When encoding with empty MIC Key, PacketACE Refuses the file.

[ioukos]

We use PacketACE to generate files with an empty MIC Key. Description of the issue :

• I decode a .md5 file generated form PacketACE with your tool docsis to a .txt file.
• then I encode the .txt back to .md5 with an empty file as the MIC Key.
• then I import this new .md5 file to PacketACE, which indicates me that the "Calculated CMTS MIC does not equal tje CMTS MIC in the file".
• IF I set the key to something else (like foobar) as the MIC Key File AND in PacketACE there is no error.

Do you know what could happen here ? Is there an issue because the file is empty ?

Thank you

[rlaager]

I have no idea. I’m just a “rescue maintainer”. I know very little about this codebase and haven’t used this tool in some time.

[qnox81]

If you want have files encoded without any secret in mic you can try use mic file with only new line, no other character in it. It will encode properly and work with CMTSes with no secret configured.

czw., 4 lut 2021, 16:51 użytkownik ioukos notifications@github.com napisał:

We use PacketACE to generate files with an empty MIC Key. Description of the issue :

• I decode a .md5 file generated form PacketACE with your tool docsis to a .txt file.
• then I encode the .txt back to .md5 with an empty file as the MIC Key.
• then I import this new .md5 file to PacketACE, which indicates me that the "Calculated CMTS MIC does not equal tje CMTS MIC in the file".
• IF I set the key to something else (like foobar) as the MIC Key File AND in PacketACE there is no error.

Do you know what could happen here ? Is there an issue because the file is empty ?

Thank you

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[ioukos]

I tried to create a "one empty line" file with many techniques but I was not able to success:

• touch file.key
• vim file.key, then "a" (to insert), then :wq
• vim file.key, then "a" (to insert), then "Enter" (to insert a second new line), then :wq
• printf "\n" > file.key
• printf "\r\n" > file.key, (even it works with somthing like 'printf "hello\r\n"')

Maybe I can activate DEBUG to show what is read by the encode function. How to do it ?

Any idea ?

[ioukos]

ok guys everything seems good if I set my MIC key to something else than an empty string.

Moreover I used 3 softwares (including yours and 2 proprietary others) to generate MIC with empty string and I obtain 3 differents results.

Thank you for you work.