I've been working with Oracle Session Border Controllers and Enterprise Communications Brokers a lot recently, and I encountered what I think is a new bug (it's with Oracle for investigation).
After deploying some new ECB instances, I changed the login and enable passwords, per the Oracle ACLI guide ("secret login" and "secret enable" at the SSH prompt). I used randomly generated strong passwords which included limited special characters -- "#", "%", "?" and "!".
The ECB appliances use two passwords per username - one to log on to the unit, and one to 'enable' (admin mode for configuring them, similar to Cisco's enable mode).
On one appliance, the new password I generated for it was accepted without complaint when typed and retyped at the confirmation prompt. However, attempting to then authenticate a new session using this password resulted in immediate refusal by the appliance. It effectively denied access, with no recovery method. I had to flatten and redeploy the appliance! Continue reading "Tiplet: DO NOT USE the # symbol in Oracle Enterprise Communication Broker passwords!"