• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 20, Number 40

  October 10, 2018 Doug Bidwell

  There’s been some action on the PTF front with HIPERs and Security Groups for all releases this week. We also see that MGTools is updating again, with new stuff every week or two there. Again, there were no new links this week, but keep checking our handy guide to make sure you are staying up to date.

  Quick sidebar on some interesting messages you’ll hear when you call IBM Service for support. It seems there won’t be any phone support for Sev2 and lower after October 15. We’re guessing that will result in an uptick in number of Sev 1, …

  Read more

• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 20, Number 39

  October 3, 2018 Doug Bidwell

  Readers of IT Jungle already know what’s been happening in the IBM i ecosystem, so let’s take a look at what’s new in PTF Land this week. As we all know, IBM i 6.1 extended support ended on September 30, but post life cycle options are now available so contact your next level of support for further information. ECS also has new recommended fixes for both 7.3 and 7.2, so please check the link in our guide for details. We did not get any new defectives for the week of September 29, but here is the rundown on the last …

  Read more

• The Herculean Task Of Applying Spectre/Meltdown Patches

  October 1, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The Spectre and Meltdown speculative execution vulnerabilities are, as our resident chief technology officer and author of the weekly IBM i PTF Guide, Doug Bidwell, is fond of saying, the gift that just keeps on giving.

  We had the shock of finding out in January that there were vulnerabilities in all processor architectures that use speculative execution in their instruction chewing engines – that means all existing processors, by the way. There are none that do not use this very useful architectural feature. And then we had the wait to see what the industry would do to patch these …

  Read more

• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 20, Number 38

  September 26, 2018 Doug Bidwell

  Hello good people of IBM i Land. There are HIPER and Security PTFs on all three releases this week: That’s IBM i 7.3, 7.2, and 7.1. So dig in and have a gander at the spreadsheet and figure out what to do.

  Here are the important links this week:

  • Ethernet How to Temporarily Enable or Disable Large Send Offload (LSO) on the IBM i
  • Security All Security Bulletins for IBM i
  • Security Apache on IBM i Security Updates
  • Security Java on IBM i security updates
  • Security Vulnerabilities for OpenSSL on IBM i
  • Security Vulnerabilities for OpenSSH on IBM i

  The …

  Read more

• Serious Security Vulns Patched In IBM i

  September 19, 2018 Alex Woodie

  No good deed goes unpunished. Such as it is with cybersecurity, which demands unceasing attention paid to a never-ending stream of flaws and patches as the cost of remaining off the front page. To that end, IBM patched several more security flaws in IBM i last week, including two serious flaws in Node.js, five critical vulnerabilities in Samba, and one moderate flaw in OpenSSH.

  It’s easy to get lulled into a false state of security on the IBM i server, thanks to its unique architecture, cryptic file names, and reputation for strong security. It’s hard enough to find programmers, administrators, …

  Read more

• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 20, Number 37

  September 19, 2018 Doug Bidwell

  The Spectre and Meltdown speculative execution vulnerabilities are the gift that keeps on giving in terms of security worries and hurried patches, and this week in the IBM i PTF Guide is yet another demonstration of this fact.

  See this link for full details on the new fixes, and check the tab in the Guide for SpectreMeltdown, which is new new.

  There are new fixes for PEX and Job Watcher on V7R3, check here for details.

  The Tech Refreshes are out, finally, for V7R3 and V7R2. Check the TR tab in the Guide for further information.

  Links this week: …

  Read more

• IBM Patches Security Flaws In IBM i

  September 12, 2018 Alex Woodie

  IBM last week shared details of two new OpenSSL vulnerabilities that are impacting all supported versions of IBM i. That came on the heels of two more vulnerabilities that were disclosed last month in IBM i’s Python implementation and the HTTP Server. All of the flaws have been patched by IBM.

  IBM i 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3 are impacted by the pair of OpenSSL vulnerabilities disclosed by IBM on August 30. Neither of the flaws, which include CVE-2018-0732 and CVE-2018-0737, are particularly nasty, but they do open gaps in the platform’s security apparatus just the same, so it’s important to …

  Read more

• IBM i PTF Guide, Number 20, Volumes 34, 35, 36

  September 12, 2018 Doug Bidwell

  It’s been three weeks since our last PTF guide, but we have been keeping up with all the updates and have packaged it all together for you. In addition to the usual defective PTF rundowns each week, we have seen some OpenSSL fixes and new HIPER and Security groups. It is also interesting to note that as of September 8, it has been four months since a bug was found in a patch. We aren’t sure if this sets any sort of record, but it is definitely worth mentioning! All the latest PTFs are lined up below for you. Happy …

  Read more

• IBM i PTF Guide, Number 20, Volumes 31 and 32

  August 15, 2018 Doug Bidwell

  We have some catching up to do this week. Summer is winding down, the kids are going back to school, and it’s time to get things back in order in PTF Land. There actually wasn’t much to report with Volume 31 of our PTF Guide, mostly due to the announcements that were expected in time for Volume 32. Still, 31 brought us a fix pack for Rational Developer for i (9.6), as well as some new links on how to configure ObjectConnect, what system fixes are required for Domino, and the IBM i collaboration software compatibility guide.

  Here’s the defective …

  Read more

• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 20, Number 30

  August 6, 2018 Doug Bidwell

  It is summer, and it is the usual quiet time in PTF Land. This week, there are new PTF groups for HIPERs and HTTP server! There is good stuff in there. . . .

  The SAP required PTF lists were updated on July 20 for IBM i releases 7.2 and 7.3, on the July 16 they were updated for IBM i 7.1. If you are running SAP, you might check out their links on the links page.

  There are, as you know from reading The Four Hundred, new enterprise servers coming, and they are very powerful machines! And there …

  Read more

Previous Articles Next Articles