Re: Retina scans caused broadcast storms

["William Allsopp" <William_Allsopp () eur 3com com>]

> Has anyone ever caused a full blown broadcast storm by using the Retina
> Security Scanner.

> Its looks as if I may caused a severe slow down on a network recently and think
> the scanner may have caused it. What I am trying to determine is whether
> existing problems in the switching enviroment may have been exaserbated by the
> use of the scanner.

> Anybody else ever experience these sorts of issues with Retina?

> dale

First of all, your lan can take a performance hit from a scanner without it
neccesarily being the result of a broadcast storm. However, if this is what is
occuring, it is a problem most likely caused by existing configuration issues.
Without knowing more about the setup of your network it would be difficult to
comment further, except to say that it may be that one or more of your switches
is receiving a response from the machine you are scanning from several different
links causing confusion as to which link to use.

In other words, Retina will not cause a broadcast storm in and of itself but the
traffic it generates may highlight issues that might not be otherwise apparent.

W.