Local Accounts Inaccessible After Upgrade to 3.1.8.1

Products

• Content Analysis Software
• ISG Content Analysis

Issue/Introduction

You either have or have planned to upgrade to Content Analysis 3.1.8.1 and use local accounts on Content Analysis.

Content Analysis 3.1.8.1 has an issue in which the local account access may be lost, preventing the ability to login with any of the local accounts. This issue occurs after a reboot, upgrade, or downgrade with 3.1.8.1.

Cause

All systems running Content Analysis 3.1.8.1 transfer local passwords into memory, and those passwords are then overwritten on disk. During a reboot, upgrade, or downgrade, memory is lost, meaning all passwords that only exist only in memory will be lost.

Resolution

The action of changing the admin password will force all passwords back to disk prior to the reboot, upgrade or downgrade.

Performing these steps will resolve the issue:

1. Change the admin password. 
2. Upgrade to 3.1.8.2 or later version
3. Delete 3.1.8.1 from installed systems

Additional Information

If you do not change the admin password before a reboot, upgrade or downgrade, all local user passwords will need to be reset using either the serial console for the local administrative user or via Web UI or SSH with an LDAP or RADIUS administrative user.

LDAP and RADIUS users are not affected by this issue.