GlobalProtect struggling with password changes

jrauman — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 18:02:30 GMT

We use our AD accounts to authenticate and connect GlobalProtect. The first connection attempt requires the user to type their AD username and password. GP saves the user's credentials at that point so subsequent connections do not require manual entry of creds. All that works great.

When a user changes their password in AD, they are told to disconnect and reconnect GP so that it can request their new password. We expect GP to attempt one connection with their old password, fail to connect (incorrect password), and request the new password. Instead we see the following behaviors:

1. GP connects successfully with old, saved password instead of failing to connect and prompting the user for a new password.

2. GP fails to connect, asks for a new password, but instead of using the new password, still retries the old password again (and fails again).

In both cases, the user gives up and calls IT. IT sees the same behavior and manually signs the user out of GP and deletes any remaining creds in Credential Manager for GP.

So in some cases, GP is allowed to use an invalid password to connect (the user's old password still works even after it has been changed, meaning GP is NOT checking the password's validity with the domain controller). In other cases, GP appears to be unable to overwrite the old password with the new one (despite the fact that that the old one keeps failing and the user keeps entering the new one).

What is happening??? How can GP fail in both ways in the same day/week? Rarely does it do exactly what it should do. Which is simply a) fail on connect (wrong password), b) request new password, c) succesfully connect & save new password.

Re: GlobalProtect struggling with password changes

Nathan-Paul — Tue, 02 Nov 2021 09:45:37 GMT

Behaviour number 1 is probably something to do with AD replication. How long do you give it from the changing password to connecting? And how many DCs do you have? The password might be updated on a different server than the firewall is checking. If an AD server is over a WAN link, there could be some delay (up to 15 minutes according to https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/identity/ad-ds/plan/determining-the-interval) if there are lots of objects to update. Use the repadmin tool available from Microsoft to check the replication.

As for the 2nd one, that just sounds like a bug in the GP application

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GlobalProtect struggling with password changes

Re: GlobalProtect struggling with password changes