NCM SNMPv3 Access Crashes

FormerMember

We just migrated our NCM to a new server (From Win2k3 to Win2k8) and now SNMPv3 causes NCM to crash. We see this when we go to inventory a device or test SNMP connectivity, it just hangs. When we test SNMP connectivity, it shows it responds to SNMP queries but NCM hangs and crashes after that. It is strange that this is only happening on our Brocade devices, the Cisco devices will Inventory just fine.

I'm  not really sure where to start looking for this problem, any help would be greatly appreciated.

*Edit* We have narrowed it down to a possible cause, the use of AES on our Brocade devices. The Cisco devices are running DES for SNMPv3 and the Brocade is running AES. We tested this by reconfiguring one of the Brocade devices to use DES and it would inventory fine. AES was working fine on the old server, so I'm sure we've overlooked something in the new installation.

FormerMember

We finally figured it out. Looks like it had to do with a FIPS setting conflicting with NCM. From the NCM release notes:

FIPS and NCM
As Ajax-based software, the NCM Web Console relies on the Microsoft ASP.Net ScriptManager to facilitate page-level application functions. Since the version of ScriptManager in Windows 2008 (R2) and Windows 7 use encryption that FIPS does not support, the NCM Web Console cannot function properly on these operating systems. This Microsoft issue currently has no solution or workaround. If you must enable FIPS, and you have an option of which Windows operating system to use, do not use Windows 2008 (R2) or Windows 7 for your NCM server. Note: In any case, Windows 7 is supported only for evaluation purposes.

Did a little research and found the setting in Microsoft KB 81133 :

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\FIPSAlgorithmPolicy\Enabled

This was set to 1 on our box. We changed it to 0, restarted all the Solarwinds services and were finally able to Inventory our nodes using SNMPv3 and AES.