[AG-TECH] AccessGrid Venue Server installation - network problems

[Thomas D. Uram]

Hi Sebastian:

Some comments inline...

On 1/25/06 5:25 AM, Sebastian Tabarce wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> I'm trying to install a Venue Server and a Bridge Server. So, I have 
> installed two machines and everything works fine inside our network.
> Then I spoked with the network administrators and asked them to make my 
> machines visible to the outside in order that people can connect to my 
> server from anywhere.
> The machines that I'm using have addresses like 192.168..... They also 
> have assigned names, like silicon.fe.up.pt and poly.fe.up.pt.
> What they did was that they linked two IP adresses (visible to the 
> outside of the network) to my machines, like 193.136.28.183 and 
> .184...... , opened ports 8000, 8002, 8004, 8006 for the Venue Server 
> and 50000-50010 for the Bridge Server and they told me to use those 
> addresses. However, the machines are not visible to the outside with 
> their names.
> So, people try to connect to my Venue Server at 
> https://193.136.28.183:8000/Venues/default. I can see them trying to 
> connect, they even appear for a short time in my venue client, but they 
> never manage to connect to the server. I suspect this is because my 
> server reports itself as https://silicon.fe.up.pt:8000/Venues/default 
> and that is why everything gets mixed up when they try to connect.
> I know that it would be simple just to make this machine visible to the 
> outside as silicon.fe.up.pt and see what happens, but, due to the 
> network policies applied here at the university and to the fact that the 
> administrators are damn sttuborn I can't do that. To them, they already 
> made me a favor by assigning those IP's and opening the ports 
> temporarily to test this, which would have required some paperwork from 
> me to be done, that had to be approved in 3 places, I think some of you 
> know the drill......they say everything works fine and from here it's 
> not their problem........but I think that the problem is that the 
> machine should be visible on the internet as silicon.fe.up.pt.
> So, let me know what you think of this....


You are right that the problem is that venue clients try to connect to
the server using the hostname which does not resolve for them.
You should try setting the GLOBUS_HOSTNAME environment variable
to the IP address of the machine before running the venue server.
This will make all the references passed to venueclients use the IP
address, and allow them to connect.

> 
> Also, another question........what ports should be opened for the Venue 
> Client?... Because I have a case where people can connect to the server, 
> shared presentations work fine, however audio and video does not work 
> for them, altough for other people it works fine (this was tested with a 
> different server of course :) ).

They should have the multicast range of IP addresses open for traffic if
they're using multicast.  If they're using a bridge, they should have their
firewall configured to allow traffic from the bridge machine in the range
of ports the bridgeserver is configured with.

> 
> And last, is there any Venue Server that also provides a Bridge Server 
> without the need to create an account and stuff that could be used only 
> for testing purposes.
> 

 From the lobby of the venue server at:

https://vv2.mcs.anl.gov:9000/Venues/default

you'll see the Community Lobby.  All of the rooms in the Community Lobby
can be used; there is even a Test Room.  Also, all of these venues are bridged.
If you have any trouble with them, please let us know.

Tom