ACS 5.7 - Compatibility with the Latest Internet Browsers

[David Levine]

The most current version of ACS is 5.7.0.15.1, released on 8/14/2015. However, it does not support the latest Internet browsers with the exception of Internet Explorer 11. My organization supports using the latest versions of Firefox and Chrome. However, Cisco does not report any version of Chrome or any version of Firefox newer than 37.x as being compatible. I have been told by several Cisco support technicians that using an unsupported browser may cause database corruption issues if the browser is used to make changes via the ACS web interface.

Because Cisco support will blame explainable issues on using an unsupported browser, I am forced to use a portable copy of Firefox running at version 37.0.2 so I can obtain support without my browser version being blamed. Using an unsupported browser could potentially have security implications as it does not have the latest security patches.

I would like to see Cisco officially support the latest versions of Chrome and Firefox. These browsers together are more widely used than Internet Explorer and render the ACS web interface better than Internet Explorer.

Browser support for the Mac is even more bleak as Cisco only officially supports Firefox 28.x, 29.x or 24.4 ESR. On a Mac, it would be useful to support the latest versions of Safari and Chrome along with the latest version of Firefox.

[Kanwaljeet Singh · Accepted solution]

Hi David,

I would suggest raising this issue to your account team so that this can be brought in notice of the developers. If there's a similar request from different customer's then there might be a release supporting latest browser versions including chrome and safari.

Regards,

Kanwal

Note: Please mark answers if they are helpful.

[David Levine]

Thank you for the response, Kanwal. I saw that ACS 5.8 was released today and is compatible with newer versions of Firefox than ACS 5.7.

By posting this information on the forum, I was hoping people would reply that they want the same thing and it would be noticed by people at Cisco.

[Muhannad Abu Shamma]

Dear All;

we upgrade ACS version to 5.7.0.15.1 from 5 months ago, it was working fine with higher version of Mozilla Firefox 46.0. before one week an error message keeps showing (as attached) that there are unsaved changes on each page you click inside ACS GUI although no changes were actually made. 

We tried to restart ACS services manually through CLI but also didn’t solve the issue. we avoid to restart appliance because we are worry after restart the database repository not coming up. 

Note: we are using multiple ACS instances deployed in a distributed manner, one primary instance and two secondary instances. the bug found on the primary one, the secondary machine working fine with the new version of mozilla.

is it related to the version of browser??? if yes why the secondary instances working fine with the same version.

is there any available solution for this bug.

BR;

[David Levine]

Hi Muhannad,

I have not experienced this on my ACS deployment. I am using Firefox 46.0.1 with ACS 5.7.0.15.2. Out of curiosity, are there only certain screens you're seeing this occur on?

As to why it's not occurring on the secondary instances, it's because you cannot make changes via the GUI on those. Changes can only be made in the primary instance and are then replicated to the secondary instances.

David

[jrabinow]

Patches will be posted to day to address this issue on the ACS 5.7 and ACS 5.8 releases. The patch version will be

- 5.7 patch 3

- 5.8 patch 3

Date for patch on 5.6 will soon be confirmed

[bretttenney]

Are there plans to release a patch for 5.5?

[jrabinow]

BTW there is also a patch posted on 5.6 today with this fix: 5.6 patch 5

ACS 5.6,5.7,5.8 are the only releases under software support and for which patches have been posted

ACS 5.5 is no longer under software support  and customers running this release are recommended to upgarde to ACS 5.8. It is possible to upgrade directly from ACS 5.5 to ACS 5.8 and ACS 5.8 is the release designated for longter term support

If still have issues to get a fix on ACS 5.5 you will need to speak to TAC

[David Levine]

I misspoke in my previous response. I too experience the same issue with Firefox 46.0.2 and ACS 5.7.0.15.2. It occurs on various screens, such as under Access Policies where you edit authorization rules for TACACS and RADIUS. Also, the table showing the authorization rules does not display properly. I opened the same page in Firefox 37.0.2 and everything works as expected.

Considering that Cisco never seems to keep up with supporting the latest browser versions in ACS, this will probably always be an issue.

[jrabinow]

The following issue has been reported

CSCuz48986: ACS: Editing Service Selection Rules in Firefox 46 erases all rules

and applies to both 5.7 and 5.8 streams

Appears to be something that has changed in the browser. Will be fixed on 5.8p3 and product team is looking at plans to expedite resolution for customers on 5.7