Screenos + Telnet Oddness

wij · 28 Jul 2010 at 23:45

Probably a shout for Mr Bigredshark but I have a client who has a SSG 140 that I've been asked to remote into and have a look at.

Can telnet just fine, but using Putty on Windows after the login prompt none of the text gets printed to the screen, though the keystrokes are registered as I can enter commands.

Using terminal.app on my Mac I get text but backspace doesn't work.

Seems a bit strange as I use both methods to connect into various different Juniper and Cisco bits of kit and have never had any problems like this.

It's running Firmware Version: 5.4.0r1a.0 (Firewall+VPN) but I can't find anything about this in the release notes.

Going to be a bit of a PITA as they don't have a support contract for it anymore and I can't get a newer version of Screenos to stick on it :S

howler · 29 Jul 2010 at 09:24

I had exactly the same problem

You need to tweak some PuTTY settings, I don't remember what they were though!

wij · 29 Jul 2010 at 09:33

Well I just tried SSH and also get the same odd behaviour, also connected into another 140 running newer firmware and didn't get any problems.

Think I'm going to get them to sort out a new support contract as it looks like its only about £100 for the year and I can at least bring the Screenos up to date.

atomiser · 29 Jul 2010 at 19:30

can't comment about the weird terminal behaviour with regards to screen blanking since it's been a while since i used code that old and i haven't even seen an ssg device running anything less than 6.something. with regards to backspace though, try the mac equivalent of ctrl-h on windows as a workaround - or there should be a keymap option to change it, there certainly is in putty.

wij · 29 Jul 2010 at 22:53

atomiser said:
can't comment about the weird terminal behaviour with regards to screen blanking since it's been a while since i used code that old and i haven't even seen an ssg device running anything less than 6.something. with regards to backspace though, try the mac equivalent of ctrl-h on windows as a workaround - or there should be a keymap option to change it, there certainly is in putty.

Yeah that fixed backsapce not working properly on Mac Terminal... like you say a bit odd and I've also not really worked on anything pre screenos 6 either.

Still going to get them to sort out a new support contract for it anyway as its still a perfectly good bit of kit and would be good to get it up to date.

atomiser · 29 Jul 2010 at 22:55

Yeah I think 6.2.0r6 is the latest JTAC supported code for that device. I'm running a pair of SSG140s on that code in an active/passive NSRP cluster and I haven't seen the issues you are describing. Good luck!

Edit: I'm sure you're already aware of this, but since you're come such an old version of code and it's a production firewall - don't jump straight from old > new as there might be a few interim releases you have to go via to ensure the configuration is updated properly due to command syntax changes, etc. Sorry if I'm teaching you to suck eggs!