Software update: PacketFence 4.0.5

An NAC system can be used to secure a network environment. This allows network devices to be automatically blocked, based on pre-set policies, if an undesirable situation occurs. Think of unknown network devices of visitors, a worm that is trying to spread or an authorized device that is equipped with a different operating system via a boot flop or live CD. PacketFence is such a nac system, with support for 802.1x and vlan isolation, which allows a network device to be placed in the correct vlan after analysis. For more information, please refer to this page and to the 32nd [In]Secure Magazine, in which an article about this package can be found. The developers have released version 4.0.5 with the following announcement:

PacketFence 4.0.5 released

The Inverse team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of PacketFence 4.0.5. This is a minor release with some new features, enhancements and important bug fixes. This release is considered ready for production use and upgrading from 4.0.4 is strongly advised.

Here are the changes in 4.0.5:

New features:

• Passthrough with Apache’s mod_proxy module

Enhancements:

• Improved validation of sponsor’s email
• Self-registration by sponsor now works without having to define an email authentication source
• Fetching VLAN for dot1x connections is now limited to internal authentication sources
• Splitted internal and external classes in dropdown menu of authentication types
• Show error message when trying to delete a source used by the portal profiles
• Documentation of the vip parameter for management interface

Bug fixes:

• Authentication is now limited to internal sources
• DynamicTable widget now allows to drag’n’drop under last row
• Connections on port 443 are now accepted for self-registration (#1679)
• Use virtual ip when available for SNAT
• Remote conformity scan engines (Nessus/OpenVAS) can now scan devices in unregistered state on inline networks
• Returned per-switch role (if configured) for “Role mapping by switch role” rather than sending the user role

see the ChangeLog file for the complete list of changes and the UPGRADE.asciidoc file for notes about upgrading.