuration and read all release notes that apply to versions more recent than the one currently running on your system.


Note: DO NOT MANUALLY REBOOT YOUR SYSTEM at any time during an upgrade, unless otherwise instructed by Technical Support.

Doing so before the new firmware has fully downloaded and applied can corrupt the firmware installation. The system will automatically reboot itself once the installation is complete.

The update process typically takes only a few minutes after the updateis applied. However the process can take up to 30 minutes for systemsthat have a large number of accounts. If the process takes longer,please contact Technical Support to investigate.

The message log may not be immediately available after an upgrade. Allmessages are being logged, and will appear in the message log.


Barracuda IM Firewall Product Activation

Starting with version 2.0, you must activate your Energize Updatessubscription prior to initial use. Your Energize Updates subscriptionincludes both ongoing system updates and access to TechnicalSupport. If your Energ ize Updates subscription is not activated, youwill not be able to make any configuration changes.

To activate your Barracuda IM Firewall subscription:

If it is connected to the Internet, your Barracuda IM Firewallautomatically updates its activation status after you reload thebrowser page when viewing the Basic > Status page. If your networkfirewall prevents your Barracuda IM Firewall from updating itsactivation status automatically, you can manually enter the activationcode provided after completing the details on the Barracuda NetworksProduct Activation page.


NEW TO VERSION 3.4

  • Patch Release 002

    *Fix: Temperature now displays correctly the status page on all620 models.
    *Fix: The Public IM Protocol Monitoring for the MSN protocolno longer logs messages as coming from a number instead of the MSNusername.
    *Fix: Bad Unicode text in an IM will no longer cause the messagelog to stop displaying or exporting messages after the bad Unicode.
    *Fix: Sending an IM to a JID of the form X@Y.transport, whereY is not one of the officially supported transports, will no longercause the logging to cease at that point. This did not cause messages to get lost, simply not appear in the message log. Updating to this release will cause all messages since then to beadded to the message log correctly.
    *Enhancement: You may participate in a voluntary beta of thenew transports by calling Barracuda Networks Technical Support andrequesting it.
    *Enhancement: Public IM Protocol Monitor can be selectivelyturned off for an IP or a netblock. This causes it not to beinspected, and not to terminate any encrypted or otherwise blockedconnections. KNOWN ISSUE IN 001: Adding an IP or netblock takesimmediate effect, but removing an IP or netblock will require areboot, or a call to support to manually trigger the change.
    *Enhancement: Message log columns can now sort the rowson screen by clicking the column header.
    *Enhancement: Multiple users can now be deleted at once.
    *Enhancement: The IM server has had its performance enhanced forthe case when many users with large rosters connect in quicksuccession, which can happen when the server is first started.
    *Enhancement: Content filters can now be enabled or disabled withoutdeleting them.

    NEW TO VERSION 3.3

  • Patch Release 01

    *Enhancement: Domain admins have been added, allowing a user toadministrate a portion of the box divided by the domain of theusers and messages.
    *Fix: In some circumstances, Pidgin would experience an oscillating roster entry as Pidgin and the IM Firewall looped on which groupsa roster entry belonged in. This is mitigated, though it may requirea restart of Pidgin.
    *Fix: Private messages sent within a conference were loggedincorrectly; they are now logged as sent by the IM Firewall user,rather than the handle the user chose for the conference.
    *Fix: Purging the logs failed to delete the archived transferred files.
    *Fix: Adding a domain consumed excessive resources, which was likely tocause the IM Firewall to run out of memory on low-end models with manydomains.
    *Fix: Notifications now work better when the admin has not set aReply-To address.
    *Fix: Further improvements to handling international messages.
    *Fix: The LDAP group browser incorrectly used userPrincipalName for thegroup ID.
    *Fix: Old cached values of content filtering rules sometimes were used by the Web GUI, instead of the new values.
    *Fix: URLs are correctly encoded in rollout emails, for email clientsexpecting & in links.
    *Fix: Low-security ciphers have been removed for HTTPS access.
    *Fix: OpenSSL has been updated to close potential securityvulnerabilities.
    *Fix: Several externally-available ports that did not need to beexternally-available have been closed.
    *Fix: When restoring a backup, message statistics are correctlyupdated.
    *Enhancement: Backups can now be scheduled to be automatically executed.
    *Enhancement: The sniffer's encoding detection has been significantly
    *Enhancement: The Backup page now offers the ability to viewand download previously-made backups.
    *Enhancement: Three new Energize Update channels have been addedfor various aspects of the IM Firewall's functionality.
    *Enhancement: Rosters can now be previewed before pushing them out.

    NEW TO VERSION 3.2

  • *Patch Release 03
    *Fix: Certain SPIM messages sent over Yahoo could terminate allconnections to the Yahoo Public IM Proxy.
    *Fix: Daily statistics correctly update for the entire day.
    *Fix: Certain rare circumstances could cause the Packet InspectionEngine to repeatedly record the same messages, or stop recordingpackets after a certain point.
    *Fix: Deleting several domains in one session could cause thewrong domain to be deleted.
    *Fix: "Filter only in log" rules didn't work properly.
    *Enhancement: Barracuda Support can turn off LDAP group resolutionupon LDAP synchronization if the process is causing performanceissues with your LDAP server.
    *Patch Release 02
    *Fix: The IM client's automatic reconnect feature now works after a suspend.
    *Fix: The MSN transport has been update to work with a slightprotocol change.
    *Enhancement: LDAP now supports importing by groups. This will bothimport all current members of the given group, and automaticallyimport new members of that group going forward.
    *Enhancement: Rosters can now be previewed before synchronizingthem.
    *Fix: Encodings are now correctly detected with the Packet InspectionEngine in most cases. In cases where a correct encoding can notbe determined, a user may set the encoding of the conversationwhen viewing it.
    *Fix: Auditing row colors are fixed in IE.
    *Fix: Message icons are now shown in a user's My Logs view.
    *Fix: When synchronizing rosters, the server will first perform anLDAP synchronization to be sure it has the latest LDAP information.
    *Enhancement: An XML export option is now available for message logs.
    *Enhancement: Users can no longer vCard fields that will be overwritten by the next LDAP synchronization. To allow usersto edit a given field, empty the LDAP attribute mapping forthe field.

    NEW TO VERSION 3.1

    *Patch Release 13
    *Fix: Messages now appear in the log correctly during auditing.
    *Fix: The Public IM Proxies are now no longer blocked by the Public IMGateway settings.
    *Fix: If the user's email and the users Barracuda IM Firewall id differed,the password could become corrupted in the rollout email.
    *Fix: Excessively-strict email validation was preventing the creation ofsome accounts with legal names, such as user names consisting entirelyof numbers.
    *Fix: Users can now remove their AIM, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo account nameson their vCard screen.
    *Fix: Users were allowed to modify values on their vCard screen that wouldbe reverted on the next synchronization with LDAP. These values are nolonger editable. To set a value as editable by a user, remove the mapping in the LDAP attribute mapping screen.
    * Patch Release 7
    *Fix: Bulk editing of static routes would generate a server error.
    *Fix: The IM Firewall gave instructions on how to download clientsfor disabled operating systems; these instructions have been removed.
    *Fix: A spurious error message when turning off the back port hasbeen removed.
    *Fix: Conversations continued to be appended to even after they wereclosed; this made it appear that the IM Firewall was not correctlyarchiving such messages. This has been fixed, and on the nextarchiving run, this release will retroactively fix the archiving.
    *Fix: Some LDAP group names were being incorrectly encoded, whichmanifested as users showing as being only in a subset of the groupsthey existed in in LDAP.
    *Fix: Putting an invalid recipient in the roster could cause anyoneappearing on that roster to be unable to connect.
    *Fix: Some users were encountering trouble with the Yahoo transport dueto changes made by Yahoo.
    *Enhancement: When using XMPP privacy lists to block messages, thesender will receive a message telling them they were blocked, andthe message log will record that the message was blocked by recordingthe generated error message.
    *Fix: A spurious error message when turning off the back port hasbeen removed.
    *Patch Release 6
    *Fix: Downloaded Windows clients will now correctly pre-populate the client with the correct password.
    *Fix: Users in roster entries created with the Web interface would often not show their firstpresence update to everybody else, making them appear to be offline when they were not.
    *Fix: Invalid content filtering regular expressions now generate a warningupon install.
    *Fix: Various updates to online helpfiles, in particular to point out thatrestoring a backup will reboot the Barracuda IM Firewall.
    *Fix: User avatars now cleared when the option is disabled.
    *Fix: Reports now reflect the correct day for message reception.
    *Patch Release 1
    *Enhancement: Client now provides a more powerful user search.
    *Enhancement: The Barracuda IM Firewall's backup system can now backup andrestore much more data.
    *Enhancement: Direct connections to GTalk by end-users can be blocked.
    *Enhancement: Full Perl-like regular expressions are supported forcontent filtering.
    *Enhancement: LDAP nested groups are now supported and can beused in roster specifications.
    *Fix: Improved roster functionality.
    *Fix: Many Packet Inspection Engine improvements.
    *Fix: Virus notification email now correctly sent out when a virusis tranferred between two Barracuda IM clients.
    *Fix: In rare circumstances, the server would not serve clients untilit was rebooted. This has been fixed.
    *Fix: Statistics reports in email and on the status page will use thecorrect day for the graphs.

    NEW TO VERSION 3.0

    Version 3.0 of the Barracuda IM Firewall has many new features and fixes, including:

    *New look-and-feel to the Web administration and user interfaces.
    *New look to the Barracuda IM Client. New client features include customizable avatars. Note that the new Barracuda IM Client (versions 3.x) does not support file transfers to/from older Barracuda IM Clients (versions 2.2.x and earlier).
    *Built-in integration with the Barracuda Message Archiver.
    *Faster, improved log searching.