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11.6 FIPS Mode
The Advanced Console Servers (LES1208A-‐R2, LES1216A-‐R2, LES1232A, LES1248A-‐R2) all use an embedded
cryptographic module that has been validated to meet the FIPS 140-‐2 standards.
Note
The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) publishes the FIPS (Federal Information
Processing Standard) series of standards. FIPS 140-1 and FIPS 140-2 are both technical standards and
worldwide de-facto standards for the implementation of cryptographic modules. These standards and guidelines
are issued by NIST for use government-wide. NIST develops FIPS when there are compelling Federal
government requirements such as for security and interoperability and there are no acceptable industry standards
or solutions.
Advanced Console Servers (LES1408A, LES1416A, LES1432A, LES1448A, LES1308A, LES1316A, LES1332A,
LES1348A, LES1208A-R2, LES1216A-R2, LES1232A, LES1248A-R2) use an embedded OpenSSL
cryptographic module that has been validated to meet the FIPS 140-2 standards and has received Certificate
#1051
When configured in FIPs mode all SSH, HTTPS and SDT Connector access to all services on the advanced console
servers
will use the embedded FIPS compliant cryptographic module. To connect you must also be using cryptographic
algorithms that are FIPs approved in your browser or client or the connection will fail.
Select the
System: Administration
menu option
Check
FIPS Mode
to enable FIPS mode on boot,
and check
Reboot
to safely reboot the console server
Click
Apply
and the console server will now reboot. It will take several minutes to reconnect as secure
communications with your browser are validated, and when reconnected it will display “
FIPs mode: Enabled
” in
the banner
Note
To enable FIPS mode from the command line, login and run these commands:
config -s config.system.fips=on
touch /etc/config/FIPS
chmod 444 /etc/config/FIPS
flatfsd -b
The final command saves to flash and reboots the unit. The unit will take a few minutes to boot into FIPS mode.
To disable FIPS mode:
config -d config.system.fips
rm /etc/config/FIPS
flatfsd –b