WGIC and "Page cannot be displayed"

[Alexmillo]

Hello,

I'm experiencing a weird thing: two computers on my network, using WGIC to get to the internet, sometimes can't navigate, because the message "page cannot be displayed" appears (or something similar: "Access denied" or "You're not authorised to view this page" are the most frequent). If they try to reload the page for many times, it can happen that the page is showed. And while they're browsing, the problem appears from time to time, expecially when they load dynamic pages (i.e. web-mail pages, like hotmail, when they send a message, or msn.com, loading the home page).

Here's my network configuration: two PCs with Windows Xp Pro and WGIC installed. One Server running Win 2003 server and Wingate 6.1.1.
Wingate has dhcp enabled and it assigns the IPs to the two clients.
The two clients must authenticate through WGIC to be able to reach internet. Extended networking NAT is enabled. No proxy.
Internet is provided by a DSL connection 1280/256.
Please ask me if you need more specific information about the system configuration.

Hope that you can help me, because these two computers act like a sort of internet cafè, and people pay to use them, and they are very upset if things do not work properly. I've tried to disable the WGIC on these machines, but the problem still occurs.

Is it possible that heavy traffic on my network could somehow interfere with wingate ? I explain better: I've other computers, which do not need to be authenticated, connected to the same wingate server, and they are using NAT too. Sometimes I use one of them with peer-to-peer applications (E-mule or Limewire) and a lot of traffic is generated through the network, causing a general slowdown of internet connection.
Anyway, I've also tried to turn off this software with no luck.

Let me know, please !!!

Alessandro

[Pascal]

My first thought would be that this could be an issue with license over-use. Is the number of concurrently signed in computers getting close to your license size?

[Alexmillo]

Yes, it's possible. I've a 6 users licence, and computers on my network are a couple more, but i'm sure that no more than 6 computers use Wingate at the same time.
But the Wingate server counts for one ?? If yes, then the computers would be 7 concurrently...... sigh !!

Anyway, periodically I receive a message in System messages for an Illegal Wingate licence. In the description, it says: "Warning, the licence you are using has failed validation (The licence has been upgraded). Please go to http://www.wingate.com to verify or obtain a valid licence, or your Wingate installation may be disabled"

I've two licences, both for 6 users: one is a Wingate 6.x Professional 6 concurrent users, the other is a Wingate 6.x Enterprise 6 concurrent users.

Please, let me know for sure, because I do not wish to upgrade my licence without having the real need :)

Thanks in advance
Alessandro

[Pascal]

The WinGate Server does not use a license. However, remember that some machines could be doing something as simple as a Windows Update or other, background internet activity which would show you that message.

You could switch on the "License Violations" logging option for ENS and WRP Service. (As you primarily seem to be using those two). That should make it easy to see if this is indeed the problem.

I've queried the license validation error, will respond as soon as I know more.

[Alexmillo]

thanks for now !

[adrien]

The message "The licence has been upgraded" means literally that. That particular license that was being checked has been traded in on a new one already.

We consider traded-in licenses to be invalid, since we effectively bought them back off you by offering a substantial discount on the upgrade.

It's fairly common however for people to not remove their original license when they upgrade, but simply add the new one in as well. If you want to stop getting this message, you'll need to deactivate the license that was upgraded.

Regards

Adrien

[Alexmillo]

As far I've understood, I must remove/disable the wingate 6.x professional licence, is it right ?

[Pascal]

Was that the one you traded in for the Enterprise license?

[Alexmillo]

yes, it is

But what if I wish to upgrade to a 12 users licence ? Have I to upgrade to an enterprise licence or I could downgrade to a professional ?
Because I really do not use all the functions of enterprise.

[Alexmillo]

I've made a list of the computers "related" to wingate: they're a total of 7, including the wingate server. Three computers in my office, two at my "internet point" and one in my private room. Plus the wingate server.

So i do not understand how could it be related to a licence over-use.

At the moment, all is running fine, but I have turned off the computer in my private room. For information, it is an Apple Mini-Mac, connected to the same network of the computers in my office, so it uses NAT too. And it's the computer that I use for downloading from peer-to-peer applications.

[adrien]

Hi

I think there is an upgrade path from enterprise 6 users to Professional 12 users. Not sure, but you can quickly check if you enter your enterprise license in our upgrade wizard - it will list all the options.

Adrien

[Alexmillo]

It was definiterly a licence violation problem. Too many users was attempting to access Wingate at the same time.... I still do not understand why, because I had six computers on and a 6 clients licence.

Anyway, I've upgraded to 12 clients licence and all is fine now.

Thanks for your help :)

[adrien]

hi Alex

Could there be any people connecting from the Internet to your server? e.g sending you mail? These will consume a license count.

It's pretty serious if your 6 user license wouldn't support 6 users!

the other way the number of users can exceed the number of machines is if you have any of the machines IPs entered into the "multi-user IP" dialog on the users tab. In that case, each such machine could appear as several users, depending on what was running on that machine.

Adrien

[Alexmillo]

I think you're right, Adrien.
When I run software like Emule, in the Activity window of Gatekeeper I see many IP numbers from outside using UDP or TCP services.

Is this kind of activity that consumes license counts ??
Is there a way to stop this (and still to be able to run Emule) ?

Now, I've upgraded my licence to 12 users, but the problem still continues; but if it's how you are explaining, only an unlimited clients licence can resolve the matter !!

I've run Emule or Limewire (and peer to peer software in general) many times before, but I've never had this kind of problems with licenses. Yes, maybe the connection wasn't so fast, but no other problems.

[Pascal]

External connections such as those from other Emule users will consume a license each too. So you will rapidly run out licenses when sharing files on a peer to peer network.

You can probably work around it by requiring a form of authentication (Which emule clients will never be able to have) or by throttling the number of clients connecting in to you. (Through E-Mule itself, if possible)

I'm not sure how this will affect your standing / ranking / ID within Emule though.

[Alexmillo]

so I have two ways:

1) to remove the computer I use for Emule from the network that uses wingate, connecting it directly to the router,

2) to leave all as it is, suffering for low-id on emule

Is it right ?

[Pascal]

In a nutshell, yes. WinGate counts concurrent connections from different machines; each machine takes a slot in the license. With P2P networks you are getting a lot of connections from a lot of different machines; each of those consume a license slot.

So you need to find a way around that; either by restricting what the P2P client uses, by bypassing WinGate for the machine that needs P2P access or by adjusting your license as necessary. [/u]