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Vista Bug Costs Users In Swedish Town Their Internet
Journal written by twitter (104583) and posted by
samzenpus
on Sun Sep 02, 2007 09:19 AM
from the no-net-for-you dept.
from the no-net-for-you dept.
Lund, Sweden refuses to work around a Vista bug, so people who live there must choose between Vista and internet access. It's nice to see the right people being held accountable for a change.
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The only thing that could make this better (Score:5, Funny)
Oh no, there's more. (Score:4, Insightful)
Ubuntu is an upgrade from XP and Vista.
Keep that shoe on the other foot for just a little longer. Imagine them having "support scripts" that travel through a KDE interface instead of Outlook Express or IE. Imagine them requiring Ubunto to install your access. In short, imagine all of the "standardization" Windoze enjoys being flipped on you.
In the free software world, users can edit a few well annotated text files to get the job done if they are given the proper information. That task is harder in Windoze because you must dig through several GUIs that don't tell you what to ask for in advance or ever.
It's a shame that ACs can post with more points and more frequently than Twitter.
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Re:Oh no, there's more. (Score:4, Interesting)
"Well, I can't log into work because the VPN software isn't compatible with Vista. I can't do anything with it because it tells me I'm not the administrator. But I AM the administrator! It's MY COMPUTER! And it keeps telling me I'm not authorized to do things. It's also taking some time to get used to because they changed where things are and I have to go hunting around for things I used to be able to do."
"Dad, why don't you try out Ubuntu?"
"Nah - I don't want to spend all that time trying to figure out something new."
"Dad - you're already spending time trying to figure out something new, and it's broken to boot."
"Linux is too confusing. I'll just wait til they fix Vista."
Damn. I think people don't listen to themselves sometimes. They get it into their heads that something is going to be hard, and so they won't ever try it out, even when it wouldn't be any harder than what they're doing now. Maybe it's the "Devil You Know" aspect, but I somehow doubt it.
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Swedes are Evil, o.k.? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:The only thing that could make this better (Score:5, Informative)
Out of box Ubuntu supports my network card and with a few simple clicks my printer and I can start installing my favourite software.
My point here isn't to start a flame war, but rather that the Window's experience isn't so wonderful out of the box when the last service pack was 3 years before your current hardware came out. When you consider this, there is something to be said for Ubuntu's 6 month cycle.
Oh and I've never used a wireless adapter in XP (~6) or Vista (1) that worked out the box.
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Re:The only thing that could make this better (Score:4, Insightful)
When I first tried Ubuntu it took me hours and hours to find that Synaptic existed - yes I know there's an interface in the Ubuntu GUI now, but there wasn't when I first used it.
What seems to make it harder is that the last time I tried to find the package manager in the man pages I didn't know it was called a package manager - and even with UNIX experience (and the subsequent knowledge of man -k) I didn't have the right context with which to find the right tool.
Bad analogy - if you don't know what a spade is called, you may not find it in the Sears online catalogue, because you're looking for "digging tool".
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So... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:So... (Score:4, Funny)
It was bitten by a m00se.
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Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
As I understood it, the bug was this: Vista will only accept broadcast replies to DHCP requests. Any multicast response is discarded for security reasons (!?). So their solution was to put a DHCP server on every level of our network (for us, one for every 200 users) or switch to a network that relayed the broadcasted replies (ie: hubs). They also told us it wasn't a bug so they wouldn't issue a patch to correct it. There was a KB article on the issue but when we had users call MS support and ask them to walk them through applying it, we got a bunch of angry calls back to us saying MS refused to help them with it. We also talked to Cisco a bit to see if they had any idea what we could do to relay the broadcast but they never got us a solution.
So in the end, we told MS that we'd either need a better way to fix this or we'd just tell our users not to use Vista. They seemed okay with us telling users not to use it so we have. A few of our users still use Vista with a home router and that seems to work alright. Luckily, there aren't too many Vista users yet and when faced with the option of buying and configuring a router or buying and configuring Windows XP, they've decided on XP. So all in all, it wasn't that big of a deal.
Jem Tallon
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Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
I work for a networking company and a few months ago I fixed our BootP relay to be able to handle this.
If you read the DHCP RFC, you will discover that this broadcast packet is actually an optional part of the spec. Furthermore, it was designed for (at the time - circa 1993) LEGACY equipment that could not handle unicast responses.
Ie, I ask for an IP address, and because I'm a crappy old piece of hardware that can't handle it, I want the DHCP server to reply to me with a broadcast reply telling me my IP address. Normally such responce is unicast to your MAC address and everyone is happy.
Windows XP works fine and will accept a unicast reply. In Vista Microsoft had the brilliant idea that they should enable this flag by default - despite the fact that any modern computer should be able to handle a unicast reply - they could back in 1993 after all.
So yes, the fault is precisely with Microsoft for enabling an unnecessary and OPTIONAL part of the DHCP protocol by default, causing untold problems that could simply be avoided if they stuck to the XP way of doing things.
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router (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:router (Score:5, Informative)
In short, having a home router would solve the problem.
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Re:router (Score:4, Insightful)
Broken software being broken shouldn't be allowed on line wherever possible. I just wish we could keep the subset of windows users that haven't bothered to secure their computers completely offline. And if need be any other users.
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Re:router (Score:4, Insightful)
That would violate the robustness principle summed up in RFC 1122: "Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send."
In this respect, both Microsoft and the city are in the wrong.
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Re:router (Score:4, Informative)
"In general, an implementation should be conservative
in its sending behavior, and liberal in its receiving behavior. That
is, it should be careful to send well-formed datagrams, but should
accept any datagram that it can interpret (e.g., not object to
technical errors where the meaning is still clear)."
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Re:router (Score:4, Informative)
Vista has a new TCP stack, it would be incredibly stupid to implement such an ancient bug, especially when all earlier versions of windows worked correctly.
Infact, the vista TCP stack does support receiving of unicast packets, and yet microsoft still chose to use the broadcast flag without reason. That's why this ridiculous behaviour can be turned off with a simple registry entry. The broadcast flag is intended for TCP stacks which _CANNOT_ support unicast, it is absoloutely incorrect to use it as the default on a stack which can support it.
The broadcast flag is only intended for compatibility with very old TCP stacks (i cant think of any which requires it, and it makes sense that this legacy functionality was intended to be removed when you weren't using any of these legacy systems.
So, did this swedish ISP have any reason to believe that people would be connecting ancient TCP stacks to their network? If not, it makes sense that they wouldn't support this legacy flag.
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Re:router (Score:4, Informative)
1. There is one flag in DHCP protocol, the "BROADCAST" flag. The "Clarifications to BOOTP (RFC 1542)" gives a nice description of it's purpose (referenced from DHCP RFC2131).
2. Normally the server sends DHCP replies as unicast packets to a specific node.
3. It is suggested there are TCP/IP implementations unable to receive such a unicast packet before they have been fully configured, in which case they should set "the flag" to request that the server sends it's reply as a broadcast instead. Server should honor such a request. I guess such an implementation would configure their local MAC (or equivalent?) at the same time with their IP level settings, which might be a sensible thing to do in a simplistic single family (IP-only) network stack, which was designed before anybody thought of "auto-configuration" things like DHCP.
4. For some unknown reason, Vista sends DHCP requests with "the flag" set by default, even if it doesn't have said inability to receive unicast packets before being fully configured.
5. A DHCP server should honor such a request, though from reading the discussion here, I futher conclude that for various reasons, maintainers of certain servers and/or networks are unwilling to support broadcast replies to DHCP requests. At least in case of centralized DHCP servers this seems a reasonable decision.
Now, it's likely that MSFT has some purpose for setting the broadcast flag (other than pissing people up). So far this purpose is more or less a mystery to me. One possible reason I can immediately think of would be allowing a DHCP server to detect the presence of another DHCP server by monitoring DHCP reply broadcasts that somebody else sent (that could be useful for certain types of "zero-config" networking maybe?). But then again they might have another reason? Who knows.. maybe they wanna start selling DHCP relays? Or maybe they want Vista users to get static IPs?
Anyway, it doesn't seem like anyone is breaking the letter of the standard, as the DHCP requests Vista's sending are technically valid (although the flag isn't set for the specific rationale it exists for), yet the servers/networks/whatever aren't really required to support the flag either (although they "should").
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Re:router (Score:5, Funny)
I dearly, dearly hope you are not in charge of any network apparatus anywheres.
Chris Mattern
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Re:router (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:router (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:router (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:router (Score:5, Funny)
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"so people who live there must choose... (Score:5, Funny)
Fucking tricky one, eh?
Like choosing between an anal probe and a cream bun.
Re:"so people who live there must choose... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:"so people who live there must choose... (Score:5, Funny)
I think you're labouring under the false assumption that the cream bun is for eating.
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How's this funny again? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How's this funny again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now it's happening to someone else it's a big deal that should have been fixed? Well they can start by fixing all the stuff that has been broken longer that no one gave a shit about.
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Tests? (Score:3, Interesting)
Vista DHCP client and Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
When I bought a laptop recently it came with Vista. When I connected it to my network it failed to obtain an address. I assumed there was some misconfiguration problem I was missing, Turns out it's a fundamental difference between the DHCP client in Vista and the one in prior versions of Windows. See this item from Microsoft: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233/en-us [microsoft.com].
The version of dhcpd I'm using is an old one (2.0). I thought about upgrading it to see if that would solve the problem, but since I wasn't planning on keeping Vista on the laptop, I didn't bother upgrading. All our other machines run Linux and don't have this problem.
I wonder what decision will be made in enterprises running Linux DHCP servers that introduce Vista into the workplace. Will they follow the Microsoft KB item above and "fix" the problem on every new Vista box they buy? Or will the replace the Linux DHCP box with Windows Server?
Re:Vista DHCP client and Linux (Score:5, Informative)
A client that cannot receive unicast IP datagrams until its protocol
software has been configured with an IP address SHOULD set the
BROADCAST bit in the 'flags' field to 1 in any DHCPDISCOVER or
DHCPREQUEST messages that client sends. The BROADCAST bit will
provide a hint to the DHCP server and BOOTP relay agent to broadcast
any messages to the client on the client's subnet. A client that can
receive unicast IP datagrams before its protocol software has been
configured SHOULD clear the BROADCAST bit to 0.
RFC1542 States
3.1.1 The BROADCAST flag
Normally, BOOTP servers and relay agents attempt to deliver BOOTREPLY
messages directly to a client using unicast delivery. The IP
destination address (in the IP header) is set to the BOOTP 'yiaddr'
address and the link-layer destination address is set to the BOOTP
'chaddr' address. Unfortunately, some client implementations are
unable to receive such unicast IP datagrams until they know their own
IP address (thus we have a "chicken and egg" issue). Often, however,
they can receive broadcast IP datagrams (those with a valid IP
broadcast address as the IP destination and the link-layer broadcast
address as the link-layer destination).
If a client falls into this category, it SHOULD set (to 1) the
newly-defined BROADCAST flag in the 'flags' field of BOOTREPLY
messages it generates. This will provide a hint to BOOTP servers and
relay agents that they should attempt to broadcast their BOOTREPLY
messages to the client.
If a client does not have this limitation (i.e., it is perfectly able
to receive unicast BOOTREPLY messages), it SHOULD NOT set the
BROADCAST flag (i.e., it SHOULD clear the BROADCAST flag to 0).
DISCUSSION:
This addition to the protocol is a workaround for old host
implementations. Such implementations SHOULD be modified so
that they may receive unicast BOOTREPLY messages, thus making
use of this workaround unnecessary. In general, the use of
this mechanism is discouraged.
If XP can receive unicast IP datagrams. why cant Vista? Either MS broke Vista or the TCP/IP stack is less functional than before. Either way, use of the broadcast flag is discouraged.
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Re:Vista DHCP client and Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
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The article you reference contains the solution .. (Score:5, Informative)
RESOLUTION
Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.
To resolve this issue, disable the DHCP BROADCAST flag in Windows Vista. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Click StartStart button, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then click regedit in the Programs list.
User Account Control permission If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type your password, or click Continue.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:c es\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\{GUID}
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servi
In this registry path, click the (GUID) subkey that corresponds to the network adapter that is connected to the network.
3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD (32-bit) Value.
4. In the New Value #1 box, type DhcpConnDisableBcastFlagToggle, and then press ENTER.
5. Right-click DhcpConnDisableBcastFlagToggle, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
7. Close Registry Editor.
So Vista isn't (formally) going counter to protocol, it's just going counter to a 15-year old custom. Nonetheless, Vista *can* cooperate, it just needs to be told not to raise the DHCP BROADCAST flag. And yes, that route goes via a registry modification.
In summary: a tropical storm in a teacup.
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Win95 & Win98 & Win2K & WinXP did it c (Score:4, Insightful)
And counter to Microsoft's last 4 operating systems.
They got it right back in 1995 (12 years ago)
Nope. Just another example of how Microsoft does not care about published standards. Their DHCP services can handle it so why should they spend any time understanding the standard that the rest of the world follows?
After all, everyone else will probably change to support Microsoft's weird implementation. Who cares about the problems that the users have in the meantime? If Microsoft is lucky, no one will be able to explain the problem in terms those users could understand and the rest of the world will be blamed for the problems when it is Microsoft who is not following the published standard.
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Re:The article you reference contains the solution (Score:4, Funny)
IE:
Of course there is no bug! You just have to open
change the "DearGodPleaseMakeSureIWillBreakNothing" flag to 0
Close the file. Kill the daemon and restart it.
In the real world:
Oh my God how does this text editor work? Insert not Delete! How do I save eh?
kill thedaemon
daemon restart
Error line 26458: : unrecognized command ":q!
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Lost in translation (Score:5, Informative)
Security feature (Score:4, Funny)
It isn't Microsoft with the bug... (Score:5, Interesting)
Bad news guys; Microsoft isn't the one with a bug causing the problem. Poor implementation yes, bug no.
For some bizarre reason Vista expects the address returned from the DHCP server to be broadcast, instead of sent via unicast packet. This is permitted in the specs and supporting the broadcast flag on the server is suggested. ("SHOULD", not "MUST" in the spec.).
When researching this I found 2 network types which required this, Infinibad and 1394 (Firewire). It looks to me like Microsoft picked the one which would (theoretically atleast) work on all network types, instead of only on a few.
Of course, this is a typical bad decision as it means that responses from a DHCP server with a lot of Vista clients will flood the network with broadcast responses, but hey, they arent know for making good decisions.
Summary (Score:5, Informative)
a)Per the RFC servers do not need to implement the broadcast flag, but it is a good idea if you want to support systems that use it.
b)Per RFC Vista doesn't need to clear the broadcast bit, but it is strongly recommended and setting it is intended for legacy clients only.
c)Lund's energi's network doesn't support the broadcast and thus Vista machines do not get an IP over DHCP since they set the broadcast bit.
d)For reasons we don't yet know, Lund energi won't implement a workaround on their server. I don't know enough about DHCP or their systems to tell why, so I guess there might be a technical issue or perhaps they are just being jerks.
e)The fix is to set a registry key, which is easy for technical users, but a pain for those who don't know about it.
My judgement is that Lund's energi has a shitty DHCP server and Vista is a shitty DHCP client. Since the fix is so simple ( adding a registry key ) this really ought to be a non-issue, but because Microsoft and Lund's energi are both incompetent crappy companies the end user is left with a problem that would actually be rather easy to resolve. Those in the know can work around it, but non-technical users are left without service while those responsible point the finger at one another. The sad thing is that this really isn't particularly surprising. Hmm, did I forget something? Oh yea, the article summary is wrong since there are scores of ISPs in Lund, and this only affects one of them. So yea, I'm not very surprised at all...
Why ISP doesn't want to accomidate Vista (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember scanning the broadcast network traffic years ago on my cable modem and it was tens to hundreds of DHCP requests packets per second. If most users start running Vista then this would double the broadcast traffic.
Broadcast should be avoided unless absolutely required.
Not a bug, its a feature (Score:5, Insightful)
Please don't mod this funny, I am 100% serious.
Microsoft maintains its monopoly by intentional incompatibility.
Inter-operability = death for MS because then they would have to compete on price/quality.
Very interesting how the ISP is blamed (Score:4, Interesting)
And how often do I hear about the superiority of Windoze. When some WiFi card does not work under Linux: Linux is not fit for the general desktop. If some WiFi card does not work under Vista: The stupid manufacturer was not able to deliver proper drivers on time.
I begin to think the only reason that Windoze works at all is because everybody bends over for M$ and paves their path.
Sorry, but even if those voices, which say the ISP could have acted on behalf of their customers, are right, and they are, I still deem them hypocrites.
Re:Not a Vista bug (Score:5, Informative)
"Which implementations support or require the broadcast flag?
The broadcast flag is an optional element of DHCP, but a client which sets it works only with a server or relay that supports it.
Clients
Microsoft Windows NT
DHCP client support added with version 3.5 sets the broadcast flag. Version 3.51 and later no longer set it. The exception is in the remote access support: it sets the flag when it uses DHCP to acquire addresses to hand out to its PPP clients.
tcp/ip-32 for Microsoft Windows for Workgroups (WFW)
Version 3.11a sets it, but version 3.11B doesn't.
Microsoft Windows 95
Does not set the broadcast flag."
So, I guess Vista only works with Servers that support it and it was an option to implemant it. End of Story.
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Re:Not a Vista bug (Score:5, Informative)
RFC 1542 sayeth
3.1.1 The BROADCAST flag [...] This addition to the protocol is a workaround for old host implementations. Such implementations SHOULD be modified so that they may receive unicast BOOTREPLY messages, thus making use of this workaround unnecessary. In general, the use of this mechanism is discouraged.
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Re:I have no sympathy for Lundis Energi (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:I have no sympathy for Lundis Energi (Score:4, Informative)
There are also reports that Cisco equipment won't work with it either.
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Re:Not their problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, not being able to get on the web does decrease the malware they get infected by.
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Re:Not their problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
No. If the provider changes their config that lets Microsoft customers remain Microsoft customers. Microsoft broke it, let Microsoft fix it. The provider's customers are free to use any other OS (including older Microsoft versions) while remaining provider customers.
Take an electric utility, for example, that runs house current at 220V (we're talking Europe). Should they drop that back to 120V just because a few customers bought an appliance from a company that couldn't manage to make it compliant with 220V, just to keep those customers? No, let the customers take it up with the appliance vendor. (Of course it's not an exact analogy, but at least it isn't a car analogy.)
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Re:Not their problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Why do people still use Windows? (Score:5, Insightful)
If by "modern", you mean "at least 1 gig of RAM", I guess that works.
I have tried it on a machine with 512 megs of RAM. It was Home Basic, and it was loaded down with HP crap, but no matter how much I cleared away, it still took several minutes to do anything. And I mean anything. Control panel? Two minutes. Internet Explorer? A minute and a half. It was ludicrous.
And I am fairly confident it was the RAM, because it was paging like mad. I did plug in a USB stick and used ReadyBoost while I was there, and it did improve things, but not by much.
Now, I know someone who upgraded from XP 64-bit to Vista, and basically raves about everything about it, and I don't blame her -- XP 64-bit sucked. She realizes that was a mistake, should've stayed on 32-bit. But Vista 64-bit isn't bad (finally catching up to Linux' 64-bit support), and it's generally been solid for her.
She also has, I believe, some 2 gigs of RAM.
Her advice to me was, less than a gig of RAM? XP is faster. A gig or more? Vista is faster.
Which makes me wonder what the fuck it's using half a gig of RAM for. I have Kontact (Outlook-like app, so email, calendar, etc), Konqueror (web browser), two IRC clients, Kopete (multi-IM client), KTorrent (bittorrent), and a Windows game open in Wine right now, and it's using less than 600 megs of RAM. Vista, apparently, uses at least that much just to show you a desktop -- I remember it being a gig or so paged (I'm not kidding) with nothing open other than the task list. What gives?
It's not Aero, by the way. I've had Beryl on this computer before, and right now, it's running KWin with everything turned on, which includes some Beryl/Aero-like features (including real drop shadows and transparency), and that doesn't use a significant amount of RAM, either.
The issue is that when you play media, your download slows. And there is absolutely no reason for this, and versions of Windows prior to Vista are not effected, all the way back to 95, probably 3.1.
And I actually do have a PC that doesn't do that. It runs Ubuntu. It also doesn't slow down when downloading, even torrents, because they use so little of my resources (aside from bandwidth) that I can do pretty much anything I was doing before (unless it's online).
Where'd you get this information?
Last I checked, they hadn't even acknowledged it as a bug. They were still insisting that it had to be this way in order to not have the music skip. (Well, guess what? My music doesn't skip even when I'm transferring stuff over Gigabit. Novel concept, I know.)
People complain that Linux is focused on throughput and not latency -- that is, that it'll make my desktop lag just so that background compile can run 2% faster. Here's a clear example of why you don't want to go too far the other way, though -- playing any audio at all on Vista slows your network down by 10%.
It may not be enough for you to notice, as that's still probably faster than your Internet. Probably. But it doesn't make it any less of a bug, no matter what Microsoft says.
That is and has been true, and occasionally various users find it better enough to make the switch. (Not all users do, obviously, and some never will.)
Being able to download fast while playing media is unarguably better than lagging. Being able to play a multiplayer
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