NCM 2023.2 release notes
Release date: April 18, 2023
These release notes describe the new features, improvements, and fixed issues in Network Configuration Manager 2023.2. They also provide information about upgrades and describe workarounds for known issues.
Learn more
- For information on the latest hotfixes, see NCM hotfixes.
- For information about requirements, see NCM system requirements.
- For information about working with NCM, see the NCM Administrator Guide.
New features and improvements in NCM
See also the SolarWinds Platform 2023.2 Release Notes.
Firmware vulnerability matching for Cisco IOS XE and IOS XR devices
NCM 2023.2 alerts you if managed Cisco IOS XE and IOS XR devices (in addition to other Cisco IOS devices) could be affected by firmware vulnerabilities reported by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
In September 2023, NIST will retire its legacy data feeds and distribute firmware vulnerability data through application-programming interfaces (APIs). An upcoming release of NCM will be modified to adapt to the changes.
Special characters in macros can be escaped in policy rule searches
In previous versions, policy rules could not search for the name of a macro, such as ${AgentIP}. If a search string included ${AgentIP}, NCM compiled the macro and searched for the node IP address instead of the string ${AgentIP}.
In NCM 2023.2, you can use \ to escape the curly braces (for example, $\{AgentIP\}) to search for the name of a macro.
Fixed issues
| Case number | Description |
|---|---|
| 01264755, 01275830 |
Firmware vulnerability files can be downloaded and extracted without error when the URL and |
| 01235110, 01241329, 01268731, 01270837, 01279594 |
Users can manage and edit NCM jobs from the Jobs List page without the process hanging or returning errors. |
| 01279130, 01281943, 01287850, 01290108, 01291149, 01301934, 01302724, 01306120, 01309026, |
Configuration backups no longer fail if the archive folder is on a network share. |
| N/A | NCM 2023.2 includes security enhancements. |
See also the SolarWinds Platform 2023.2 Release Notes.
New customer installation
For information about installing Network Configuration Manager, see the SolarWinds Platform Product Installation and Upgrade Guide.
How to upgrade
The SolarWinds Installer upgrades your entire deployment (all SolarWinds Platform products and any scalability engines).
Known issues
| Wildcards in policy compliance rule search strings | |
|---|---|
| Issue | When a policy compliance rule searches for a simple string (not a regular expression), the string cannot include the wildcard characters ? and *. |
| Resolution or Workaround | To include wildcard characters, choose the Regular Expression (Regex) option as the string type. |
| Real-Time Change Detection does not send notifications | |
|---|---|
| Issue | Real-Time Change Detection (RTCD) is configured in NCM. However, it does not send notifications when configs have been changed. This occurs because the default user no longer has the required permissions. |
| Resolution or Workaround |
To enable RTCD to send notifications, upgrade to NCM 2023.2.1. See the NCM 2023.2.1 Release Notes for more information. |
End of life
| Version | EoL announcement | EoE effective date | EoL effective date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020.2.6 | April 18, 2023: End-of-Life (EoL) announcement – Customers on NCM 2020.2.6 should begin transitioning to the latest version of NCM. | May 18, 2023: End-of-Engineering (EoE) – Service releases, bug fixes, workarounds, and service packs for NCM 2020.2.6 will no longer be actively supported by SolarWinds. | May 18, 2024: End-of-Life (EoL) – SolarWinds will no longer provide technical support for NCM 2020.2.6 |
| 2020.2.5 | January 18, 2023: End-of-Life (EoL) announcement – Customers on NCM 2020.2.5 should begin transitioning to the latest version of NCM. | February 17, 2023: End-of-Engineering (EoE) – Service releases, bug fixes, workarounds, and service packs for NCM 2020.2.5 will no longer be actively supported by SolarWinds. | February 17, 2024: End-of-Life (EoL) – SolarWinds will no longer provide technical support for NCM 2020.2.5. |
| 2020.2.4 | October 19, 2022: End-of-Life (EoL) announcement – Customers on NCM 2020.2.4 should begin transitioning to the latest version of NCM. | November 18, 2022: End-of-Engineering (EoE) – Service releases, bug fixes, workarounds, and service packs for NCM 2020.2.4 will no longer be actively supported by SolarWinds. | November 18, 2023: End-of-Life (EoL) – SolarWinds will no longer provide technical support for NCM 2020.2.4. |
| 2020.2.1 | October 19, 2022: End-of-Life (EoL) announcement – Customers on NCM 2020.2.1 should begin transitioning to the latest version of NCM. | November 18, 2022: End-of-Engineering (EoE) – Service releases, bug fixes, workarounds, and service packs for NCM 2020.2.1 will no longer be actively supported by SolarWinds. | November 18, 2023: End-of-Life (EoL) – SolarWinds will no longer provide technical support for NCM 2020.2.1. |
| 2020.2 | October 19, 2022: End-of-Life (EoL) announcement – Customers on NCM 2020.2 should begin transitioning to the latest version of NCM. | November 18, 2022: End-of-Engineering (EoE) – Service releases, bug fixes, workarounds, and service packs for NCM 2020.2 will no longer be actively supported by SolarWinds. | November 18, 2023: End-of-Life (EoL) – SolarWinds will no longer provide technical support for NCM 2020.2. |
| 2019.4 | July 27, 2022: End-of-Life (EoL) announcement – Customers on NCM version 2019.4 should begin transitioning to the latest version of NCM. | August 26, 2022: End-of-Engineering (EoE) – Service releases, bug fixes, workarounds, and service packs for NCM version 2019.4 will no longer be actively supported by SolarWinds. | August 26, 2023: End-of-Life (EoL) – SolarWinds will no longer provide technical support for NCM version 2019.4. |
| 8.0 | July 27, 2022: End-of-Life (EoL) announcement – Customers on NCM version 8.0 should begin transitioning to the latest version of NCM. | August 26, 2022: End-of-Engineering (EoE) – Service releases, bug fixes, workarounds, and service packs for NCM version 8.0 will no longer be actively supported by SolarWinds. | August 26, 2023: End-of-Life (EoL) – SolarWinds will no longer provide technical support for NCM version 8.0. |
See the End of Life Policy for information about SolarWinds product life cycle phases. To see EoL dates for earlier NCM versions, see NCM release history.
End of support
This version of Network Configuration Manager no longer supports the following platforms and features.
| Type | Details |
|---|---|
| Browser support | All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported. |
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