Inconsistent Access Between Alpha App Server and NoIP Address

[aschone]

Re: Inconsistent Access Between Alpha App Server and NoIP Address

I have followed this thread now since its start and to be honest the troubleshooting and documentation of steps taken are a little confusing. It might be in your best interest to simplify the setup and test each piece independently.

For troubleshooting purposes it will be easier if we had a better idea of your network. You mention that you are running the A5 app server on a laptop that has both a wireless and a wired network connection. You do not want to run this type of a setup across the wireless network so disable the wireless card. The fact the machine is a laptop is not a concern and should be ruled out.

Start |control panel | Network connections

You will see a list of network adapters, right click the wireless adapter and select disable.

Next you will need to verify that your wired connection is working. Try to open a webpage; for example google.com or cnn.com. If you cannot get to the webpage check your settings for the wired network card and properly configure them so you do have network access.

Right click on the wired network adapter in the "Network Connections" tool and select "Status" then click the "Support" tab. This will tell you your IP address for that network adapter on that machine. This should be a private non-routeable IP address. This will also be the IP address you do all of your internal testing with. You can also get this info by running IPconfig.exe at a DOS prompt. The /all switch will give more information. Run the command with the /all switch and make note if DHCP is enabled or disabled. Report back what the DHCP status is; depending on the status additional troubleshooting steps may need to be taken.

ipconfig /all

Next disable any and all firewalls on the laptop. This is a security concern. you should have a edge device firewall between your network and the laptop if not then also disconnect the internet during the this phase of testing. Any software firewall on the laptop is there only to protect the laptop from other machines on the internal network. The edge device firewall is there to protect the network from the internet. Unless your network is infected with malware you will be safe with the internet disconnected.

From another machine on the network ping your laptop. You should get response back. Since you mention that you have disconnects after a couple of hours you can run a ping test with the -t switch. This will continuously ping the laptop until stopped by pressing ctrl-c. Watch for dropped packets/no returns being your on an internal network you should not encounter any.

ping -t 10.1.1.12

Assuming everything has worked up till now you will want to test the actual A5 web server software. You have configured the A5 web software to run on a port. Now you are going to test that the port is accepting communications. Telnet is a great tool for this.

If the IP is 10.1.1.12 and port 80 is running the web server type this at a DOS prompt.

Telnet 10.1.1.12 80

The screen will go blank, press the enter key several times, this will sometimes get the software to respond back, or type "Helo" and press enter. A majority of network services will return an error code and is a good way to determine what software is being ran on a particular network port. Google's website returns a HTTP/1.0 400 Bad Request web page when I tried this against their servers. The A5 web server should return something as well.

Or you could open a browser and enter the IP address along with the port of the webpage. If all is working you should see the webpage in the browser.

Try these steps and report back what you have found. Also numerous logs are most likely being kept both by the A5 server and by the machines themselves. Check the logs, look for error messages or status messages let us know what they are showing.

Remember keep it simple, test the basics first then move onto the complex network configurations. Fully document what your testing and what the results are.

From what I gathered from your previous posts all of this should work. These tests are only to eliminate the basics, once that is accomplished then you can start testing the more advanced configurations.

[CraigSchumacker]

Re: Inconsistent Access Between Alpha App Server and NoIP Address

Rich:

I have never used a Windows XP Pro machine for these purposes, but I doubt this is the issue, since it is little more than a program opening a port for connection purposes.

Go to a command prompt and type:

netstat - an

This should show all open ports. Is 8080 Listening?

Did you open port 8080 in the Windows firewall (or turn the firewall off, for the time being...)

Did you try the Norton removal tool, just in case, although this will remove EVERYthing Norton on your machine...

Your router has port 8080 pointed to the correct STATIC internal IP Address?

Can you post the external IP Address, so I can see if it's visible, or send it to me within this bulletin board?

I'd look at how the router is set up. I thought I read you were able to connect for a hour or more via NO-IP, then no longer. I'm sorry if I misunderstood, or you had two issues here all along.

I read:

"After about an hour the NoIP link fails to provide a connection. The connection cannot be reestablished by stopping and starting the Alpha Application server with the Always Up program."

Anyway, I'm off Norton for now, and pointing my finger at the router. After you get it to work from an outside machine with:8080 added, I think we need to look at the NO-IP settings...

Craig

[CraigSchumacker]

Re: Inconsistent Access Between Alpha App Server and NoIP Address

Rich:

Another possibility may be that ports 80 and 8080 are being blocked by your ISP. I think I ran into this once years ago, and use NO-IP.com and something like port 160...

Craig

[RRTRACKS]

Re: Inconsistent Access Between Alpha App Server and NoIP Address

Please accept my apology for taking so long to respond to the help provided here.

Andy,

Taking all the steps you provided there were not any errors found in my local connection using the configuration you suggested.

The DHCP was found to be enabled.

The ping �t address test was run from another computer on the local network for ten minutes without any errors.

The Telnet connection test was run with the expected errors and a connection using a browser on a local network computer opened the web page using the IP address successfully.

By default the Alpha Server does not keep a log. However the options for this were selected during earlier testing for both Error and Access Logging. I could not see anything from the time the server started until it failed with the connection described earlier to indicate there was a problem. If you want to do further testing on this there will be no need to explain how to keep these logs and provide their listings.

Craig,

Your suggestion for using netstat from the command prompt was taken using the line netstat �a �n.

It was found the port assigned to the Alpha Server on the hosting machine was listed as listening; however, on the other local computers on the same network there was not any connection listed associated with that port.

As a long shot, selecting a different port was taken, port 160. The current external IP address for the web page being tested at the time of this writing if you want to test it is, http://71.118.77.22:160/.

So far with all the testing I have done, my external IP address been blocked from all but the local computers on my network.

All the Best,

Rich

[MikeC]

Re: Inconsistent Access Between Alpha App Server and NoIP Address

Not that I will be of any help but your link connects with Firefox and IE

This is a test.

[CraigSchumacker]

Re: Inconsistent Access Between Alpha App Server and NoIP Address

Rich:

Mike is correct. That is working.

You are running an outdated version of version 9's application server, according to the page, but that may or may not presently be so... Please update it. That may solve a problem, or two...

Now, you need to swing the listening part over to 80, and see if we can use the IP Address to see you "This is a test" page, or if something is blocking it. Please use netstat again, to confirm port 80 is listening.

Let us know when this is done... We'll see if it is working for you.

After this, we go to NO-IP and get that working, while monitoring the original issues you were having, hoping the update (if truly needed) to the latest version resolves it.

Craig

[aschone]

Re: Inconsistent Access Between Alpha App Server and NoIP Address

Since you have DHCP enabled you will want to verify that your DHCP server is providing your laptop the same IP every time your IP lease expires.

I was able to view your test web page. Is this the same web page that has been causing you the issues?

It is possible that your external IP address is changing causing your connection to drop. On the flip side however the link you provided is still functional so the IP hasn't changed since you originally posted.

Redo your tests that you were performing previously when you first noticed the issue; i.e. test from a machine that is external to your network. Test until the issue is recreated then attempt to ping the dns name and ping the actual IP address. Also do a telnet of the port and a tracert of the IP. Run a tracert prior to the issue occurring so you have a baseline to compare to.

[RRTRACKS]

Re: Inconsistent Access Between Alpha App Server and NoIP Address

Andy,

The comments you have provided on this problem have been useful. As the problem appears to have been solved yet again, thanks. With my record on understanding this problem being solved, I might be back.

Craig,

This is a bit OT off topic but important to the discussion here.

Let us be clear that according to my web page you did not determine the version of the Alpha Server being used. The ability to do that would suggest a flaw in the implication of the Alpha Server based upon the information provided by the Web pages it provides. At least with the version of Alpha I have it was found an update to the server could not be done by downloading and installing, but by a download and selecting the run option. This would account for you being aware of the version I am using with your background and the friends it would be expected you would have.

Port 80 is visible on the computer hosting the Alpha Server and although somewhat embarrassing to admit after all that has gone on here, my version of the Alpha Server has now been updated.

For testing purposes the Web link setup with No-IP is www.wpicks.mypsx.net if this fails to work I will be back and we can give yet another run at solving this problem.

All the Best,

Rich

[MikeC]

Re: Inconsistent Access Between Alpha App Server and NoIP Address

Rich,
No go with No-IP....if this were a FTP server with this problem I would be thinking a firewall issue. Regarding your application version...maybe Craig was able to infer this from the HTML editor version that is found in the page source of your webpage.

<html>
<head>
<meta name="generator" content="Alpha Five HTML Editor Version 9 Build 1471-3180">
<title></title>
</head>
<body>
<p>This is a test.</p>
</body></html>

[aschone]

Re: Inconsistent Access Between Alpha App Server and NoIP Address

I believe I have identified the issue.

When a client first contacts your site they will do a DNS lookup of your IP address. This results in the external IP address of your edge device for your network. This part is working correctly.

Your edge device then forwards the request onto the machine hosting the A5 web server. The A5 web server gets the requests sends a response back to the client. This part is all working correctly.

The issue is that the response is including your internal IP address of the machine hosting the A5 web server, not the IP address of the edge device for your network. After the initial handshake takes place the client then tries to open the web page but will do so using the internal non-routable IP address. Since the IP address is non-routable this will fail for any client who is outside of your internal network.

[RRTRACKS]

Re: Inconsistent Access Between Alpha App Server and NoIP Address

Mike,

Thank you for providing the clarification about the information that can be viewed on a web page along with the testing and results you have provided.

Craig,

From my previous comments I came from the attitude, assume the worst and then fire off. Given the help you have provided, it was very wrong for me to have done this. Please accept my apology for being a jerk. I have felt more badly than you might imagine for having made this mistake.

Andy,

It should be obvious from some of the mistakes and comments made on this board; I am a novice to networking issues. Some might say a novice to common sense as well. Previous comments have indicated a successful link to my web page from outside my network. Is the issue you raised related to the No-IP link problem?

All the Best,

Rich

[aschone]

Re: Inconsistent Access Between Alpha App Server and NoIP Address

Andy,

It should be obvious from some of the mistakes and comments made on this board; I am a novice to networking issues. Some might say a novice to common sense as well. Previous comments have indicated a successful link to my web page from outside my network. Is the issue you raised related to the No-IP link problem?

All the Best,

Rich

No-IP is not the issue. When resolving the No-IP address it is returning the correct external IP.

C:\Documents and Settings\andy>nslookup wpicks.mypsx.net
Server:  sierra.awsnet.local
Address:  10.1.1.100

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    wpicks.mypsx.net
Address:  72.5.169.70

Something else is causing the web page to send out the internal IP. I am using Firefox with the NoScript addon. It is the NoScript addon that is informing me of the error. What is that is actually causing it, I do not know; that part is beyond my knowledge.