Mar 27, 2026 - For details about updated CVE-2025-53521 (BIG-IP APM vulnerability), refer to K000156741.

Forum Discussion

steven_normole's avatar
May 05, 2026

ssh: Common Criteria mode initialized

I setup a new F5 and I am trying to SSH to an existing F5 but from the new F5 I get "

ssh: Common Criteria mode initialized"

 

I ran the command "tmsh list sys db security.commoncriteria" and it is set to false on both F5.

I checked the sshd properties and both F5 have the following

 

description none

fips-cipher-version 2

inactivity-timeout 6000

include "Ciphers aes256-ctr,aes256-gcm@openssh.com,aes128-gcm@openssh.com,aes128-ctr

KexAlgorithms ecdh-sha2-nistp256,ecdh-sha2-nistp384,ecdh-sha2-nistp521

MACs hmac-sha2-256-etm@openssh.com,hmac-sha2-256,hmac-sha2-512-etm@openssh.com,hmac-sha2-512"

log-level info

login enabled

port 22

 

what am i missing

1 Reply

  • can you try to ssh with the -vvv option. This will tell you which ciphers you're using and what the F5 is using.

    You might need to restart the SSH daemon 'save config' and reboot for the less secure mode to take effect (thats a guess)