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Firmware Release Notes for Balance 380/390/580/700/710/1350

IMPORTANT NOTES - Please Read Carefully Before Upgrading to 5.x Release

  • As an important reminder, please make sure you have the unlock key ready before performing an upgrade from 4.x release.

  • If your current firmware version is 4.7 or below, please upgrade to 4.8.2 first before upgrading to 5.x release.

  • All Peplink devices should be running the same firmware version to participate in the same Site-to-Site VPN network.

  • If this firmware is rolled back to firmware 4.x the configurations will be lost.

  • For customers using Drop-in Mode: MAC address passthrough for Drop-in Mode is enabled in this firmware release. If Drop-in Mode is enabled when upgrading from firmware version 4.8 or earlier, the ARP tables for the hosts on LAN and WAN segments have to be flushed once, or the hosts have to be rebooted. Otherwise, hosts on one side may not be able to reach hosts on the other side of Peplink Balance until the old ARP records expire. Units without Drop-in Mode enabled are not affected.

Release 5.1.3, May 26, 2010

Changes to Peplink Balance Firmware 5.1.3 since 5.1.2

Improvements:
  • Performance optimizations.
Bug Fixes:
  • System may become unstable if Site-to-Site VPN reconnects many times over a prolonged period.
  • DHCP server may not respond to requests in some rare conditions.

Release 5.1.2, May 3, 2010

Changes to Peplink Balance Firmware 5.1.2 since 5.0.0

New Features:

  • Bandwidth optimization on Site-to-Site VPN bonding with mobile WAN connections to local or remote VPN peers.
  • Ability to disable encryption on Site-to-Site VPN.
  • For DNS based health checks public DNS servers can be included as health check targets. This avoids incorrectly treating a WAN connection as down when all user-specified Health Check DNS Servers are down.
  • Mobile Internet connection can stay disconnected when in standby mode.
Improvements:
  • More reliable "Terminate Sessions on Link Recovery" in the Outbound Policy.
  • Last month's per-user monthly bandwidth usage is included.
  • WINS server can be enabled without specifying a WINS server address in the DHCP server settings.
  • Added WINS Client List with the ability to flush the list. The Client List can show the WINS client's name.
  • Device manufacturer name-lookup in the Client List.
Bug Fixes:
  • Some internal syslog messages were incorrectly sent to the remote syslog server.
  • CPU usage became abnormally high in some situations.
  • Incorrect throughput data was sometimes posted to the reporting server.

Release 5.0.2, Mar 30, 2010

Changes to Peplink Balance Firmware 5.0.2 since 5.0.0

Improvements:
  • Ability to apply NAT Mapping rule to a remote Site-to-Site VPN host.
  • Ability to support the character "#" in PPPoE Username field.
  • Ability to disable the Read-only User Account by entering an empty string in User Password field for Read-only User under Admin Settings.
  • OpenVPN sessions can be terminated more reliably when the option "Terminate sessions on link recovery" is selected in Outbound Policy Custom Rule settings.
Bug Fixes:
  • Incorrect upload and download figures might be posted to the Reporting Server.
  • CPU load value goes abnormally high periodically.
  • In Drop-in Mode settings, hosts defined in "I have other host(s) on WAN segment" could not be displayed.
Limitation:
  • When outbound Internet traffic is routed to remote Site-to-Site VPN peer, the remote peer will route the traffic to its first available WAN connection only.

Release 5.0.0, Feb 2, 2010

Changes to Peplink Balance Firmware 5.0.0 since 4.8.2

New Features:

  • Site-to-Site VPN bandwidth bonding.
  • Ability to route Internet traffic to a remote VPN peer.
  • Per-user bandwidth control.
  • Per-user bandwidth usage monitoring.
  • New outbound traffic policy: Overflow.
  • Ability to use a USB mobile modem as a backup WAN.
  • Added read-only user level for the Web Admin.
  • Automatic configuration synchronization between VRRP peers.
  • Added traffic prioritization for custom protocols.
  • MAC address passthrough under Drop-in Mode.
  • Selectable WAN port for Drop-in Mode.
  • Added built-in WINS server.
  • Added option to use Google DNS server as backup.
Improvements:
  • Revamped Active Sessions, Time Zone settings and Setup Wizard pages.
  • Ability to logout from the Web Admin.
  • WAN IP address is now detected remotely upon Dynamic DNS update.
Bug Fixes:
  • MTU value may be incorrectly set.
  • Disabling of an inbound service rule does not take effect.
  • PPTP server does not work when DHCP server is off.
  • Various bug fixes on Site-to-Site VPN.
Limitation:
  • When outbound Internet traffic is routed to remote Site-to-Site VPN peer, the remote peer will route the traffic to its first available WAN connection only.

IMPORTANT NOTES - Please Read Carefully Before Upgrading to 4.x Release

  • If upgrading from firmware version 4.5 or below, Site-to-Site VPN settings need to be reconfigured.

  • All Peplink devices should be running the same firmware version to participate in the same Site-to-Site VPN network.

 

Release 4.8.2, Aug 24, 2009

Changes to Balance Firmware v4.8.2 since v4.8.1

New Features:
  • Sub-second failover option for Site-to-Site VPN.
Improvements:
  • Added PPTP logging messages in Event Log.
  • Enhanced support for IPSec NAT-T Passthrough.
Bug Fixes:
  • In rare situation, Site-to-Site VPN cannot be established when higher priority WAN(s) reconnects after it has gone down.
  • Health Check may fail when no DNS server setting can be obtained from DHCP server of a WAN connection.
  • Notification for firmware upgrade does not function.

Release 4.8.1, Jul 23, 2009

Changes to Balance Firmware v4.8.1 since v4.7.0

New Features:
  • Bandwidth Allowance Monitor to track bandwidth usage.
  • PPTP Server.
  • DNS Record Import Wizard to import DNS records via zone transfer.
  • UPnP / NAT-PMP support.
  • Extended DHCP Option.
  • Ability to specify WINS Servers in LAN DHCP Server Settings.
  • WAN selection for Least Used / Lowest Latency algorithms in Outbound Policy.
  • Auto MTU detection.
  • Dedicated status page for Site-to-Site VPN.
  • New Client List.
  • Ability to define Router Name for the Balance unit for easier tracking in Email Notification, SNMP, NSLookup, etc.
Improvements:
  • Site-to-Site VPN stability fixes.
  • Enhanced Email Notification to support SMTPS and multiple recipients.
  • Revamped Event Log, WAN connection status, and Email Notification messages.
  • Enhanced SIP ALG to support T.38.
  • Enhanced browsers compatibility; added support for Google Chrome 2.0 or above.

Release 4.7.0, Feb 27, 2009

Changes to Balance Firmware v4.7.0 since v4.6.0

New Features:
  • Added option to choose session failover time for Site-to-Site VPN.
  • Added "Advertise Speed" option for each LAN and WAN interface. This has improved port speed negotiation with some networking devices.
  • Added e-mail notification for VPN connection and disconnection.
Improvements:
  • Enhanced Site-to-Site VPN throughput, failover speed, stability and NAT support.
  • Improved role changing accuracy in High Availability mode.
  • Improved DNS compatibility with Unix clients.
Bug Fixes:
  • DNS zone transfer issue with some DNS servers.

Release 4.6.0, Dec 02, 2008

Changes to Balance Firmware v4.6.0 since v4.5.0

New Features:
  • Multi-site VPN Load Balancing support on B380/390/700/710. Note: The VPN function on 4.6.0 or above is NOT backward compatible with versions prior to 4.6.0.
Bug Fixes:
  • WAN links cannot go up if ping based health check is enabled on all of them and all ping hosts are host names rather than IP addresses.
  • Potential WAN port sync problem with static port speed being set.
  • Potential problem in sending email notification via some authentication enabled email servers.
  • In rare occasions, network time synchronization may trigger device failover and failback momentarily.

Note: Since firmware 4.6.0, if IP Forwarding is enabled on a WAN, health check and DNS resolution packets over the WAN will be originated from the WAN IP address instead of the LAN IP address.

Release 4.5.0, Aug 04, 2008

Changes to Balance Firmware v4.5.0 since v4.1.1

New Features:
  • New Outbound Algorithms: Latency and Least Used.
  • Intrusion Detection and DOS Prevention feature in Firewall.
  • DSL Optimization.
  • Drag-and-drop user interface.
  • Service Forwarding.
  • Option in 'Reply ICMP Ping Requests' in WAN configuration.
  • Bad DNS Server detection.
  • Verbose E-mail test output.
Bug Fixes:
  • High CPU load in High Availability Slave standby mode .

Release 4.1.1, Apr 25, 2008

Changes to Balance Firmware v4.1.1 since v4.1.0

New Features:
  • VLAN tagging support on WANs.
Improvements:
  • DDNS: Updated support for changeip.com.
Bug Fixes:
  • Web admin access problems related to MTU size.
  • On WAN settings change, the WAN may unnecessarily reconnect when apply changes.
  • Could not save more than one Allowed Source IP subnets in Admin Security page.

Release 4.1.0, Feb 20, 2008

Changes to Balance Firmware v4.1.0 since v4.0.0

New Features:
  • Site-to-Site VPN support.
  • SIP ALG support.
  • Wildcard DNS "A" and "CNAME" record support.
  • DDNS service provider "tzo.com" support.
  • Test Email Notification support.
  • FTP Pass-through custom control port support.
Improvements:
  • Physical Interface speed negotiation.
  • Another SMTP authentication method "AUTH LOGIN" in E-mail notification.

Release 4.0.1, Sept 19, 2007

Changes to Balance Firmware v4.0.1 since v4.0.0

Improvements:
  • Prioritization of SIP call traffic.
  • DNS service availability on WAN connections.
  • Increased supported number of characters in DNS TXT records to 255.
  • Alert message for not enabling health check on any WAN.
Bug Fixes:
  • DHCP WAN connections might incorrectly reconnect on DHCP IP renewal.
Views: 4641 | Last Updated: 2010-08-20 | Article ID: 54

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