RE: Firewall(s) "maxed" out

From: Regan, Sharon (Sharon_Reganat_private)
Date: Fri Oct 15 1999 - 09:54:27 PDT

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    Hi: 
    
    Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, but we're a three person
    internetwork shop supporting a user population of 5,000 +
    
    Anyway, I believe we have found the new "killer" app.  There are all types
    of these free e-mail "services" (if you will), like yahoomail and hotmail,
    etc.  Well, there's this new one called visto.
    
    What this one does is allow a user to "synchronize" his/her regular
    (company) e-mail with his/her visto mail, calendar, etc., such that,
    whenever a new message arrives in the corporate mailbox, you see it in the
    visto mailbox.  The users download an app from visto which runs in the
    background on the office desktop machine, and which then tunnels data back
    to visto inside of HTTP.  So, on the surface of things, it just looks like a
    regular browser session.
    
    We're finding increasing numbers of users availing themselves of this
    "service" .... word spreads like wildfire among the masses  .... our
    firewalls work harder, longer, require more disk space to log all this
    stuff, there is additional traffic on the Internet T-1 (which is not there
    for the exclusive use of employees ... we actually do e-business ! ), etc.
    
    I've rebuilt my kernel and added more disk space since I posted to the list,
    but I'm seriously considering putting an access-list on the serial interface
    of my internet edge router and be done with it, once and for all.
    
    Sharon 
    
    
    -----Original Message-----
    From: Crumrine, Gary L [mailto:CrumrineGLat_private]
    Sent: Thursday, October 14, 1999 1:14 PM
    To: Regan, Sharon
    Subject: RE: Firewall(s) "maxed" out
    
    
    Sharon, did you have a look at your logs yet?  Just wondering if my hunch
    was correct.  I saw another post that mirrored my comment.
    
    Gary
    
    -----Original Message-----
    From: Regan, Sharon [mailto:Sharon_Reganat_private]
    Sent: Thursday, October 07, 1999 4:02 PM
    To: 'firewall-wizardsat_private'
    Subject: Firewall(s) "maxed" out
    
    
    Hello People: 
    
    My organization has two primary Internet firewalls at two separate
    locations.  One is a Raptor V4.0 running on Solaris 2.5.1 and the other is
    Altavista 96 running on D-UNIX V3.2C.
    
    During the past two days, both of these firewalls became "maxed" out, for
    lack of a better term.  Specifically, both machines had reached their
    maxtask limits and could no longer fork any new processes.  A check of the
    systems revealed very large numbers of HTTP connections from individual
    internal client workstations.  
    
    Does anyone know of some "new" browser plug-in or service pack which could
    be responsible for this ??  It has been suggested that IE5 runs each new
    browser window as a separate process and that perhaps this could somehow be
    responsible.  The problem was first exhibited at one of our locations
    yesterday, and then at the second one today.
    
    Both firewalls are old and have been in production for many years.  Neither
    can be replaced / upgraded due to a Y2K freeze.
    
    Any ideas on what the culprit could be would be appreciated. 
    
    Thanks. 
    
    SR
    



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