New Firmware Update for Meinberg Time Servers

The update 6.22 for Meinberg's LANTIME firmware LTOS6 offers many new features for better synchronization capabilities in your network.

Bad Pyrmont, June 23, 2017- Meinberg, manufacturer of the world's most efficient and versatile solutions for time and frequency synchronization, releases its brand new firmware update 6.22. This free-of-charge update is compatible with all Meinberg LANTIME products of the M-Series, SyncFire and IMS-Series product range, including the first M300/M600 systems shipped over 10 years ago. This documents Meinberg’s commitment to not only offer lifetime support for our products but also lifetime free software upgrades.

The LANTIME firmware LTOS6 offers a firmware concept that introduces innovative solutions fulfilling todays and future network synchronization requirements. To guarantee this concept Meinberg is constantly working on improving its LTOS6 firmware, therefore many new features are now available with the firmware update version 6.22:

Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP)

A network protocol for seamless failover that provides zero packet loss redundancy. PRP nodes have two individual network ports, each attached to two separate networks. A node sends two copies of a frame over each port and the end node takes the first packet arriving and discards the second one. PRP is layer 2 based and available for NTP and PTP. Any two physical interfaces can be combined to form a PRP interface group, supporting multiple IP addresses, VLANs and services.

IEEE 802.1X - Port Based Authentication

A client-server based access control and authentication protocol that prevents unauthorized clients from connecting to a LAN unless properly authenticated.

LLDP and other Network Discovery Protocols

It is possible to enable LLDP, Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP), Foundry Discovery Protocol (FDP) and Nortel Discovery Protocol (NDP) on all physical interfaces of your LTOS6 compatible device.

Support of new PTP Profiles

ITU-T G.8275.2, a Telecom profile used by telecom applications requiring accurate phase and time (time-of-day) synchronization (e.g. LTE-TDD and LTE advanced base station).

DOCSIS 3.1, new preset for Cable Provider (Data-Over-Cable Service Interface Specifications) based on Telecom ITU-T G.8275.1 profile.

PTPv1 Support on HPS100

Meinberg backported PTPv1 as a feature to its HPS-100 cards. This allows to deploy state-of-the-art synchronization systems for applications and networks that still depend on PTPv1 (IEEE 1588-2002), for example DANTE based Audio over IP networks. Upgrading your sync infrastructure with an PTPv1 IMS system will get you all the management and synchronization features of a modern synchronization solution and at the same time allows you to easily run PTPv1 in parallel to PTPv2 and other synchronization technologies. This means you can keep your existing PTPv1 client base up and running and use the same system to synchronize clients that are already using a newer version of the protocol. The basic configuration allows performance of approx. 12k packets/second (~3000 clients).

Net-Sync Monitor

A multifunctional monitoring tool that can be very helpful to meet regulations like MiFID II, by allowing to monitor hundreds of NTP and PTP nodes in your network instead of relying on self-reported sync accuracy. PTP monitoring is possible by using a HPS100 module (with PL-D option, existing HPS cards can be upgraded) which is configured to run in monitoring mode. NTP monitoring is possible using the standard CPU and LNE network interfaces. NetSync Monitor has its user interface integrated into the standard Web GUI of every LTOS6 LANTIME running 6.22 or later and comes with powerful visualization and alarming features.

Security

Security becomes more and more important, therefore Meinberg improved security in this new firmware version and will further harden its firmware in the next versions to meet highest requirements of its customers.

• Protection against XSS, Cross-Site-Request-Forgery attacks improved
• Latest NTP-Version 4.2.8p10 with 15 fixes for several security vulnerabilities
• Latest GLIBC, OpenSSL and SSH Updates
• SSH & HTTPS: Removed unsecure/weak ciphers
• Outcome of security audits integrated into LTOS6 to close and minimize vulnerabilities and attack vectors

A number of security vulnerability fixes and improvements have been implemented based on the results of a security audit performed by Sebastian Krause and Toralf Gimpel, GAI NetConsult GmbH.

Unlike all our competitors, Meinberg keeps adding features, new protocols and security fixes and offers free technical support for products purchased by customers 10 years ago without asking for a support contract or upgrade fees.

The new LANTIME firmware version 6.22 is available on Meinberg's Download page:

LANTIME Firmware 6.22