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Windows XP SP3 Causing Router Crashes
KrispyBytes writes "Windows XP SP3 has been named as the culprit causing home routers to go into a crash and reboot cycle. One router maker has released firmware updates to fix the problem, but has not yet revealed what is actually different about XP SP3's networking stack or UPnP behaviour that causes the problem. Router maker Billion Managing Director Raaj Menon said "as Microsoft plans to make Windows XP SP3 an automatic upgrade this month, the number of affected routers may increase significantly.""
A computer on the network should not be able to crash the router. This is a problem with the manufacturing of the routers, not anything in particular with SP3. This problem could have arisen in any OS. The fact that it appeared with SP3 is irrelevant. I return you to your MS bashing.
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Shouldn't the title of this post be "Shitty router programming causing router crashes"? It should matter what type of garbage come off the wire, the router must be able to handle it all without error.
If an upgrade to a router caused Windows to enter a reboot cycle would we be blaming the router manufacturer or Microsoft?
Would anyone notice?
Kidding aside, my first thought was this is CLEARLY a router problem. Even if SP3 is completely defective and sending out complete garbage to the router, the router should cope better than going into a 'crash and reboot cycle'.
Lets not jump to blame this on Windows. It could be that Windows isn't doing anything wrong, just something the router should be able to handle, but can't. We can point fingers when we know what the actual issue causing the router problems is.
Any router that can be crashed by anything that any of the computers connected to it do is seriously buggy. This is not Microsoft's fault.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
There hardly any comments yet. Most are defending Microsoft. Who is this "we" that are flaming msft?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I agree. Quite frankly, given that only one small manufacturer is reporting issues, and that they were able to resolve the issue on their end, makes me believe the issue is more with the router.
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It sounds like the Billion router's firmware had a really bad bug that happened to be poked by Windows XP SP3. Unless if this was in a third party library or some external code that they were using, I wouldn't be surprised if this was limited to just Billion routers.
:-)
XP SP3 didn't _cause_ the bug; it merely happened to recreate a condition that triggered a bug inside the router to crash itself.
Your point is the relevant one. Regardless of what OS did this, the fact is that no computer should ever be able to crash a router period. The incessant MS bashing reaches absurd levels sometimes.
Billion? Never heard of'em. My Linksys router isn't complaining...
Problem is, though, he would (as usually) be pissed at the wrong party. That MS is the wrong party this time might be divine justice, but it still means that the wrong side gets heat for something someone completely different fubar'ed.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Unlikely, given that the OP mentions that at least one manufacturer has fixed the problem with a firmware update. You can't really write software to fix a problem until you've figured out what the problem is.
You're right though, a properly hardened router will keep ticking regardless of what's plugged into it. Mostly.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
And there is also the potential issue of this being UPNP related. UPNP is a completely bogus thing, but Microsoft strong armed the industry to support it and it's in most routers and many users don't know to disable it. UPNP could certainly give ways to cause this issue, and I only hold the router itself responsible to the extent that it supports this blasphemy.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
As much as I hate defending the Redmond Computer Virus (tm), that's the router's fault.
Now, if SP3 created nonstandard packets that most routers still swallow but a router drops because they don't work to spec, blame MS. If the router replied with a bogus message to said nonstandard packet that locked up XP, blame MS. But a router HAS TO be able to accept a bogus packet. It may drop it, report it or if it feels like it send it on a roundtrip in hope that some machine can figure out what it's about, but it may NEVER crash due to it.
I hope I don't have to mention the security implications of this.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
"Apparently sarcasm and humor is flamebait nowadays."
It is when there's no sarcasm or humor. Like in your post.
You came off as just another anti-MS troll with no idea what they're talking about. If it was intended to be sarcastic or humorous, you missed badly on both.
uPNP configures port forwarding for a NAPT (aka NAT) router. NAPT/NAT is *not* a firewall, and should not be treated like one. Its sole purpose is to translate addresses and ports (Network Address and Port Translating) between the internal and external networks. It is not meant to protect computers on either end from each other. uPNP facilitates the NAPT job by giving applications an easy way to automate the needed port forwarding for the WAN->LAN direction. If you want a firewall, get a real firewall.
Luke-Jr
Did the hardware manufacturers all just write flawless Linux drivers and buggy Windows ones?
Or did Linux developers just go a step further than Windows did, and take it upon themselves to make sure that hardware works properly on their OS?
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
It sounds like the packet isn't bogus. MS chose to implement an optional part of the DHCP spec (vendor information). As per the DHCP spec if your device doesn't implement the optional parts, you just ignore them, not crash.
So this isn't MS sending a bogus packet, or even doing a "Windows own spec," thing. They are properly following the DHCP spec, and this POS can't handle it. I mean I'll give someone a tiny bit of credit if the problem is due to bad data. Not a lot, it's still a bug that needs to be fixed, but at least it was something unexpected. However when you are crashing because you didn't deal with part of a spec, well then you get zero sympathy.
Even if that were true (it isn't) it would STILL be the router's fault.
Username taken, please choose another one.
If you can crash the router, you have a possible DDoS attack. If you can do it on the WAN port, it would certainly be a flaw in the device. Depending on the crashing behavior, it is also possible that this is actually an exploitable path that could be used to permanently reflash the router for malevolent purposes.
The client sends a DHCPREQUEST packet that contains options it is requesting from the server. The server is then supposed to craft a DHCPACK packet containing values for the options requested by the client.
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2132.txt
No GNU has been Hurd during the making of this comment.
The consensus seems to be that the router is at fault if SP3 crashes it. There is a major factor that people are overlooking here. uPNP is a M$ "standard." So here is the possible, and I would even assert likely, scenario:
M$ creates the uPNP standard, then revises it, then revises it again. To the extent that it is a standard, different versions of the "standard" are made available to different router designers, based on how close they come to touching their palms to the floor when bending over for M$. Now, those who handed over their first born have the newer tweaked standard available, and if they comply their router doesn't crash. In the meantime, other router companies have a different/older standard, to which they comply fully. Of course, SP3 makes use of the newer, less widely disseminated standard. Doing so causes implementations that haven't "paid up" to crash.
Yes, this definitely sounds like a scenario imagined by a guy who wears a tin-foil hat to those who don't know the M$ history, haven't read the M$ internal documents known as the Halloween Documents, etc. To people who know the history and understand how M$ works, this is a likely though unproven scenario.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Yes, lets not blame Windows XP SP3... after all, this has happened with other OS's and other versions of Windows, right?
Oh, wait, this has only happened with XP SP3 machines....
So, again, what's the probability that it isn't Windows XP SP3 doing something wrong?
I'd say 100% seeing as that it is the router that is crashing.Think of it this way, if writing this post made your computer crash, would it be my computers fault, or would it be yours?
Hmmm... what is the margin of error on that statistic?
Oh, nevermind... I came up with the same figure anyway. ;-)
Think of it this way, if writing this post made your computer crash, would it be my computers fault, or would it be yours?Well, I'd like to blame it on your computer... and wonderfully, I can - and not be deemed insane. Things like that happen on /. all the time (like the guy I was responding to).
=)
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In fact, it's definitely the case that it's something the router should be able to handle. If a router receives a packet that causes it to crash, it's a flaw in the router's software, no matter whether the packet is malformed or not.