This is kind of a weird problem that I am having. For the past year or so we have had an Ignition server on a site that we would connect into just using port forwarding through a router. Just recently we have worked to switching over to using a VPN. I’m not a VPN guy and was not part of them team working on the switch (very large company where this server is located and they have their own IT department for working on the network). But what I do know is that is called Network Connect (Juniper?) and that it uses JSAM (Java Secure Application Manager) for the connection.
Now the strange thing is that I have had no issue using the software on the Mac before the switch. I also know the VPN is working because I can launch a remote desktop program and control the server that Ignition is loaded on through the VPN on a Mac. But whenever I launch the Ignition client/designer on a Mac over the VPN it will not load. Just kind of stalls out and sits there. It did connect once but it was beyond slow, while at the same time the remote desktop was extremely fast (have not been able to replicate the connection to Ignition since).
At the same time I am able to use a PC and connect to Ignition client/designer over the VPN with no problems. Any thoughts? Really kind of stumped on this. Any kind of weird relationships between Macs, Java, and Ignition that I need to be aware of?
Firewalls allow all traffic on port 8088 to the Ignition server. I didn’t open 8043 because I have not been using it. Would this be an issue? I wouldn’t think so since I have no problem on a PC with only 8088 open.
Thanks,
-Will
Enable the Java console and then try launching the client and designer. Pay attention to the URL it’s using to connect - maybe the URL contains a hostname that your Windows machines can resolve but the Mac can’t.
Thanks for the feedback Kevin!
I guess this leads to another issue. Over the VPN I cannot launch the Ignition gateway page and therefore cannot launch the JNLP file from the browser to get a Java log. This is the case for both Mac and PC, but the gateway works fine on both when not on the VPN. Does this sound like a firewall issue? I’ve been working with the IT team to try and figure out why the gateway doesn’t launch but we haven’t had any success. The only port allowed currently is 8088. Does port 80 need to be enabled as well for the gateway to launch?
Has anyone else run across this issue that you know of?
Thanks again,
-Will
Just 8088 is needed unless you have SSL enabled.
Can you even ping the Ignition gateway’s IP?
In addition to my second post above I finally got the Ignition client to launch. Only 20 minutes after I clicked on it. The hangup occurs before the Ignition loading screen appears and right after the “Java 7…” loading screen goes away. Sits in that limbo state for about 15-20 minutes. Then once it starts to load the client the speed is back to normal.
In the java console there are 2 lines in the beginning (after CacheEntry) that say “Missing Permissions manifest attribute for: http…launchclient.jar” and “Missing Codebase manifest attribute for: http…launchclient.jar”. And then there are 2 more lines immediately after that are repeats of these lines. After that it is “Starting Bootstrap Loader v2.0” , etc. Everything in the console loaded quickly. The hang up was before the console even launched.
Not sure if this will help at all.
Thanks,
-Will