Network Testing

.Net Remoting Port Testing

The below steps can be used to troubleshoot remoting connectivity problems.

You can check if a port is open and accessible from Windows powershell (at least on Windows 10). Windows 7 you may need to use Telnet client or curl. tnc should work in Powershell on modern WinServer machines too.

In Windows 10: This is an example of a successful test: The EEPOS Service (OR SOMETHING) is running, listening on port 8080 and server BH is reachable.

Now the firewall port has been closed to block incoming connections to port 8080:

If it fails, possible reasons are:

1. Connection blocked by a firewall, internet security package (e.g. combined AV and firewall etc)

2. POS Service not running

3. POS Service not listening on the port you think it is (check POS settings):

4. Another problem on the clients network?

You can determine if it is (1) vs 2, 3, or 4 by repeating the tnc test on the store server itself. If the tnc test succeeds when run locally on the store server but fails when run remotely, then it is a network or firewall issue.

When running locally, make sure it runs against the LAN/WAN IP address and not LOCALHOST or 127.0.0.1. Best to use ipconfig to obtain the local machine's network IP address and test that explicitly:

tnc 192.168.2.53 -port 8080.

Also check that the till is correctly represented in the EEE database in ReplicationClientLogins:

select * from ReplicationClientLogins where TillCode = '078201'

Make sure the HostName and Port are correct. Use the hostname exactly as it appears in ReplicationClientLogins in the tnc test:

Another possibility is something else running on the machine using port 8080. If this is the case, reconfigure the pos service to use a different port. Note that port 8080 is sometimes used for http proxies. You can try moving the PosService to a different port and test again.

You can use netstat -a -b to check what is running on port 80 (and what IP address(es) it is bound to). If netstat output is too fast to read, redirect it to a file and review later. netstat -a -b > ns.txt. Note netstat can take a minute or two to complete - be patient!

This is the expected netstat output bound to my LAN ip address:

 TCP    192.168.2.53:8080      bh:0                   LISTENING  [PosService.exe]