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Bug Forces Android Devices Off Princeton Campus Network

Posted by Soulskill on from the your-computer-is-broadcasting-an-ip-address dept.

pmdubs writes "A major bug in the Android DHCP implementation has forced network administrators to (effectively) ban the use of such devices on the Princeton campus. In the last few months, Princeton has had to kick more than 400 Android devices off the campus network for using IP addresses well beyond the allotted DHCP lease (to the detriment of other users), sending invalid DHCPREQUEST messages after lease expiration, and a variety of other wacky behaviors. The link provides a clearly documented explanation of the buggy behavior, as does this largely neglected bug report. Without doubt, this buggy behavior is affecting other, less vigilant networks, and disrupting Wi-Fi traffic for Android and non-Android devices alike."

10 of 309 comments (clear)

  1. and it will never be fixed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    oh, google will fix it. But there will be carriers who will never roll those fixes out to their users.

  2. Re:WTF? by klingens · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If they didn't, It'd be harder to pull stunts like closing the Honeycomb source.

    Android uses the Linux kernel, nothing more that is GPLed. Even their libc is developed inhouse. Tho, dhcp-client by ISC has a very permissive license. Little bit of advertising, that's all. Closing the source is allowed.

  3. Nice flamebait article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    Apple fanboys can rant how iOs is supposedly better. Closed-source fans can decry the "horrible quality" of open source. And I'm sure some "Windows Mobile is the shit"-guys will chime in. All the while forcing Android and open source advocates to defend/counter-attack. There's something for everybody!

    This should be fun to watch. Flamewar is a go!

    1. Re:Nice flamebait article by Florian+Weimer · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Apple had a similar issue:

      http://www.net.princeton.edu/announcements/ipad-iphoneos32-stops-renewing-lease-keeps-using-IP-address.html

      At this point, one has to wonder what Princeton is doing on their network that they keep uncovering such bugs.

    2. Re:Nice flamebait article by paulej72 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      At this point, one has to wonder what Princeton is doing on their network that they keep uncovering such bugs.

      Princeton's network was for the longest time very old. We had shared 10mb over cat3 cable to most of the campus. To keep things working, the network was heavily monitored and anything that did not belong was promptly disconnected.

      Fast forward to now. We have a modern network that can handle some problems, but the motioning form the dark days still continues. Because of this heavy monitoring IT can see problems with devices that probably no one on earth sees.

      Yes the iPhone and iPod both had the same issues, but Apple fix them eventually. I hope the Google will do the same.

  4. Re:Interesting problem by Overzeetop · · Score: 3, Interesting

    No, the restart sequence should check a timer to determine if the initial lease has expired, and renegotiate a new IP from the server if necessary. Assuming that when you wake up that the lease still exists without checking would certainly cause problems. It's not a case that would normally get tested as it requires a large down time to accomplish, and yuo won't encounter that with normal sleep-to-wake test cycles.

    --
    Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
  5. Re:WTF? by teh31337one · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If they didn't, It'd be harder to pull stunts like closing the Honeycomb source.

    They haven't closed the source, they're delaying the source because they're worried about the user experience when it inevitably gets ported to a phone. At the moment, honeycomb is designed to work on 1280x800 screen res devices, and that's it. They''ll release the source when it's ready.

  6. Re:Funny link! by DrgnDancer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    iPrism (my company's nanny of choice), blocks the site as an annonymiser. And what the hell kinda URL *is* net.princeton.edu.nyud.net anyway?

    Here's the link to Princeton's web site: http://www.net.princeton.edu/android/android-stops-renewing-lease-keeps-using-IP-address-11236.html

    And it appears the iPad has a similar problem: http://www.lockergnome.com/blade/2010/04/16/princeton-explains-network-issues-for-ipad-users-and-has-banned-the-devices/

    Odd that they're both doing something so similar. Wonder if they use the same base DHCP code.

    --
    I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
  7. Re:Funny link! by Tsingi · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I didn't see anything.

    You probably have malicious software running on your machine that is hooked into your browser. Lemme guess, you run Windows?

    <Tsingi hands the AC some soap> No, I don't run Windows.

    I have no problems on this, my dev box, other than no script complaining about that link.

    nslookup on the error IP gives me:

    214.97.20.172.in-addr.arpa name = websense214.corp.<our company network>.

    So there it is my companies IM filter box, webnonsense (apparently there are at least 214 of them) being an ass yet again.

    apologies to anyone who might require it, and for being (as it turns out) entirely off-topic.

  8. Re:WTF? by poetmatt · · Score: 1, Interesting

    as linked below, someone needs to ask apple what the hell they're doing too.