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Checking IBM Director network ports are opened

Added by Stephane Bourdeaud, last edited by Jo Ann Hill on Mar 20, 2007

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IBM Director 5.20
About the authors When troubleshooting communication problems, it may be useful to check from the IBM
Director server or from a managed object that all necessary network ports for basic server
Command line tools <> agent communication are opened.
Discovery
Events Assuming your server and agent run the Windows operating system, the following
procedures will help you accomplish just that.
Extensions
FAQ
Getting started Checking that components are listening on the right
Groups network ports
Health checking There are quite a lot of network ports that IBM Director can be using depending on what
Help and support type of managed objects you have and what options you are using.

Ideas The basic network port for communication between the agent and the server and vice
versa is TCP 14247. We encourage you to check the documentation for a complete list of
Installation network ports used by IBM Director.
Changing the Because the IBM Director service process relies on twgipc (the IBM Director Support
encryption setting on Program service) to provide network activity, it is actually twgipc which is listening on this
port.
multiple agents
Whether twgipc is actually listening on this port can be verified by running the following
Cloning a Linux
command from a command prompt on a Windows 2003 or XP machine:
Agent
Communication netstat -anb
FAQ
If twgipc is actually listening on the correct port, you should find the following lines in the
Database output of the netstat command:
Preparation
Director DB2 TCP 0.0.0.0:14247 0.0.0.0:0 Listening 936
Remote Server Config [twgipc.exe]

ESX Server
installation
If you are not running the latest service pack on Windows 2003, you may have
Implementing
to run netstat -ano instead which will show the process ID owning the TCP or
SteelEye LifeKeeper UDP endpoint rather than the process name. You can then find out the process
Installation of the name by looking it up in the Task Manager (in which you may have to add the
Level 2 Agent in a process ID column to the default processes view).
CSM Environment
Installing IBM
If you are running a previous version of Windows, then you may have to use a
Director on System i
third party utility to monitor TCP and UDP endpoints for twgipc such as tcpview
Installing the IBM from Microsoft Sysinternals utilities
Director on System p (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/default.mspx).
and AIX5L
Installing the IBM
Director on System p If you do not find the above line in the output of the netstat command, you may want to
and SUSE Linux for restart the IBM Director Support Program service or reboot your IBM Director server.
Also check your Application and System event log to see if your IBM Director application
PPC
and service components are not reporting errors.
Installing the IBM
You may also find that another process is listening on that port which would cause IBM
Director on System x Director to not function properly.
and RHEL
Note that you can use the same command to make sure your IBM Director agent is also
Quick Install listening on those ports.
Guide
ServeRAID
Manager Agents Checking from that the network ports are opened from the
SNMP settings for server and the agent
IBM Director on
Now that you know the network ports are being listened to by twgipc, it is time to check
Windows platforms from the agent can see those ports on the server. That would not be the case for example
if you had a firewall blocking those ports between the agent and the server, thereby

http://www-01.ibm.com/redbooks/community/display/director/Checking+IBM+Director+n... 8/20/2010
Checking IBM Director network ports are opened - IBM Systems Director Best Practices ... Page 2 of 3

Special preventing all communication between the agent and the server and vice-versa.
considerations for IBM In order to do that, we need to use a network port scanner. There is no native Windows
Director 4.22 under command to do that, so in our example we will use FastSpy, an open source utility
Linux available from SourceForge. Download the source package
(http://sourceforge.net/projects/fastspy/), extract it and use the fs.exe file in the
Troubleshooting
fastspy\win32\release directory.
IBM Director
communication After copying FastSpy to the agent, we would run the following command from a
problems using command prompt (assuming your IBM Director server IP address is 192.168.1.1):
genevent
fs -p 14247 192.168.1.1
Checking IBM
Director network If the port scan is successful, the output will look something like this:
ports are opened
FastSpy v2.2.1 [25/08/1999] by NeuraL RevengE
Using IBM
Director Software Date: Jan 05 2007
Distribution Looking for port: 14247 [Unknown] in 192.168.1.1

Integration 18:07:55 Port 14247 found at 192.168.1.1 [unresolved]

Managing systems
running VMware ESX 1 occurence(s) have been found.
Out of band Scanning complete, Bye.
updates with Update
Reporting 0 Socket Buffer Error.
Manager
If the port scan is unsuccessful, then the output will look something like this:
Planning
Troubleshooting
FastSpy v2.2.1 [25/08/1999] by NeuraL RevengE
IBM Systems
Director 6.1 Date: Jan 05 2007
Recently updated Looking for port: 14247 [Unknown] in 192.168.1.1
pages
0 occurence(s) have been found.
Scanning complete, Bye.

Reporting 0 Socket Buffer Error.

This may mean a firewall is blocking the ports, or there is a TCP/IP routing issue between
the agent and the server.
Applying basic network troubleshooting techniques should get you out of trouble.

Note that FastSpy can only check TCP ports.

Hint!

You can use FastSpy to scan a remote server for a whole range of ports as well.
For example, if you wanted to scan ports 1 to 65535, you would run the
following command:

fs -f 1 -t 65535 MyServer

You must however be careful with port scanning as it can put a strain on your
network or be detected as an attempt to breach security on your network by
protocol analyzers or firewalls, so be sure to check with your IT Security service
before you use that tool that it is OK to do so.

You may now repeat the same operation from the server and using the agent IP address.

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Comments (1) €

belfordr says: Mar 03, 2008

Hello Stephane,

€The UNIX and Linux flavours also include the netstat command. Normal command to narrow in on port 14247 is

€ netstat -an | grep 14247

This wiki page would be good to expand for the other O/S out there.

€As for the other test it is possible to do€€€€€

http://www-01.ibm.com/redbooks/community/display/director/Checking+IBM+Director+n... 8/20/2010
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€ telnet serverhost 14247

which will attempt to login to the UNIX or Linux host at that port. (serverhost€can be the master or the agent host)

€If you are on the same subnet you should get a telnet session established (not necessarily a login prompt). If you get an immediate rejection to a remote host port, it is normally due
to your network infrastructure blocking access.€

Robert€

http://www-01.ibm.com/redbooks/community/display/director/Checking+IBM+Director+n... 8/20/2010