During recent interactions with some LANCOM resellers we became aware of some LANCOM routers in the wild that were still running their originally deployed LCOS firmware. This was even though the hardware was capable of running the very latest LCOS firmware.
We remotely viewed some LANCOM 178x series routers that were actually running LCOS 8.82 dating from 2013. We consider a router running firmware this ancient to be a security threat and recommend that ALL deployed routers running such very old firmware should be upgraded as a matter of urgency to the latest LCOS release which is currently LCOS 10.50ru7 (as of 11/04/22), if they are capable.
There are obviously a number of very good reasons to upgrade from older LCOS to the latest but some of the reasons are list below…
All features from page 10 back to page 4 of the LCOS 10.50 datasheet are features that have been added to LCOS devices for FREE since LCOS 8.82. This means that a 7 year old 1781va/vaw router gets almost all the latest software features of a brand new 1790x router.
Once you decide to upgrade your devices to you need to choose whether to maintain the existing configuration or whether to upgrade, factory reset and start from scratch. Many LANCOM routers in the wild have only a basic configuration, many have only a single internet connection with no backup, many have only a small amount of defined VPN tunnels if any and many utilise only limited port forwarding configurations.
a. Maintain Configuration – If a deployed LANCOM has a complex configuration with VoIP integration, complex firewall rules or many VPNs you should upgrade* firmware whilst maintaining legacy settings.
b. Nuke Configuration – If a deployed LANCOM has only a simple configuration it is best to upgrade* firmware, factory default and configure from scratch.
*In both cases above make a manual backup in LANconfig using BOTH configuration file and configuration script before starting any upgrade process.
It may take multiple steps to upgrade firmware from 8.82 all the way or 10.50. So we would recommend upgrading in intermediate steps as suggested below.
It may take multiple steps to upgrade from for example 8.82 all the way to 10.50. So we would recommend upgrading in intermediate steps as suggested below.
LANCOM devices since LCOS 10.20 now feature automatic software update feature at Configuration-> Management->Software Update
We would suggest configuring the Update Mode as “Check & Update” and “Update Policy” to “Current Version”. This means that if you are on 10.40 the router will receive 10.40ru1, 10.40ru2, 10.40su3 etc but NOT 10.50.
LANCOM devices being managed by the LANCOM Management Cloud can also use functionality within the LMC to keep devices on the latest firmware.
For very old router that are no longer receiving new release versions of LCOS we recommend that they should be upgraded to the last available Release Update (RU) or Security Update (SU).
Since writing this blog post LANCOM have released a Knowledge Base article offering another alternative method of updating a LANCOM LCOS device from very old to recente firmware.
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