Cisco Cisco Security Monitoring, Analysis and Response System 6.1 Release Notes

The MARS upgrade packages are the primary vehicle for major, minor, and patch software releases. In 
addition to addressing high-priority caveats, upgrade packages update system inspection rules, event 
types, and provide the most recent signature support.

For detailed instructions on planning and performing an upgrade or installation, refer to “

” in the Cisco Security MARS Initial Configuration and Upgrade 

Guide. 

To ensure that the upgrade from earlier releases is trouble free, this section contains the notes provided 
in previous releases according the release number. Please refer to the notes that pertain to the release you 
are upgrading from and any releases following that one.

The following general notes apply to this release:

If you are upgrading from Windows 2003 to Windows 2008, ensure that any ancillary devices and 
software you employ are supported. For more information see 

When downloading software packages from CCO to MARS, ensure that your credentials (username 
or password) do not include the ampersand (&) character. The credential will be truncated before 
being passed to the authentication module, which results in an error message about invalid user 
credentials.

The MARS Appliance performs a file system consistency check (fsck) on all disks when either of 
the following conditions is met:

The system has not been rebooted during the past 180 days.

The system has been rebooted 30 times.

The fsck operation takes a long time to complete, which can result in significant unplanned downtime 
when rebooting the system after meeting a condition above. For example, a MARS 50 appliance can take 
up to 90 minutes to perform the operation.

No important notes exist for the 6.1.4 upgrade.

No important notes exist for the 6.1.3 upgrade.

No important notes exist for the 6.1.2 upgrade.