Digi integrates powerful software into all of our networking devices. Our software defines the functionality of those solutions and provides the mission-critical features that meet the pressing needs of network managers in a wide range of critical applications across enterprise, industrial, transportation, government and medical use cases.
Our regular firmware updates continually enhance the value, capabilities and security of your Digi solution. These include feature enhancements that enhance the functionality of your Digi cellular routers, servers and infrastructure management systems, as well as security patches to bolster security against new threats identified by the cybersecurity community.
The two key areas of enhancement are the Digi Accelerated Linux operating system (DAL OS) — which provides powerful intelligence to our solutions and enables sophisticated capabilities including automation, security, and out-of-band management — and Digi Remote Manager®, our cloud-based remote configuration and management tool that enables intelligence networks and actionable insights. Together these key software offerings enable those who use and manage Digi solutions to gain visibility and seamless access to the full value of their devices — wherever they are deployed.
With this blog post, we will share the latest updates and enhancements in DAL OS version 22.8.33.50. We invite you to take a walk through the most important highlights of our software’s latest additions and changes.
Updates in Four Key Areas
Similar to the announcement of our 22.5 firmware release, our recent Digi software features added in the 22.8 DAL OS firmware release and in recent updates to Digi Remote manager are designed to support the following pillars of focus:
- Security
- Ease-of-Use
- Resiliency
- Return-on-investment
Security
Mission and business-critical devices often live in the field for many years. With each major release of Digi’s DAL OS, we address common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) including ongoing monitoring, alerts, and notifications related to CVEs.
Addressing CVEs is an industry-wide endeavor, and is managed with a system called The Common Vulnerability Scoring System, or CVSS. The CVSS is an open set of standards used to assess a vulnerability and assign a severity along a scale of 0-10. Digi uses this scoring method to identify the critical nature of CVEs and prioritize software updates to address them.
Updates for critical CVE patches in this release include:
- Linux kernel version 5.18 ((CVE-2022-0847)
- OpenSSL 1.1.1q and 3.0.5 (CVE 2022-2274, CVE-2022-2068)
Ease-of-Use
Take Control of Finding the One in Your Thousands of Devices with Conditional Filters
Managing your fleet of devices can grow in complexity with the quantity of devices. Many times, you have to make updates to one or more devices at once that match certain criteria.
It could be a configuration update for only devices of a certain type that are connected to specific cellular carriers, or reboot needs to be performed on devices running a certain firmware version.
The filter box in Digi Remote Manager’s Devices page now includes conditional matchers that can be combined to filter your search for devices by multiple query types, allowing you to perform on-the-fly device groupings to find the devices you’re interested in.
Take Charge of Device Staging and Troubleshooting with Automation Conditionals
Building on top of the conditional filters mentioned above, these same filtering options can be applied to steps in your Automations in Digi Remote Manager.
Quickly Learn the Basics of Digi Remote Manager with Walkthrough Guides
Getting started with any new software tool takes time. Digi Remote Manager is designed to be intuitive yet powerful in its capabilities. To help users getting started with Digi Remote Manager, users will see a Notification Bell at the top of the site with a list of walkthrough guides for learning common tasks within the site, such as:
- How to add a device
- How to set up a notification alert
- Grouping devices together for monitoring/management
More walkthroughs will be added to this tool over time, so keep checking the Notification Bell for new guides to grow your expertise with Digi Remote Manager.
Easily Integrate Your Custom Application Through Digi Containers-as-a-Service
Utilizing DAL OS devices, developers can leverage an extensive set of software features and capabilities built into firmware that is signed, vetted, and distributed as part of our Digi Trustfence®-approved standards. To run applications not already in the distributed firmware, the most streamlined and standardized option is to create a virtual space through Lightweight Linux Containers (LXCs).
Using Containers-as-a-Service in conjunction with Digi Remote Manager® can enable you to optimize and extend the capabilities of your Digi connectivity solutions in a number of use cases. Read our Containers-as-a-Service blog post for more background details on containers can work for you.
The added value Digi Remote Manager provides is integration of containers within your Configuration profiles, which allows you to deploy, manage, monitor, and update containers on your fleet of DAL OS devices in the same process that Digi Remote Manager utilizes to scan, alert, and remediate the firmware and configuration settings of the device.
Simplify Device Troubleshooting with the AnywhereUSB Plus Debug Wizard
Gathering debug logs and troubleshooting information can be tricky and easy to get wrong if done in the wrong order, especially in time-sensitive setups involving access to USB peripherals through an AnywhereUSB Plus device. Starting with DAL OS firmware 22.8.33.50 and newer, the Status → AnywhereUSB page in the local web UI of the AnywhereUSB Plus will include a debug wizard link for gathering the debug logs and support report, which can then be review or sent to Digi support for analysis.
Resiliency
Faster and More Reliable Modem Firmware Updates Through Digi Remote Manager
Starting with DAL OS firmware 22.8.33.50 and newer, all modem firmware over-the-air (OTA) firmware updates will go through the Digi Remote Manager firmware repository. This leverages Amazon’s S3 infrastructure to distribute the modem firmware and provide firmware downloads from Amazon regional servers closest to the Digi router. The result is firmware downloads are faster and more reliable worldwide.
New API documentation
Digi Remote Manager provides a comprehensive read/write REST API. The documentation for this has been updated for both user and machine-automation friendly, with built-in examples to make API integrations incredibly simple. To access the new documentation, see https://doc-remotemanager.digi.com/pages/
Return-on-Investment
Simplify Your Network Infrastructure with Integrated PPPoE Server Support
PPPoE is an alternative network addressing protocol to DHCP. Some equipment comes preconfigured as a PPPoE client, which typically required a converter to connect to your network. Now Digi devices can be configured as a PPPoE server, which allows you to simplify the setup by connecting the PPPoE client device directly to the Digi router. See this link for details on enabling the PPPoE server on the Digi router.
Monitor Your Cellular Charges with Utilization Reports
Keeping on top of your cellular data usage across your entire fleet of devices is critical to prevent costly overage charges. Digi Remote Manager has a new Cellular Utilization report that provides comprehensive cellular data usage for each carrier used at each site, with details on overall pooled data use along with per-site breakdown of data usage. You can narrow this data usage to exact days, months, or specific start/end dates, allowing you to see when spikes in data usage occurred and where.
Supported Digi Devices and Change Logs
Digi has a large and growing list of devices based on the DAL operating system — including routers, console servers, USB management devices and other infrastructure management products.
For more details on the above features included in the new DAL OS firmware along with details on additional enhancements, bug fixes, and security updates, please see the changelog link for the relevant product family:
You can also navigate to our documentation portal for all Digi Remote Manager release notes.
If you have any questions or concerns about the below features, or for assistance updating your device(s), please contact the Digi Support team.
Next Steps