MediaSmartServer.net
http://www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/

WHS Port Forward Add-In
http://www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4987		 Page 3 of 5
Author:  alexh [ Sun Aug 02, 2009 3:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: WHS Port Forward Add-In
yakuza wrote:
Very strange that you don't have the Interop file on your EX470, mine at the same software version DOES have it.

My EX470 appears to be a pre-release version. The discs that came with it were DVD-R with names suffixed with RC and the unit's BIOS says R02-t01

All the files on C: when I first used it yesterday were dated June 2007. I then updated online to the latest versions WHS and HP MSS.

Could it be that this "Interop file" was only included on the finally released version of the EX470 and has not been updated and thus not been part of any update?
Author:  JohnBick [ Sun Aug 02, 2009 6:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: WHS Port Forward Add-In
Makes me wonder, alexh, if this is the root of all the other problems you seem to be having...
Author:  yakuza [ Sun Aug 02, 2009 9:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: WHS Port Forward Add-In
phlow - try a reset of the Home Server Console or a reboot of your server if you've not tried that yet.

alexh, I saw you mention that elsewhere, those are old versions of the software and there may very well have been issues upgrading to 1.3 versions.
Author:  yakuza [ Sun Aug 02, 2009 10:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: WHS Port Forward Add-In
I've released version 1.0.0.10 that should fix the issues DieHard and Jim had. This should also fix the issue alexh had with the FileNotFound exception. PLEASE LET ME KNOW if you are still seeing issues. Jim and Diehard, you also have PM from me momentarily. 8)

CBick, it's quite possible that even though you are seeing the Health Notification, your Remote Access may still be working. I'd suggest testing it prior to performing a reconfigure, just to see. In the past I have experienced this and just have that notification suppressed so I don't see it.

Thanks for your patience and the debug help while I resolved this issue.
Author:  alexh [ Mon Aug 03, 2009 2:44 am ]
Post subject:  Re: WHS Port Forward Add-In
yakuza wrote:
alexh, I saw you mention that elsewhere, those are old versions of the software and there may very well have been issues upgrading to 1.3 versions.

Yeah, but without a set of official discs though, there is nothing I can do :(
Author:  alexh [ Mon Aug 03, 2009 1:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: WHS Port Forward Add-In
I've just updated to 1.0.0.10. I can confirm I can now use the interface to add ports. No more errors

Quote:
WHS Port Forward requires no setup or configuration, it will list all known port forwards that are actively set up by Windows Home Server.

Is it normal for WHS Port Forward to find no known port forwards the first time it is used? I do not think this is normal. Should I not have HTTP, HTTPS and RDP proxy already setup as showin the the picture on the first post?

I tried to add 80, 443 and 4125 and the "Created by" column says WHS. I add a random port and it says "WHS Port Forward".

I am yet to confirm that it is actually forwarding the ports to my O2 Box II wireless router.
Author:  yakuza [ Mon Aug 03, 2009 1:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: WHS Port Forward Add-In
Is WHS able to configure Remote Access successfully? Can you share a screenshot of the Remote Access status? If the WHS ports don't appear upon initial run, then most likely WHS is not able to configure your router, and thus this Add-In will not be able to.
Author:  jc634 [ Mon Aug 03, 2009 8:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: WHS Port Forward Add-In
Hi Alex,

Installed 1.0.0.10. Opened up the add-in in Settings. Showed the normal WHS ports 80, 443, and 4125 being open.

It did not show another port I added in the router for Passmark's Performance Test.

Clicked on Add. It did NOT kill the console! I attempted to add a "test" port. WHS Port Forward shows it being added, but the router does not. Which is exactly what happened when WHS orginally tried to auto-configure the ports for remote access. My router does not play well in the UPnP arena.

I was also able to remove the "test" port w/o anything bad happening.

It is quite unfortunate that routers and UPnP (in general) leave much to be desired. Especially when this router is still offered on Newegg, which classifies it is a late-model router.
Author:  yakuza [ Mon Aug 03, 2009 9:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: WHS Port Forward Add-In
Thanks for the detailed testing results, Jim. If you look in the Application Event Viewer logs on the server I suspect you'll see wording to the effect of "exception adding port but it likely succeeded". This is due to the way WHS reports status when it isn't sure adding the port was successful or not. Keep in mind that this add-in isn't querying your router for the ports it has forwarded, but is querying WHS for the ports it has set up to be forwarded in your router, which is why your Passmark port didn't show up.

I think in a future version of this add-in I need to figure out a better way to test that this worked or not; I have some ideas on this but am keeping them to myself for now... ;)
Author:  Spike [ Mon Aug 03, 2009 10:27 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: WHS Port Forward Add-In
Edit: Here's original quote that got deleted-
Thanks CBick!

Spike, it's not clear to me what the problem is you are experiencing with remote access, but I doubt this Add-In will resolve it. However if you start a Troubleshooting forum post we can investigate there and try to get things working well for you.


Probem:
I can configure router through remote access, and it tests fine internally. I can scab onto a neighbor's wireless signal and verify that external access works also. The settings just don't hold for more than a day, and I continually have to repair router configuration through remote access. Have a HP MSS EX485. Router is a netgear WNR854T gigabit N. It's UPnP compatible, and is great in all other respects (except for the first time it bricked!). It looked like your add-in was the fix I wanted, but it made no difference. Feel free to relocate this post to any forum you think is appropriate (still new at this)....
Thanks.
Spike
Author:  JohnBick [ Mon Aug 03, 2009 10:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: WHS Port Forward Add-In
Spike wrote:
Probem:
I can configure router through remote access, and it tests fine internally. I can scab onto a neighbor's wireless signal and verify that external access works also. The settings just don't hold for more than a day, and I continually have to repair router configuration through remote access. Router is a netgear WNR854T gigabit N. It's UPnP compatible, and is great in all other respects (except for the first time it bricked!). It looked like your add-in was the fix I wanted, but it made no difference. Feel free to relocate this post to any forum you think is appropriate (still new at this)....
Thanks.
Spike

Sounds to me like the IP address is changing daily -- either that of the server on the internal LAN or of your client externally... What name service are you using? Do you have fixed IP locally? Do you have a fixed IP through your ISP?
Author:  yakuza [ Tue Aug 04, 2009 9:36 am ]
Post subject:  Re: WHS Port Forward Add-In
Spike, I agree with John for the troubleshooting steps. This Add-In uses the WHS functionality to open additional ports, so it will behave the same as the WHS Remote Access configuration.
Author:  Spike [ Tue Aug 04, 2009 11:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: WHS Port Forward Add-In
1. Service is familyname.hphomeserver.com with TZO.com.
2. I believe it's dynamic (shown on the router configuration site).I hope that's what you were asking... And the IP addresses of the home server and the remote access website (shown on the MSS console) are always the same: 75.xxx and 192.xxx.
3. Not sure about the ISP. How can I find out?
My original plan was to lock in a static IP address and do port forwarding manually by following a detailed procedure that I found on another home server site. Do you think that's still an option?

JohnBick wrote:
Spike wrote:
Probem:
I can configure router through remote access, and it tests fine internally. I can scab onto a neighbor's wireless signal and verify that external access works also. The settings just don't hold for more than a day, and I continually have to repair router configuration through remote access. Router is a netgear WNR854T gigabit N. It's UPnP compatible, and is great in all other respects (except for the first time it bricked!). It looked like your add-in was the fix I wanted, but it made no difference. Feel free to relocate this post to any forum you think is appropriate (still new at this)....
Thanks.
Spike

Sounds to me like the IP address is changing daily -- either that of the server on the internal LAN or of your client externally... What name service are you using? Do you have fixed IP locally? Do you have a fixed IP through your ISP?
Author:  yakuza [ Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:15 am ]
Post subject:  Re: WHS Port Forward Add-In
When you say "The settings just don't hold for more than a day, and I continually have to repair router configuration through remote access", do you mean that Remote Access no longer works, or that WHS simply reports that it cannot verify that it is working? The latter case is unfortunately a common occurrence, where WHS reports something is wrong when things are really working fine. However if you are seeing that Remote Access is indeed no longer accessible at these times, then something is going wrong.

You can follow the Static IP tutorial, however I recommend "DHCP Reservation" or static DHCP instead of a static IP address, if your router supports it. This will cause your router to always assign the same IP address to your server based on MAC address, without having to set a static IP on the server which can be potentially problematic since it is a headless unit.
Author:  Spike [ Fri Aug 07, 2009 5:04 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: WHS Port Forward Add-In
Well, both.
The remote access tab on MSS console will correctly report that remote access is not available. I will press the "repair" button, which almost always works (if not, I'll press "turn off", then "turn on"). Connection will be "available", at which point I'll verify that I can access the picture viewer, shared folders, etc. internally via the IP address 192.xxx. Then I'll scab onto a neighbors wireless network to verify external connection using the familyname.hphomeserver.com url. All is good for a while. I'll even verify from a work computer, but eventually I will not be able to connect remotely and I'll get an "error - timed out" message. Then I "repair" again when I get home.
For what it's worth, the port forwarding tables on the UPnP tab of my netgear router's web setup page seems to be correct, showing the three specified ports.
Now to be clear, I was going to use "tutorial: setting a static LAN IP on your HP mediasmart server" at myhomeserver.com as my guide for setting up a static IP address on my server, but that tutorial specifically recommends setting a static IP as opposed to DHCP, then maual port forwarding. Something about the server LAN IP eventually changing and breaking the port forwarding.
Which way do I go?
By the way, your fix for the photo viewer orientation problem was pretty cool. That one had been driving me nuts. One of the main attractions to MSS was the ability to easily share pictures with remote family members (hence the heartburn with Remote Access). Thanks again.

Edit: I think I just realized what you said about the problem with a headless unit (no keyboard access to server system files?): To change the IP address internally I would have to "remote desktop" my way into the server. If that's the case, this particular tutorial sounds like it gives pretty specific instructions. Let me know what you think...

yakuza wrote:
When you say "The settings just don't hold for more than a day, and I continually have to repair router configuration through remote access", do you mean that Remote Access no longer works, or that WHS simply reports that it cannot verify that it is working? The latter case is unfortunately a common occurrence, where WHS reports something is wrong when things are really working fine. However if you are seeing that Remote Access is indeed no longer accessible at these times, then something is going wrong.

You can follow the Static IP tutorial, however I recommend "DHCP Reservation" or static DHCP instead of a static IP address, if your router supports it. This will cause your router to always assign the same IP address to your server based on MAC address, without having to set a static IP on the server which can be potentially problematic since it is a headless unit.
Page 3 of 5 All times are UTC - 7 hours [ DST ]
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group
http://www.phpbb.com/