Topic: port forwarding problems again

[mike_mattos]

I'm again having port forwarding issues with SME7
An SME6 machine with identical settings is working. (both forward 4899 to the same XP machine )

Tonight I noticed that if I browse to x.x.x.1:4899 on the sme6, I immediately get a white screen, but at x.x.x.2:4899 SME7, I get an hourglass!

This is the symptom of  a port that isn't open!  ( Typical closed port like 4111 gives the hourglass on both systems )

IP tables are the same on both machines with one exception, on the SME6 there is no space after the target machine name  (pc-0056.mydomain.catcp vs pc-0056.myotherdomain.com tcp) but it is the SME6 that works!

all suggestions welcomed

[JonB]

Are you doing this from inside or outside the local network.

Is the XP firewall set to accept connections on that port from the SME7 machine.

Jon

[mike_mattos]

outside!   apart from sme6 & sme7, the two servers are the same

except different domain names

sme6 port forwards, sme7 does not

[CharlieBrady]

outside!   apart from sme6 & sme7, the two servers are the same

except different domain names

sme6 port forwards, sme7 does not

You cannot port forward to a single machine through two different gateways. Only the gateway which is set as the default gateway on the machine you are forwarding to will appear to work.

Note that this has nothing specific to do with any version of SME server - it's just the way that NAT works.

[mike_mattos]

That certainly seems to be the case!   But how do I tell the XP target machine to use a different gateway?   There is nothing to configure beyound choosing a port and IP range , and both servers are in the range.

The XP application is Remote Administrator, and as near as I can tell, within my LOCAL network, I can have multiple simultaneous connections, also can have multiple connections through the gateway!

I was hoping to be able to monitor the XP via both the main and backup server in case one should crash!

Well, I'll shut down the old system & see what happens!

[mbachmann]

Try to add a 2nd standard gateway (the SME 7) in the XP network settings/tcp ip properties an see if it works.

[mike_mattos]

Didn't work ( 2nd gateway ), also

MS knowledge base indicates that they still haven't solved the problems of auto repairing gateway issues, an app apparently frequently continues to use the original gateway but a new connection frequenlty finds the alternate
( with emphasis that self repair is unreliable )

My "solution" will be to use a hardware router/firewall direct to the XP as the back door instead of using the backup server.