Bomgar Product Changelog

Bomgar Release 10.4.6 (March 5, 2010)

March 5, 2010 – 10:30 am

Bomgar 10.4.6 includes a list of resolved issues and enhancements designed to streamline your remote support experience.  Many thanks to our customers who have helped us further improve Bomgar!

Please note: If you are currently running an earlier major version of Bomgar, such as 10.2.x or 10.3.x, please be sure to contact our Support team today to discuss any prerequisites that you may need to meet prior to upgrading.

[UPDATED: 4/6/2010]
+ This release was actually bigger than you expected!  When we originally posted the release notes for Bomgar 10.4.6, we failed to mention that a nice list of enhancements and issue resolutions that were previously only available in older versions of Bomgar (i.e. the 10.2.x and 10.3.x families) have now been merged into the 10.4.x family.  Those new additions have been denoted below by a preceding + character.  Our apologies for the oversight, and we hope you enjoy the additional value that these changes bring!

Requirements for 10.4.6:

  • This version of Bomgar has been certified for use with all physical Bomgar appliances (B100, B200, B300 & B400)
  • Your appliance requires appliance base software version 3.1.6 or later before installing Bomgar 10.4.6

New Features and Enhancements:

  • The previously-named “General Queue Session Assignment Options” has been reduced to “Equilibrium Options”
  • Several enhancements have been added to Equilibrium’s Session Assignment window, providing more information to the rep prior to accepting a session
    • The number of alerts that a rep has missed is now shown on the assignment window
    • Session Information about the incoming session is now included on the assignment window
    • A new setting under Configuration -> Options -> Equilibrium Options allows administrators to enable or disable session information in the assignment window
  • The System Information tool’s Devices tab now shows driver information
    • Four new driver-related columns were added: Description, Driver Date, Driver Version, and Driver Provider
    • Note that driver information is currently only available on remote clients running Windows XP or later
  • The Jumpoint Configuration dialog now includes its site name and Bomgar version
  • A new “test” button was added in the Automatic Failover section of the Failover page which tests whether or not the defined “Connectivity IPs” can be reached
  • The Jump Client and Dashboard quick searches now start searching two seconds after the Rep stops typing.  Note that pressing <Enter> will start the search immediately.
  • More Jump Client update interval options have been added to the Jump Client configuration page:  2 hours, 4 hours, 8 hours, 16 hours, and 24 hours
  • Mac Bomgar Buttons now start up much faster and also include a new “please wait” dialog while the disk image is mounted
  • Canned Scripts with resource files are now disabled in Shell Jump sessions
  • +Tooltips displaying the column names of the User Accounts table were added to help with orientation when viewing a large number of users
  • +The Representative Console now includes a Service* indicator for all Jump Clients that have been pinned in service mode with Fast User Switching support disabled
  • +The keyboard/mouse status bar is now only visible if the Customer Client supports it; otherwise it is hidden to increase screen sharing real-estate

Issues Resolved:

  • Administrative Interface
    • Resolved an issue where Customers using IE could receive an error message if the “Force Public Site to Use SSL (https)” option was enabled
    • Resolved an issue where the “Allowed to use Jump Clients without entering a password” check box could remain selected when the “Allowed to use Jump Clients” check box was not selected
    • Resolved an issue on the Group Policies page where unchecking “Allowed to provide Remote Support” was not graying out the other rep permissions
    • Resolved an issue where blocking /login access for a certain IP could also prevent the Representative Console from connecting
    • Resolved an issue where outbound events could stop working if a Click-to-Chat customer’s name included a zero
    • Resolved an issue where the external key could be excluded from the “RepExitSurveyCompleted” outbound event
    • Resolved an issue where entering an invalid URL for an outbound event recipient was not triggering an error message
    • +Sessions with a high event count (e.g. 2,000+ file transfers) are now reported with a summary of events rather than listing each event
    • +Resolved an issue where sessions initiated from Click-To-Chat were not including the System Information in the reports
    • +Resolved an issue where the “Choose Platform” dropdown was not defaulting to “Mac OSX Universal” viewing the My Account page on a PowerPC Mac
    • +Resolved an issue where the Linux download instructions were not displayed properly if an invalid custom html template was used
    • +Resolved an issue where the “Use Front-end Survey” dropdown was not displaying correctly
  • Representative Console
    • Resolved an issue where the tool tips for the “Overwrite File Information” and “Automatically Start Transfer” buttons were not changing with the state of the buttons
    • Resolved an issue where temporary files from a cancelled file transfer were not being cleaned up
    • Resolved an issue where the File Transfer tool reported a file size of 2GB for all files that of size 2GB or greater
    • Resolved an issue where Alt+<key> combinations were not being sent correctly to some applications on remote Windows machines
      • NOTE: the left Alt key is used for Alt+<key> combinations and the right Alt key is used for AltGr
    • Resolved an issue where excessive CPU usage could occur when the Jump Client listing was expanded to show a very high number of Jump Clients
    • Resolved an issue where the Rep Console could become unresponsive when pulling a large number of session notes
    • Resolved an issue where the Privacy Screen was displaying on Rep’s computer when supporting a Windows 7 machine
    • Resolved an issue with Equilibrium where transferring a session could immediately reassign that session back to the original rep
    • Resolved an issue where the message, “The elevation attempt failed” could be displayed to the rep when elevating from Click-to-Chat to the native client, even though the elevation succeeded
    • Resolved an issue where Rep Exit Surveys used very small fonts on Macs
    • Resolved an issue where external keys were not showing up when generating session keys via the API
    • +Resolved a display issue where repeatedly clicking the Create Directory button on the File Transfer tab appeared to create new folders
    • +Resolved an issue with the list of Windows Updates not showing in the System Info -> Programs tab when supporting a remote Vista system
    • +Resolved an issue where the Rep Console would display the “secure desktop enabled” warning inappropriately
    • +Resolved an issue where Reps were unable to generate short (or “pretty”) Session Keys when the “Use Session Keys” Public Site option was set to “API Only”
    • +Resolved an issue with numbering Command Shell tabs when using Shell Jump
  • Customer Client
    • +Resolved an issue with copying to and from Linux Customer Clients
    • +Resolved an issue where Customer Clients that are initiated from Click-To-Chat were not honoring the “Automatically Request Screen Sharing” option
    • +Resolved an issue where the Customer Exit Survey could be displayed in Internet Explorer rather than the default browser
  • Presentation
    • Resolved an issue where the Start Presentation button was not being disabled after a scheduled presentation was deleted
    • Resolved an issue where the message, “The presenter has not yet joined the presentation” could be displayed incorrectly
    • +Resolved an issue where an Attendees could not type in the Chat Window after control of the presentation had been granted to them

Known Issues:

[UPDATED: 3/24/2010]
For this release only, the following configuration is not supported and is expected to cause problems for Support Representatives.  To avoid this, it is recommended that users set their Rep Console theme to “Native” (File->Settings->General tab->Theme) prior to upgrading.

  • Support Rep system: Windows XP and above with 16-bit color depth
  • Representative Console theme: “Brushed Steel”

If you have any questions concerning this release, our Support team is ready to help.

By Bomgar Software Development Team | Posted in Product Change Log | Comments (0)

Bomgar Base 3.1.8 (February 19, 2010)

February 19, 2010 – 9:05 am

This latest release of Bomgar’s Base software, version 3.1.8, is certified for the Physical Appliances only (B100, B200, B300 & B400).

Feature Enhancements:

  • Added automatic tabbing whenever a “.” is entered during Static Route configuration
  • Resolved an issue where interrupting a package downloads could cause installation problems
  • Increased the Copyright year to 2010

Issues Resolved:

  • “Security Patch” has been renamed to “Service Patch”

Note that this version of Base includes Service Patch 8.

By Bomgar Software Development Team | Posted in Product Change Log | Comments (0)

Bomgar Release 10.4.5 (February 3, 2010)

February 3, 2010 – 12:03 pm

This maintenance release of Bomgar 10.4 resolves the following two issues:

  • Resolved an issue where the Customer Client could become unresponsive while parsing event logs on the remote machine
  • Resolved an issue where Bomgar Buttons could uninstall after upgrading a 10.3.x site to a 10.4.x site

[UPDATED 10-Feb-2010] Notes:

  • This version of Bomgar has been certified for use with all Bomgar appliances, physical and virtual
  • Physical appliances (Bomgar B100, B200, B300 and B400) require appliance base software versions 3.1.6 or later
  • Virtual appliances require appliance base software version 3.1.7 or later
By Bomgar Software Development Team | Posted in Product Change Log | Comments (0)

Bomgar Base 3.1.7 (February 3, 2010)

February 3, 2010 – 10:07 am

The Bomgar software that allows you to administer and configure your appliance is referred to as your “Base” software.  It can also be referred to as firmware.

This latest release of Bomgar’s Base software, version 3.1.7, is certified for the Virtual Appliance only.

Feature Enhancements:

  • Check For Updates Progress Bar enhancements (Note that these enhancements will not take effect until after Base 3.1.7 has been installed)
    • The progress bar is shown immediately upon pressing the Download button
    • The progress bar now shows download and installation progress.  It will first show the percentage complete for the package being downloaded and then show more granular information the installation progress as it completes.
  • The entire certificate chain for an installed SSL certificate is now displayed on the IP Address page(s)
  • Added better diagnostic information to the SMTP relay configuration to help troubleshoot configuration errors
  • Added automatic tabbing whenever a “.” is entered during Static Route configuration

Issues Resolved:

  • Text Changes
    • Renamed “B300v” to “Virtual Appliance”
    • “Security Patch” has now been changed to “Service Patch”.
    • Resolved an issue where the Build Date on the Status page was not reflecting the correct time zone
    • Removed the redundant “Local Time” label from the status page
    • Resolved an issue with Check For Updates returning error messages that were not escaped
    • Increased the Copyright year to 2010
  • Functional Changes
    • Resolved an issue where an IP that was deleted could still respond to traffic
    • Resolved an issue where hostname changes would not take effect until the appliance was rebooted
    • Resolved an issue with timeouts occurring when the download of a Bomgar package was slow
    • Resolved an issue with Server Listen Port entries not being honored
    • Resolved an issue where the default Bomgar site was not being set correctly on initial installations
    • Resolved an issue where the SMTP relay feature was failing in certain scenarios
    • Resolved an issue where interrupting a package downloads could cause installation problems
    • Resolved an issue with Failover where an IP conflict could occur when a Primary site comes back online

Note that this version of Base includes Service Patch 8.

By Bomgar Software Development Team | Posted in Product Change Log | Comments (0)

Bomgar Release 10.4.4 (January 21, 2010)

January 21, 2010 – 2:00 pm

Bomgar 10.4.4 introduces the new keyboard handling enhancements and a good list of resolved issues to the latest version of Bomgar.  Check out the list below for a full list of enhancements and resolved issues for this release.

Please note: If you are currently running an earlier major version of Bomgar, such as 10.2.x or 10.3.x, please be sure to contact our Support team today to discuss any prerequisites that you may need to meet prior to upgrading.

[UPDATED 3-Feb-2010]
Requirements for 10.4.4:

  • This version of Bomgar has been certified for use with all Bomgar appliances, physical and virtual
  • Physical appliances (Bomgar B100, B200, B300 and B400) require appliance base software versions 3.1.6 or later before installing Bomgar 10.4.4
  • Virtual appliances require appliance base software version 3.1.7 or later before installing Bomgar 10.4.4

New Features and Enhancements:

  • Keyboard Enhancements
    • Added new Keyboard Handling code for customers experiencing keyboard mapping issues.  Previous functionality is maintained as “Legacy Mode” and is the default mode.  This can be configured via the /login interface on the Configuration -> Options page.
    • Ctrl+Click now sends a right mouse button to controlled Windows, Linux, or Mac customer clients
  • Presentation Enhancements
    • Presenters may now select a color depth from the Rep Console when presenting to attendees

Issues Resolved:

  • Resolved an issue with failover that could potentially occur if session recordings have never been enabled
  • Resolved an issue where attempting a local Jump to a Windows XP machine would sometimes fail
  • Resolved an issue with deploying a Jump Client through RDP on Windows Server 2003
By Bomgar Software Development Team | Posted in Product Change Log | Comments (0)

Bomgar Release 10.3.8 (January 21, 2010)

January 21, 2010 – 1:50 pm

Bomgar 10.3.8 starts off the new year with some powerful enhancements to both scalability and keyboard handling.  Check out the list below for a full list of enhancements and resolved issues for this release.

Please note: If you are already running Bomgar version 10.4 or higher, this release does not apply to you.  Click here for the latest 10.4 release information.  This maintenance release of Bomgar 10.3 is recommended for all customers who are currently running a version of 10.3.  If you are currently running an earlier major version of Bomgar, such as 10.2.x, please be sure to contact our Support team today to discuss any prerequisites that you may need to meet prior to upgrading.

Requirements for 10.3.8:

  • This version of Bomgar has been certified for use with Bomgar physical appliances (Bomgar B100, B200, B300 and B400)
  • This version of Bomgar has been certified for use with appliance base software versions 3.1.6 and later.

New Features and Enhancements:

  • [UPDATED] This version of Bomgar is the first to be officially certified against Windows 7
  • Keyboard Enhancements
    • Added new Keyboard Handling code for customers experiencing keyboard mapping issues.  Previous functionality is maintained as “Legacy Mode” and is the default mode.  This can be configured via the /login interface on the Configuration -> Options page.
    • Ctrl+Click now sends a right mouse button to controlled Windows, Linux, or Mac customer clients
  • Scalability Enhancements
    • Several optimizations to failover have been made to support appliances with very high loads
    • The time taken to list all Jump Clients in the Representative Console has been greatly improved when thumbnails are disabled – especially helpful as the number of your deployed Jump Clients grows

Issues Resolved:

  • Resolved an issue with failover that could potentially occur if session recordings have never been enabled
  • Resolved an issue with the Customer Client configuration page where the “Disable Hardware Acceleration” checkbox was not reflecting the correct state
  • Resolved an issue where attempting a local Jump to a Windows XP machine would sometimes fail
  • Resolved an issue with deploying a Jump Client through RDP on Windows Server 2003
By Bomgar Software Development Team | Posted in Product Change Log | Comments (0)

The Remote Support Security Bubble

January 19, 2010 – 3:15 pm

Remote Support Audit TrailIf there is anything we should have learned from the economic debacle of the last 2 years, it is that the status quo is not safe. And yet we continue building upon it until right past the point of collapse. It has happened time and again in our markets, and it is happening in IT support as we speak.

For many years, IT support in both the public and private sectors has been concerned with securing others; making sure that each new employee is properly locked down and firewalled. Little attention has been given to securing IT support itself, and in particular, securing the essential tools of the support trade: remote access and remote control.

Without these tools, many federal agencies would grind to a halt, no longer able to leverage a limited support staff across a distributed user base. And yet when the Verizon Business RISK team investigated1 over 500 actual data breaches between 2003 and 20072, they found that:

“In over 40 percent of the breaches investigated during this study, an attacker gained unauthorized access to the victim via one of the many types of remote access and control software.” 3

And furthermore:

“IT administrators were responsible for more data compromises than any other insider role.”4

Popping our perception of safety need not be the result of a catastrophic security breach. As with other bubbles, a return to the fundamentals offers a way out before the inevitable burst. The April 2009 report by Gartner entitled “PC Remote Control Security: Risks and Recommendations” offers a few practical but rarely practiced recommendations:

“Include at least one additional user authentication challenge to strengthen remote control access against attacks.”5

“Block forbidden PC remote control tools using group policy objects or application control tools.“ 6

“Build a list of unsupported remote control tools, and add them to scans for inventory, vulnerability and intrusions.” 7

“Do not select tools that rely on a publicly accessible directory system; instead, bring the directory system in-house.” 8

Perhaps the most important recommendation Gartner makes, however, doesn’t seem to relate directly to security: “Create a strategic vision for the use of remote control” 9

A strategy, though, is vital if you hope to deflate the bubble gradually rather than let the irrational exuberance of the status quo lure you one small step past the bursting point.

  1. Source: Verizon Business 2008 Data Breach Investigations Report [↩]
  2. Summary: “At considerable investment in time and resources, Verizon Business began an initiative in 2007 to identify a comprehensive set of metrics to record during each data compromise investigation. As a result of this effort, we pursued a post-mortem examination of over 500 security breach and data compromise engagements between 2004 and 2007 which provided us with the vast amount of factual evidence used to compile this study. This data covers 230 million compromised records. Amongst these are roughly one-quarter of all publicly disclosed data breaches in both 2006 and 2007, including three of the five largest data breaches ever reported.” Verizon Business Security Blog [↩]
  3. Source: p.19, Verizon Business 2008 Data Breach Investigations Report [↩]
  4. Source: p.13, Ibid [↩]
  5. Source: p.1, PC Remote Control Security: Risks and Recommendations, Gartner.

    Summary: “IT organizations rely on PC remote control to provide support to users on a variety of office and mobile platforms. Gartner provides recommendations and controls to avoid damage to your organization’s security perimeter.” [↩]

  6. Source: p.4, Ibid [↩]
  7. Source: p.4, Ibid [↩]
  8. Source: p.6, Ibid [↩]
  9. Source: p.6, Ibid [↩]
By Nathan McNeill, VP of Product Strategy | Posted in Enterprise Remote Support | Comments (0)

How to Get Bomgar Product Information in Your Inbox

January 12, 2010 – 4:08 pm

Last night we launched a completely redesigned version of the Bomgar website. The redesign makes a number of things more prominent than before. Here are just a few of them:

CSC Video Case Study1. Customers

We have a number of new video case studies in the customers section of the site.  Watch as real Bomgar customers tell how Bomgar helped them overcome some of the challenges to remote support in their environments. A number of the featured customers were able to replace multiple legacy remote control solutions or eliminate the security risks of using hosted remote support solutions.

2. Solutions by Use

Bomgar’s includes such a broad amount of functionality in the core product that multiple support groups in your organization can use it. We’ve highlighted a number of those more popular multi-use cases under Solutions. Did you know you can use Bomgar to support customers; service your IT Infrastructure; access remote Kiosk & POS systems securely; support Linux, Macs and smartphones; offer integrated support from your service desk; train up to 15 people at a time; and manage vendor access into your network?

Rep Invite3. Updated Products Section

We’ve made an attempt to highlight some of the advanced remote desktop control features Bomgar offers. You’ll also find a complete list of features if you’re the type that likes to dig deeper into the details. You’ll also notice a new link to What’s New, where you can see current and past release information.

4. Get Product Information in Your Inbox

Finally, there’s an easy way to get product information, press releases and blog posts in your inbox whenever we post something new. We release between 2-4 major product releases annually, and include quite a few minor releases between them. All you have to do is enter your email and confirm you want to receive product updates, as the video below explains. If you’d prefer to use your email client or rss client, there are links to the feeds on the side of this blog.

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Viddler video.

We’re excited about starting a new year with a new website!

By Bomgar Software Development Team | Posted in Product Change Log | Comments (0)

Bomgar Release 10.4.3 (December 7, 2009)

December 7, 2009 – 4:39 pm

The following enhancements and resolved issues are included in this latest maintenance release of Bomgar 10.4.

New Features and Enhancements:

  • Several optimizations to failover have been made to support appliances with very high loads
  • Added improved status & error messages for sync events between Primary and Backup site instances

Issues Resolved:

  • Administrative Interface
    • Resolved an issue with failover that could potentially occur if session recordings had never been enabled
    • Resolved an issue that could occur when using SMTP relay with authentication
    • Resolved an issue with the Customer Client configuration page where the “Disable Hardware Acceleration” checkbox was not reflecting the correct state
    • Resolved an issue with Outbound Events where unformatted error messages could be displayed in Status column
  • Representative Console
    • Resolved an issue where the “Automatically Lock Computer When Finished” setting was not being honored with sessions initiated via Click-to-Chat
    • Resolved an issue with Screen Sharing where using the scroll bars could leave artifacts on the Rep Console’s viewer
    • Resolved an issue with Shell Jump where exiting a session could result in an unknown error
  • Presentation
    • Resolved an issue where generic names could be displayed for attendees who joined the presentation early
    • Resolved an issue with the Mac presentation client not working properly when the Attendee Agreement was enabled
By Bomgar Software Development Team | Posted in Product Change Log | Comments (0)

Lt. Governor Phil Bryant Visits Bomgar

December 7, 2009 – 4:02 pm

Joel Bomgar hosted Lt. Governor Phil Bryant at corporate heaquarters in Ridgeland, Mississippi, last week.  Lt. Governor Bryant was excited to see fellow Mississippians involved in the software industry making an impact not only in the state but around the world.

YouTube Preview Image
By Justin Brock, Senior Technical Writer | Posted in Announcements | Comments (0)