Version: 5 - Published: 04 Nov 2024

Products included in the Charon-PDP version 4.12 for Windows

In this document the term Charon is used to refer to the products below:

Charon-PDP

Supported software platforms

Microsoft Windows Server 2022 Standard and Datacenter Editions, 64-bit version
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 Standard and Datacenter Editions, 64-bit version
Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Standard and Datacenter Editions, 64-bit version
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard and Datacenter Editions, 64-bit version (please note that only R2 revision is supported) ¹⁾
Windows 11 Professional and Enterprise Editions
Windows 10 Professional and Enterprise Editions, 32-bit and 64-bit versions
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 (SP1) Standard and Enterprise Editions, 64-bit version (please note that only R2 revision is supported) ¹⁾
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate (SP1) Editions, 32-bit and 64-bit version ¹⁾
Windows 8.1 Professional Edition, 32-bit and 64-bit versions ¹⁾
VMware ESXi 5.5 to 8.0 (requires a supported Windows operating system on top of a ESXi virtual machine)
Microsoft Hyper-V (requires a supported Windows operating system on top of a Hyper-V virtual machine)

¹⁾Charon can be installed and will run, but Microsoft Windows versions are EOL and are not recommended for deployment.

Hosting hardware requirements and configuration recommendations

CPU requirements:
- A physical system or virtual VMware appliance with a dual CPU of at least 2 GHz, one dedicated Ethernet adapter, an optional USB port for the license key and enough disk space to keep the PDP data.
Memory requirements:
- The minimum host memory = (2Gb + the amount of PDP memory emulated) per Charon-PDP instance.
Mid range and high end RAID controllers with at least 1GB cache with write-back enabled and battery backup option is recommended.
(Using low-end RAID controllers may cause significant performance degradation and Charon crash. RAID5 and similar configurations are not recommended.)
Intel HT (Hyper-Threading Technology) should be disabled on the hosting server.
Hosting server should always run at full speed. Power management and the screen saver should be disabled on the hosting server.
Windows UAC should be disabled.

New functionality

Support for Windows 11, Windows Server 2022

Problems fixed and other changes

Build 210-13

Product kits now include PCI PassThrough drivers signed by Microsoft (ID#5846). This makes possible use of drivers with Windows 10 and Windows 11 and eliminates signature verification problem when loading the driver. Sample message in case the problem occurs:

Windows cannot verify the digital signature for the drivers required for this device. 
A recent hardware or software change might have installed a file that is signed incorrectly or damaged, 
or that might be malicios software from an unknown source. (Code 52)

Fix terminal emulator activation to pass user environment to the process created. In particular, this allows to use Reflection Workspace Terminal Emulator and eliminates Reflection TE startup problem. Sample message in case the proble occurs:
```
(X) An application error occured. Please contact Technical Support. 
    Details: 
    Unable to access Micro Focus\Reflection\Desktop\v18.0.
```

Build 210-12

None; Charon-AXP bug fixes only.

Build 210-11

Update Stromasys End User License Agreement (EULA) to version issued on 16 February 2024.

Build 210-10

Updated End User License Agreement (EULA) text.

Build 210-08

Fix Network Control Center (NCC, NetDiag utility) to correctly obtain names of host network interfaces. The problem was observed on Windows 10 (ID#5789).

Build 210-07

Updated End User License Agreement (EULA) text (ID#5782).

Build 210-06

New End User License Agreement (EULA) text (ID#5782).

Build 210-05

Add logging an error message indicating syntax error in storage container specification. Previously, such errors were quietly igored or the affected devices were set to offline (ID#5766).
Cosmetic change to Charon Installation Utility (InstallShell) to correct message text: display Pre-4.8 version is installed instead of Old version is installed (ID#5768).
Wrong version (6.80) of Microsoft NETVMINI driver was included in product kits (ID#5769, IE#5771). Replaced with version 6.30. Fixed product packaging.

Build 210-04

The hasp_view utility has been fixed to correctly report software licenses in case of no hardware dongles are available (ID#5759).

Build 210-03

Charon Installation Utility (InstallShell) has been improved to better handle de-installing old versions of products (ID#5752).
Fixes to products and utilities so that to correctly differentiate Windows 10 and Windows 11, and Windows Server 2016, 2019 and 2022 (ID#5753).

Build 210-02

A fix has been provided so that log flush period is correctly maintained during initial license acquisition. With this fix, a failure to acquire license at startup is reported with (periodic) log flush rather than on emulator exit due to missing license (ID#5747).

Build 210-01

Installation kit now brings a copy of Microsoft NETVMINI drivers, which help to organize Virtual Ethernet link between host and/or Charon Virtual Machine(s). Driver is copyed to local disk drive, but is not installed automatically. Provided AS IS, without any warranty (ID#5724).
The fix has been provided to built-in license manager to permit use of CHAPI modules (ID#5739).

Build 210-00

Charon VM Manager now recognizes disabled services (Virtual Machines), designates them with special icon and prevents attempts of starting them displaying a popup window rather than error message (ID#5687).
Installation kit now contains correctly signed PCI PassThrough drivers, which eliminates errors Windows cannot verify the digital signature for the drivers...(Code 52) while installing Charon PCI PassThrough driver (ID#5711).
The processing of the following HASP licensing errors was changed such that the emulator will no longer terminate immediately but instead observe the grace period (ID#5717):
- HASP_SHARING_VIOLATION (HASP runtimer error code 84)
- HASP_DEVICE_ERR (HASP runtime error code 43)
- HASP_SCOPE_RESULTS_EMPTY (HASP runtime error code 50)
Charon VM Manager now does not ask for confirmation on Exit (ID#5730).
Fix mkdskcmd utility to avoid reporting negative virtual disk size (ID#5735).
Fix Charon Installation Utility (InstallShall) to correctly remove shortcuts from Programs/StartUp menu on product de-installation (ID#5736).

Configuration changes required when upgrading from previous versions of Charon-PDP to version 4.12

A Charon license update is required before upgrading. Stromasys might request a HASP dongle state (c2v file) or a host fingerprint taken by HASP Update Service (which is included in the Charon kit) in order to issue a license update. Please refer to License Update Service for details.
Due to a Charon installation procedure update, if you upgrade from a version older than 4.8, it is required to uninstall all Charon products before installing Charon-PDP version 4.11. Please use the Windows Control Panel to do perform the operation.
If you upgrade from version 4.8, 4.9, 4.10 or 4.11 (previous build):
- It is not necessary to save boot parameters at the SRM level (console). Parameters will be kept.
- It is mandatory to update all existing Charon Virtual Machines to make them run the latest version using the Virtual Machines Manager, VM Configuration tab.
The following Microsoft Windows update has to be installed on Windows 7, Server 2008 R2 in order to support new Charon drivers signed with SHA2 signature:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/security-updates/SecurityAdvisories/2015/3033929.
If VMware is used, it must be upgraded to a supported version.
It is recommended to archive the old Charon log files before starting the new version in order to avoid mixing character encoding in the log files.
Intelligent packet processing should be switched off for the network adapters dedicated to Charon with "Network Control Center" (NCC) utility. Please refer to FTP, NFS, and general network issues with Charon-AXP and Charon on Windows for details.
The user that runs Charon-PDP must have local administrator privileges and be a member of Charon-GRP group (which is created during the Charon installation).
Charon executables, libraries and data (disk container files) files should be excluded from all the antivirus checks, including on-the-fly checks and scheduled scans.
HT (Hyper-Threading Technology) should be disabled on the hosting server.
Power management, USB power saving management and screen save should be switched off on the hosting server.
Please note that the actual network communication speed and mode are determined by the Windows network speed and mode settings.
For network connections, interface="connection:..." syntax is preferred in the Charon configuration file.
The packet_port keyword in the Charon configuration file should be used on any hosting platform instead of the platform specific keywords ndis5_chpack_port and ndis6_chpack_port.

For example, the Charon configuration file lines:

load ndis5_chpack_port/chnetwrk EWA0 interface="..."

and

load ndis6_chpack_port/chnetwrk EWA0 interface="..."

should be replaced with:

load packet_port/chnetwrk EWA0 interface="..."

On VMware virtual appliance network adapters and vSwitch should be set to Promiscuous mode
On VMware, legacy_mode should be set in the Charon configuration for emulated PDP network adapters if Promiscuous mode cannot be set (this solution does not work in multi-instance configurations)

Note related to upgrade from previous version

Software licenses have to be renewed as they are not compatible with previous version (prior to 4.11) even if your software license was 4.11 ready.

Known restrictions of version 4.12

Charon fails to boot RSX-11M-PLUS V4.3 (ID#5423). Workaround is enabling autoboot, for example: "set CPU_0 auto_boot = DU0".
The Charon installation may fail with the error message "The installation process cannot replace hasplms.exe because the file is in use". It is known problem of the Sentinel HASP driver installer included in the Charon installation procedure as a 3rd party software. If you face this issue stop the hasplms.exe process manually and re-run Charon installation procedure. See the Installation chapter below for more information.
Charon may not boot from physical tapes (ID#1936).
A crash may occur when emulated NIC is bound to a teamed host NIC on VMWare (ID#5380, Case #00030554).
Direct access to SCSI devices is not supported. Call Stromasys for possible alternatives.
Charon-PDP has limited support for teamed network adapters. They could be used only if the MAC address of the virtual network adapter is not changed during Charon-PDP session. In this case the desired MAC address should be set manually in the properties of the network team and in the Charon-PDP configuration file by "station_address=XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX" configuration option.
Charon-PDP does not support virtual bridge (TAP) interfaces (i.e. MS bridges, etc).
Network speed auto negotiation works with some restrictions. It is always recommended to use full duplex mode on the hosting server.
If Charon is being moved to another hosting platform and direct the SCSI access method is used to access some SCSI devices, the new hosting platform SCSI drivers should support the SCSIport method. If drivers supporting SCSIport method are not available, direct SCSI access cannot be used. This is most likely to be the case for most Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 (R2) devices. The recommended workaround for disk access is to use the \\.\PhysicalDriveX method.

New functionality introduced in previous versions

New functionality introduced in version 4.11 build 204-15

The Charon installer (InstallShell.exe) now records the latest installation kit location and installation date/time in the registry (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\CHARON\Installation) to help in case an installation repair must be performed. This information in reported in the Charon Report Utility starting with version 1.40 (ID#5734).

New functionality introduced in version 4.11 build 204-14

Feature Request: incoming connection requests are by default filtered for virtual serial lines and then allowed only for the localhost. This is to avoid security scanners that can block the port, OPA0 console mainly. To allow other hosts to connect to the virtual line, add the "set OPA0 access_control = disable" line in the configuration file (ID#5707). Please note: this requires to use the new syntax to define OPA0. Please read the user's guide "Console" chapter.

New functionality introduced in version 4.11 build 204-11

Log file numbering implemented when log rotating is used: when starting the Charon emulator the first log file name will be like <configuration_name>-YYYY-MM-DD-hh-mm-ss-xxxxxxxxx.log where xxxxxxxxx will be 000000000, this number will increase with each log rotation (ID#5702)
The emulator UPTIME is reported on every log rotation (ID#5683, ID#32702)
Example: 20210916:000000:INFO :0:00000479:ethane.cxx(3479): "mypdp" started at Wed Sep 15 17:28:14 2021 (uptime 0 06:31:46).

New functionality introduced in version 4.11 build 204-10

None.

New functionality introduced in version 4.11 build 204-09

Charon Network Packet NDIS Signed driver for Windows 10, Windows Server 2016/2019 working with Secure Boot enabled.
Sentinel Runtime upgraded to version 8.13.
New version of PuTTY, supporting "-title" option and new way of storing/loading sessions definitions in the registry to avoid unnecessary duplication of session definitions for each user (ID#5590).
MkDisk utility logo is updated (ID#5246).
Sample configuration files are updated (ID#5246, #5622).
"Charon Virtual Machines Manager" is changed to "Charon Virtual Machine Manager" (ID#5246). Note: if you're upgrading from a previous version, the "Charon Virtual Machines Manager" icon has to be removed manually.
The NDIS driver is upgradable, newer version of the driver in a Charon kit to be installed updates the driver automatically (ID#5585).
A specific dialog is added for recommended actions if a container cannot be extracted in the process of a Charon installation (ID#5586).
All relevant Charon components are installed independently by each Charon build to be installed on the host if these components are not "upgradable" (shared between builds) (ID#5504).
Charon installation procedure graphics are updated to display correct slogan (ID#5558).
MkDisk utility graphics are updated to display correct slogan (ID#5562).
Serial lines logging is corrected (ID #5647).

New functionality introduced in version 4.10 build 202-03

IEQ11 board is implemented on top of (couple of) NI PCI-GPIB interface cards (ID#4670).
Spectracom TPRO/BI timer board is implemented (ID#4481).
Log is flushed regularly and asynchronously to facilitate online LOG monitoring by third-party tools (ID#5532).
Correct installation of x64 HostPrint utility in all Charon products is implemented (in the folder beside the corresponding executables) (ID#5570).
VMware Ethernet adapters: in addition to the E1000, E1000E and VMXNETx adapters are now fully supported.
Copyright notes are updated in all sample configuration files (ID#5399).
EXE/DLL copyright is updated (ID#5503).
The value of "log_repeat_filter" parameter is "off" by default (ID#5405).
Licensing mechanism is improved (ID#5375, 5458, 5459).
Network License management processing changes (ID#4631).
Redistributable Visual C++ runtime is upgraded (ID#5385).
Installation procedure detects inconsistent and/or damaged installation and deals with it properly (ID#5476).
In "Repair" mode installation, the procedure keeps the current Charon installation in case of errors (ID#5477).
All Charon components are installed independently for every build (ID#5504).
Patches to Charon kits are able to keep all the previous executables independent from each other (ID#5506).
Backup patch scripts are installed for each build independently (ID#5517).
Virtual Machines renaming feature is disabled (ID#5394).
"hasp_view" command line mode is extended to output all available licenses details to a file (ID#5442).
NCC utility is improved (ID#5497).

New functionality introduced in version 4.9 build 194-02

To address security issues, new Sentinel LDK 7.6 is used for building this release; most up-to-date Sentinel run-time (v7.63) is included (ID#5211, ID#5227).
Network performance and stability has been significantly improved (ID#5111, ID#4987).
USB physical drive support is improved (ID#3323).
IEQ11 board on top of NI PCI-GPIB interface cards is implemented (ID#4670).
"\\.\Scsi<N>:<X>:<Y>:<Z>" notation is not used anymore (ID#5051).
User part of Charon configuration (set by CFG file) is reflected in the log (ID#5156).
Some improvements of the messages in the log (ID#5356).
Renaming Charon VM is not available anymore (ID#5394).
Hard-coded host system limits are replaced with limits encoded in the license's memory block (ID#3263).
Hard-coded upper limit on license check interval to 168 hours is increased (ID#5031, Case #00029470).
New configuration options "license_use_any_key" and "license_id" are implemented (ID#5289).
Should Charon lose access to its license, the product now offers a longer grace period and more frequent intermediate checks.
Charon installation wizard (InstallShell) is improved (ID#4231, ID#4915, ID#5081, ID#5176).
Charon VM Manager is improved (ID#4989, ID#4990, ID#5032, ID#5063, ID#5064, ID#5223, ID#5244, ID#5016, ID#5349).
"mkdskcmd" and MkDisk utilities are improved (ID#5033, ID#5142, ID#5143, ID#5225).
"HASP License Details" is improved (ID#5027, ID#5047, ID#5214, ID#5242).
TapeUtil (CharonCP) is improved (ID#3589).
LOGMOND utility is improved (LOGMOND invokes license_changed.bat when it sees message with code 0000040B) (ID#5000).
Charon Network Control Center is able to display configuration options for DE500AA, DEBNI and PMAD-AA network cards (ID#5362).

New functionality introduced in version 4.8 build 183-02

Microsoft Windows 10 Professional and Enterprise Editions, 32 bit and 64 bit versions.
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 (please note Server 2012 is not supported).
VMware ESXi 6.0
Microsoft Hyper-V on Server 2012 R2
Please note that Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 are not supported (ID#4498).
HASP libraries have been upgraded (ID#4709, ID#4450).
Preserving console saved state across product upgrades is implemented (ID#4782).
VLANs are supported (ID#4401).
The log file language is set to English (ID#4509).
Charon console log rotation has been implemented (ID#4639).
Charon log file format switched to UTF-8 (ID#4188).
Rotating log file switch can be configured to be triggered by maximum file size and time period (ID#4639).
New installation procedure is introduced starting from this version. It is not compatible with old Charon installations, so the previous versions of Charon must be uninstalled first.
Installation procedure is able to collect logs from the executables it executes during installation/deinstallation (ID#4756).
All emulated PDP models are installed by default. Allowed PDP models are controlled by Charon license (ID#4711).
New icons and graphical design for Charon executables, utilities and installation procedure (ID#4586, 4587, 4588, 4688, #4973).
Charon must be installed as a Virtual Machine service using the new "Charon VM Manager" utility. This utility also provides a central point to access all Charon utilities (ID#4870, ID#4872).
The default log mode has been set to "append" in the configuration templates (ID#4752).
Windows Registry path for Charon products is updated to "HKLM:\Software\Charon" (ID#4746).
Field Test and Production builds offer identical functionality (ID#4552).
One license can serve Charon instances on one host or different hosts by choice (ID#4884).
A special utility "License Alert" is added. It monitors Charon license expiration date and warns user about it (ID#4903). 20 Jul 2017 Note: automatic installation removed when installing Charon-PDP. It has now to be installed manually.
Software License transfer feature is disabled (ID#4787).
Software licensing (SL) is available. Software license is bound to physical system hardware components or virtual machine hardware components (ID#4344).
Network licensing is available, for both hardware dongles (requires special dongle) and software licensing.
Charon instance counter on a Network license switched to instance mode from station/instance mode, which allows Charon instances to be spread around the network at user convenience. For example, a Network license with 6 Charon instances allows to run 3 instances on a first hosting server, 2 instances on a second hosting server, and one instance in a third hosting server. In the previous versions of Charon Network license controlled number of hosting systems and Charon instances per host system.
Charon license check order can be managed via configuration file, Production and Backup license IDs can be specified (ID#4249).
New parameter "license_key_lookup_retry" has been introduced allowing to set a number of license retries with specified time interval for the license checks on Charon startup (ID#4399)
License protection run time package (Sentinel) has been upgraded to the current stable version (ID#4209, 4711).
Please note that Charon HASP runtime environment is customized by Stromasys. Environment downloaded directly from SafeNet would not provide full functionality (specifically, Software Licensing will not work). Stromasys will maintain and distribute HASP environment updates as Charon product patches if necessary.
New Charon Virtual Machines Manager is introduced (ID#4836).
Tape Utilities package is added (ID#3589).
Network Control Center is not allowed anymore to change the configuration of a disabled network adapter (ID#4725).
MkDisk utility graphics have been updated (ID#4743).
Network Control Center is able to save log (ID#4755).
LOGMOND utility provides sample scripts (ID#4902).
Logmond supports multi instance and rotating log configurations.
MTD utility supports SCSI Passthrough mode for tapes without Windows driver (ID#3927).
Network Control Center (NCC) performs Charon network driver cleanup on request (ID#4610).
Charon utilities fully support mixed encoding in log files (ID#4642, 4646).
mkdskcmd utility does not allow to reduce vdisk size (ID#4506).

New functionality introduced in older versions

Microsoft Windows Server 2012 is supported
VMware ESXi 5.5 is supported
Windows Server 2003 is dropped
Windows XP is dropped
VAX console logging – allows capture of an entire session from console prompt to guest OS shutdown in a file (ID#3587, #3988).
Log rotation mechanism and improved filtering (ID#2281, #3723, #3724, #3725).
Charon log is created in English language only, the rest of localization are disabled (ID#4509)
Since this release Charon uses UNICODE for its log files (ID#4188)
Log file messages are extended with indications of CPU "Halt"/"Run" transitions (ID#4264)
Charon installation supports 'batch" automated mode (ID#3532).
Charon installation upgrades NDIS5/6 driver installed by previous Charon versions (ID#3819).
Charon installation provides status and diagnostics on network driver installation (ID#3618).
PhysicalDrive container can be configured with device ID and iSCSI target ID to provide persistence across Windows reboots (ID#3667).
The "Utility" folder in the Charon start menu has been renamed to "Utilities" (ID#3586).
The HASPVIEW utility has been significantly improved (ID#3539, 3637, 3657, 3742, 3757, 3847, 4059).
The command line version of MKDISK utility reports progress during disk image creation (ID#3793).
Network Control Center is able to show its specific error message in its silent mode (ID#3617).
The LOGMOND utility now offers usage help (invoke without parameters to view) (ID#3580).
A Link to the Putty terminal emulator has been added to the Charon start menu (ID#3556).
New "HASP View" utility is able to show all the available license keys and the content of the license they contain (ID#4461)
The "HASP View" utility is able to display the multi site configuration license parameters and it is improved (ID#4059, 4165)
Charon supports disabling network offload features with a special option in Network Control Center (NCC) (ID#4298)
"MkDisk" utility is able to extend the existing disk container size without destroying its content (ID#4329)
Additional protection checks are implemented in "MkDskCmd" utility for its "disk transfer" functionality (ID#4506)
"logmond" utility is significantly improved. Now it supports Charon rotating log and multi-instances configurations - it is able to monitor log files of all Charon instances running as services on host.
Network Control Center supports VLAN (ID#4453)
The performance improvement package included into the kit is updated (ID#4424)
Networking part (carrier sense logic) is improved (ID#4339)
"disconnect_timeout" parameter is introduced for the embedded 53C94 SCSI controller of MicroVAX 3100-96/98 and VAX 4000-106/108 mapped to physical SCSI devices (ID#4438)
The HASP View utility has been updated (Sentinel HASP SL and network licenses are supported now) (ID#3552, #3539, #3130).
A new "Logmond" utility is introduced to allow automatic execution of user-defined actions in case HASP license key is removed (ID#2415).
The Sentinel HASP drivers included with Charon kits have been updated to version 5.95 (ID#3398).
The "Geometry" parameter was introduced for tape images (ID#2561)
The MUX driver was excluded from Charon installations (ID#3410).
Charon services are removed automatically on full deinstallation (ID#3322).
The Installation procedure does not check license and host system requirements during installation (ID#3262, #3256).
Charon production kits use OQEDC Sentinel HASP licence keys only (ID#3638).
Charon is supported on VMware ESXi 4.2 update 1.
The license parameters "expiration date" and "backup time counter" can be updated without stopping Charon. This change allows Charon evaluation or annual licenses to be updated "on the fly" to the permanent production licenses or to the next year annual licenses. Please note that other Charon configuration parameters must remain unchanged.
Charon network packet driver name "packet_port" in Charon configuration file had been made platform independent. For example: