Unexpected RSA Agent Version number

[JosephCarey]

Our site has been running tests with RSA Authentication Agent 8.5.

When I review the Agent log file, I see a message which identifies the Agent version number at version 8.1.2.

Can you explain why the version is not identified as 8.5??

Here is the message from the agent log file:

[1] 8:04:37.224 File:acinit.c Line:216 # AceInitializeEx: RSA ACE/Agent Version 8.1.2 [369] 03_21

_12_03_04_40

How can I confirm that we are actually using Agent 8.5?

[TedBarbour]

Hard to say without understanding your environment or how you are testing but the log is indicating that your test application is utilizing the older 8.1.2 API library.

[JosephCarey]

Thank you for your reply.

Here is some background:

We test with both the 8.1 and the 8.5 agent.

When we use the 8.1 Agent, the agent log shows this message:

9:04:03.098 File:acinit.c Line:214 # AceInitializeEx: RSA ACE/Agent Version 8.1.1 06_03_11_03_16_51

And as I mentioned in my post on the community site, when we use the 8.5 agent, the agent log shows this message:

8:04:37.224 File:acinit.c Line:216 # AceInitializeEx: RSA ACE/Agent Version 8.1.2 03_21_12_03_04_40

This message seems to indicate that even if we believe we are using the 8.5 library, we are really using an older version.

Maybe that is true, but it seems very unlikely. Let me tell you why.

We downloaded the 8.5 Agent Library from your site and we unzipped the distribution. We found that the 8.5 Agent Library was packaged in a folder named:

AuthSDK_C_v8.5.0.1148.03_28_14_07_05_15

Doesn’t that look correct? That’s the name assigned by RSA when they created the distribution.

Now we are using the 32-bit AIX shared library, libaceclnt.so.

The path to that library is:

/AuthSDK_C_v8.5.0.1148.03_28_14_07_05_15/lib/32bit/aix/Release

If we drill down in the SDK to that object, we can use the cksum command on the object.

That should be a definitive way of identifying the object:

Ø cksum libaceclnt.so

2300033193 38463 libaceclnt.so

Does that look correct? Can that be verified?

That is the client library that is identifying itself as version 8.1.2.

[TedBarbour]

Do you have the libaceclnt_tcp.so in your environment?  That is the new 8.5 library.

See the Developer's Guide pages 23-24 for more information.

[JosephCarey]

Yes, we have that library libaceclnt_tcp.so in our environment for agent 8.5. Are you aware that it doesn’t work?

We have been advised by RSA that you cannot run Agent 8.5 in TCP mode.

We have been advised that the 8.5 agent will not work correctly unless it uses libaceclnt_udp.so.

So when we use the 8.5 agent, we set the environmental variable “USEUDP_ENV_VAR” = true.

When that variable is set to true, the 8.5 library libaceclnt.so will load libaceclnt_upd.so.

So now I see what you are aiming at: we use agent library 8.5. And that library is libactclnt_tcp.so.

But due to the problems with libaclnt_tcp.so, we run in UDP mode, so the actual shared library that is being used is libacelnt_udp.so.

And libaceclnt_udp.so is not really a level 8.5 library.

That explains why the agent is reporting itself as version 8.1.2, and not 8.5.

It that the answer?

[EdwardDavis]

FYI

On Agent SDK 8.5 and TCP, I have it working right now in my setup. I am running java authentication sample code and works fine using TCP against my 8.2 sp1 p05 primary. The blanket statement '8.5 using tcp doesn't work' is not accurate. There is a configuration problem somewhere if it doesn't work.

[JosephCarey]

Thank you for your reply.

The information you are providing me about using Agent SDK 8.5 with TCP does not agree with previous information that we have received from RSA on this issue.

In March 2017, ACI opened a case with RSA Support regarding whether Agent 8.5 could be used with TCP. Please refer to RSA Case 00930698.

RSA replied to this case with the statement that: “for API 8.5, TCP was not fully functioning”.

Please see the mail from RSA Customer Support that I quote below:

[TedBarbour]

If you run   strings libacelnt_udp.so | grep -i version   from command line you will see the version info for that library.