[Freeciv-Dev] (PR#13245) Catalyst 6500 crashes after several users join to play in network mode

["Tamara, Enrique" <enrique.tamara@xxxxxx>]

<URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=13245 >

Hello,
 
I'd like to report a problem we have detected when playing Freeciv in
network mode (several clients playing with a server). The switch which
connects all of the users is a Cisco Catalyst 6500 and it crashes
everytime we play the game. We also reported this problem to Cisco TAC,
but they state this is a normal problem due to the fact that the game
uses a reserved multicast address (0100.5e00.0001) and traffic is
directly forwarded to the Catalyst CPU. They say that excessive
multicast traffic to reserved multicast addresses can easily make the
switch crash.
 
I find all this hard to believe (this could be a very easy DoS attack),
and I wanted to know your opinion. Have you ever been reported on this
problem? Do you really think this is normal? Is there any possibility to
make the game use a different multicast address?
 
Thank you very much for your attention.
 
Kind regards,
 
Enrique

Hello,

 

I'd like to report a problem we have detected when playing Freeciv in network mode (several clients playing with a server). The switch which connects all of the users is a Cisco Catalyst 6500 and it crashes everytime we play the game. We also reported this problem to Cisco TAC, but they state this is a normal problem due to the fact that the game uses a reserved multicast address (0100.5e00.0001) and traffic is directly forwarded to the Catalyst CPU. They say that excessive multicast traffic to reserved multicast addresses can easily make the switch crash.

 

I find all this hard to believe (this could be a very easy DoS attack), and I wanted to know your opinion. Have you ever been reported on this problem? Do you really think this is normal? Is there any possibility to make the game use a different multicast address?

 

Thank you very much for your attention.

 

Kind regards,

 

Enrique