HCHTech
Well-Known Member
- Reaction score
- 4,308
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA - USA
I'm having a little tiff with the support department of the postage meter vendor at a clients. It stopped communicating with mothership last week (part of how you reload it with postage $).
So...the client has a Server 2012 domain, the workstations are all Win7 Pro and they have a Sonicwall behind a Comcast gateway in bridge mode with a static IP. The postage meter is connected via USB to one of the workstations, and there is software resident on that workstation to control the meter.
We didn't change anything on the server or Sonicwall, and I can find no evidence that the client changed anything (no new software installed on the workstation, for example).
The vendor gave me a short list of ports that have to be opened to the workstation that talks to the meter. 20, 21, 53, 1023. There was also a string of IP addresses to whitelist. Neither the port-forwarding or IP whitelisting was ever required before, mind you, and the meter had been working for well over a year with no special setup. Trying to help them check their boxes and maybe start suspecting that the meter itself as the problem, I give that workstation a DHCP reservation and create the port forwarding in the Sonicwall. This doesn't help the problem, but the vendor is saying the port forwarding isn't working because they bring up www.yougetsignal.com/tools/open-ports on the workstation and it reports the ports are closed.
First of all, I'm not sure sites like this are definitive, and second of all, the fact pattern makes me think the problem is more mechanical instead of configuration. They are having none of this, however, basically telling me to figure it out and call back once I get a positive result on their port-checker website.
I've tried disabling the Windows firewall on the workstation as a test, as well as recreating the forwarding order extra-carefully in the Sonicwall - all to no avail. The port-checker site still reports those ports closed from the workstation. It's a bit of a drive so I was hoping to do this all remotely, but I think I'll end up going out there tomorrow. Plus, it's late - maybe another look with fresh eyes tomorrow.
So...the client has a Server 2012 domain, the workstations are all Win7 Pro and they have a Sonicwall behind a Comcast gateway in bridge mode with a static IP. The postage meter is connected via USB to one of the workstations, and there is software resident on that workstation to control the meter.
We didn't change anything on the server or Sonicwall, and I can find no evidence that the client changed anything (no new software installed on the workstation, for example).
The vendor gave me a short list of ports that have to be opened to the workstation that talks to the meter. 20, 21, 53, 1023. There was also a string of IP addresses to whitelist. Neither the port-forwarding or IP whitelisting was ever required before, mind you, and the meter had been working for well over a year with no special setup. Trying to help them check their boxes and maybe start suspecting that the meter itself as the problem, I give that workstation a DHCP reservation and create the port forwarding in the Sonicwall. This doesn't help the problem, but the vendor is saying the port forwarding isn't working because they bring up www.yougetsignal.com/tools/open-ports on the workstation and it reports the ports are closed.
First of all, I'm not sure sites like this are definitive, and second of all, the fact pattern makes me think the problem is more mechanical instead of configuration. They are having none of this, however, basically telling me to figure it out and call back once I get a positive result on their port-checker website.
I've tried disabling the Windows firewall on the workstation as a test, as well as recreating the forwarding order extra-carefully in the Sonicwall - all to no avail. The port-checker site still reports those ports closed from the workstation. It's a bit of a drive so I was hoping to do this all remotely, but I think I'll end up going out there tomorrow. Plus, it's late - maybe another look with fresh eyes tomorrow.
