Birch 2.4.17 Release

Features

BR Feature 01 - NVMe and SAS Drive Purge Capability 

• Added purge capability for NVMe drives.
• Introduced adjustable verification percentages for enhanced flexibility.

• Added purge capability for SAS drives

• Added new drive sanitization methods, including cryptographic erase, block erase, and overwrite.

• Integrated sampling and verification processes to ensure data sanitization integrity.

BR Feature 05 - TCG Enterprise Support

• Enabled unlocking for Trusted Computing Group (TCG) enterprise drives.

BR Feature 06 - Enhanced Remote Wipe Searchability

• Users can search for drives using Serial Number, Machine Name, or IP in the remote wipe screen.
• The appliance remote viewer is now searchable.
• Hovering over a client in the remote viewer's left pane displays the full name.

BR Feature 07 - Added Verification Functionality

• Introduced a verification feature that is compliant with NIST standards.
• Users can create new fingerprints and synchronize them across different appliances.

BR Feature 08 - Improved Device Awareness

• Added functionality to log failed wipes if a drive is disconnected mid-wipe.

BR Feature 09 - Data Table Viewer for Resyncing ERPs

• Provides a searchable data table for devices and actions performed on appliances.
• Displays a complete list of wipes performed on disks.
• Includes the ability to edit user-customizable fields and manually resync data with ERPs.

BR Feature 10 - Custom PXE Boot Settings

• Customizable boot settings are available per device or globally.
• Statistically generated boot option suggestions.
• Advanced options for power users.
• Enables more accurate wipe time estimation and better triage of network-related issues

BR Feature 11 - Configurable PXE Boot Timeout

• Added customizable PXE boot timeout, allowing technicians extra time to select non-default boot options manually.

BR Feature 12 - iOS18 Support for Mobile Devices

• Added support for Apple devices running iOS18.

BR Feature 15 - Improved Windows and Apple Management Locks Detection

• Detects and saves Windows and Apple management locks for unencrypted drives.

BR Feature 16 - Remote Wipe Responsiveness

• Improved stability during remote wipes when a large number of machines are booted simultaneously.

BR Feature 17 - USB Bootloader Responsiveness

• Enhanced USB bootloader capabilities to minimize delays and improve performance.

BR Feature 18 - Diagnostic Tests

• Improved battery detection for a more comprehensive testing process.
• Expanded general support for additional audio codecs.
• Enhanced support for microphone and speaker testing on HP ProBook devices

BR Feature 20 - Configurable Hardware Testing

• Introduced the skip_diagnostic_tests_per_chassis feature for more flexible hardware testing configurations.

BR Feature 21 - NIST Clear 3-Pass

• Enhanced support for the NIST 3-pass clear process, improving compliance and data sanitization.

BR Feature 22 - RAID Card Hot Swap Card Slot Enclosure Mapping

• Added support for hot-swapping IT-mode LSI RAID drives, ensuring correct updates for card, enclosure, and slot mappings for each drive.

BR Feature 24 - Enhanced Boot Option

• Introduced additional hardware support via a beta boot option.

BR Feature 25 - Updated Windows Image Process

• Simplified and streamlined the Windows imaging process.

BR Feature 26 - Enhanced Autostart Capability

• Diagnostics can now run via the autostart-only selection for improved automation.

BR Feature 27 - Appliance and Client UI Readability Updates

• Improved UI resolution scaling for better readability across devices with varying resolutions.

BR Feature 28 - Enhanced UI Information

• Added serial number, make, and model details to the footer of the client UI.
• Introduced navigation using left/right arrows (or A/D keys) for controlling diagnostic color displays.

BR Feature 31 - Verify Fingerprints

• Users can create new verify fingerprints and sync them across multiple appliances.

BR Feature 32 - Enhanced Device Enumeration During Wipes

• Custom drive categorization options (loose/in-unit/transfer) for better ERP tracking.

Bug Fixes

BR Fix 01 - Diagnostic Navigation

• Added functionality to control display diagnostics tests using arrow keys or WASD keyboard inputs.

BR Fix 03 - BitLocker Detection for Imaging

• Resolved errors related to BitLocker detection during imaging processes.

BR Fix 04 - Beta Boot Option Update

• Updated the beta boot option to support more hardware, including compatibility with Linux 6.11.

BR Fix 06 - Wipe Credit Calculations

• Adjusted calculations to exclude wipes in progress from credit usage totals.

BR Fix 07 - Improved Wipe Progress Rate Calculations

• Enhanced accuracy of wipe progress rate tracking.

BR Fix 08 - Smart-Log Endpoint

• Fixed issues with the smart-log endpoint in the browser interface.

BR Fix 09 - Hot Reboot Options

• Added additional hot reboot options for Apple devices and Beta boot option.

BR Fix 10 - Mobile Info Buttons

• Introduced red icon locks on mobile info buttons to indicate issues.

BR Fix 13 - Disk Wipe Notes

• Enabled notes to be saved for SAS and SATA disk wipes.

BR Fix 14 - ERP FTP Disk Syncing

• Added FTP option for custom Razor ERP syncing

BR Fix 16 - CSV Report Creation

• Added the ability to create CSV reports on the appliance for export to USB devices.

BR Fix 17 - USB Creation on USB 3.0 Drives

• Resolved issues with creating bootable USB drives on USB 3.0 hardware.

BR Fix 18 - Grub Bootloader Update

• Updated the Grub bootloader to resolve out-of-memory errors on modern machines.

BR Fix 19 - iPXE Update

• Improved iPXE boot support for modern machines.

BR Fix 20 - SMART Parsing and Regrading

• Optimized SMART regrading and added more robust tests for parsing SMART data.

BR Fix 21 - Wipe Method Naming

• Cleaned up abbreviations in wipe methods to display full wipe names, primarily for purge-related operations.

BR Fix 22 - Disk Deduplication

• Fixed issues with duplicate disks being listed in the machine inventory.

BR Fix 24 - Lifetime Remaining Calculations

• Improved accuracy of lifetime remaining estimates for hardware components.

BR Fix 25 - Network Card Speed Detection

• Enhanced detection of network card speeds for better reporting.

BR Fix 26 - RAM Information

• Improved gathering and display of detailed RAM information.

BR Fix 27 - RAID Card Parsing

• Fixed parsing issues for the last disk in RAID arrays.

BR Fix 28 - Log Gathering Time

• Significantly reduced long log gathering times with a "please wait 20 seconds and try again" resolution prompt.

BR Fix 29 - NVMe Fallback Method

• Fixed issues with NVMe fallback methods not finalizing correctly.

BR Fix 30 - DriveD Readable/Writeable Detection

• Improved detection of read/write drive capability in DriveD.

BR Fix 31 - DriveD Sampling Steps

• Added detailed sampling steps to DriveD output for better wipe verification.

BR Fix 32 - DriveD Fingerprinting

• Fixed issues with DriveD fingerprinting capabilities.

BR Fix 33 & 43 - Format Finalization

• Resolved errors causing formats not to finalize correctly.

BR Fix 34 - SATA Drive Capacity on HP Servers

• Fixed improper reduction of SATA drive capacity on HP servers.

BR Fix 35 & 44 - Large Drive Sampling Crashes

• Resolved out-of-memory crashes when wiping large drives with high sampling percentages.

BR Fix 38 - Reserve Buffer Allocation Error

• Resolved the "Unable to allocate reserve buffer" error.

BR Fix 39 - ATA Security Unfreezing

• Fixed issues with ATA security not being unfrozen on some drives during system suspension.

BR Fix 40 - Stability with Parallel Drive Operations

• Improved stability when running multiple drives in parallel.

BR Fix 42 - WipeD Stability Improvements

• Enhanced stability to prevent freezing or crashing when running multiple drives simultaneously.

BR Fix 45 - Improved Error Handling

• Enhanced error handling across various operations for more robust performance.

BR Fix 49 - CPU Detail Support

• Expanded support for detailed information on Intel and AMD CPUs.