WinGate Trial on a TOTALLY headless server! Can't reboot

[amaskell999]

I've installed the trial version of Wingate 7 on my HP HomeServer running Windows Personal Server 2003. I got it all set up ok and had it working using proxy calls from the server's own IE. I have yet to get it working from other devices on the network but that's another issue for later.

This server box is TOTALLY headless. It has no monitor socket although it will recognise a USB keyboard. It's supposed to be accessed (once it's booted up) from a remote access package supplied by HP but I ditched that ages ago in favor of Real VnC. I have VnC running as a service so I can normally get linked in from a remote PC early in boot process. The server has been rock solid and apart from when the supplied MacAffee total protection system got messed up I've never had it fail to boot up otherwise.

So can anybody tell me what it might be doing now? When I installed Wingate and got it configured the server still worked fine, even after a reboot. Now something has changed. The server starts up but something is stopping it getting the desktop loaded and the VnC service is obviously not running (or it's being blocked) as I can't connect from a remote PC to see what's going on. My Internet scanner says the server is online on the correct IP and I can ping it but the port scanner says no ports are open. I suspect something will be showing on the invisible "display" that I need to respond to but I have no idea what. I did manage to get it to reboot once by trying to type in a load of random keypresses (ctrl-alt-del, esc, tabs, returns, etc) so I suspect that there is some sort of login screen showing that includes a shutdown menu somewhere. Normally, the system is set to bypass the usual Windows user login so it reboots automatically every night without any user interaction.

The only thing I can think I might have changed is the WinGate setting that gets the ?firewall to load first to protect the system during boot up but I have no idea if this forces a login screen to appear.

Any ideas of what the system might be displaying and what I have to type in to get past it? I have not set a password for the Administrator account yet and my own username (with a password) has been added to admins group.

Thanks, Andy.

[amaskell999]

The option I'm talking about in my original post is in the Extended Network Driver config settings, General tab under the Firewall options. I activated the "Protect my system before WinGate has started" option.

Any ideas? Does this matter? What does this option actually do?

Ta, Andy.

[adrien]

Hi

I'm not sure what to suggest. If you have no way to get any sort of physical monitor attached (can you use a USB monitor?) then if there's a firewall preventing you from connecting with VNC, the only option I can think would be a reset and reinstall of the whole shebang.

Any sort of firewall software could end up doing this, so with headless (or remote desktop) situations it's vital to ensure your firewall will allow you continued access.

Normally with remote desktop, you still have a physical monitor attached to the hardware so can fall back to that. Server hardware has things like ILO etc which allows you complete access remotely over a LAN interface independent of the OS. There's nothing like this on your headless box?

Adrien

[amaskell999]

I had a nagging feeling you might say something like that. There is definately something comming up that I can interact with as I did manage to get the server to reboot whilst I was blindly typing stuff in on the keyboard but what is showing and thus what I am interacting with I have no idea. I had just hoped you might know. It certainly seems linked to enabling the "Protect system before WinGate loads" option.

The problem with USB monitors is that they all appear to need drivers installed. I do have a photoframe that can be used as a USB monitor but that also requires drivers to make it work. I guess I can try it and see what happens but I doubt if the system will have anything suitable it can use; but then again there's no harm in trying I guess. I'll see what's on the server installation disks that might help and take it from there.

Thanks, Andy.

[amaskell999]

PROBLEM SOLVED!!! - or maybe not!

Having spent endless days trying to find a way to get into my server to see what it's doing, it suddenly comes back on line - with everything working perfectly normally as before.

EXCEPT WinGate! Why? Because the trial licence has expired. No licence, no firewall, no problem!

So now what do I do? Do I buy a licence and then find my server locked out for a year or more, or scrap the idea of using Wingate all together?

Pity, it seems like a good idea to use it but I can't run the risk of this happening again and having no means of fixing it.

[adrien]

Hi

this problem you'll find isn't reserved just for WinGate.

Any firewall you install on that computer may prevent you from connecting to VNC. So whatever firewall you install, you'll need to be careful to add a setting to allow access to your VNC / Remote Desktop service so that you can continue to access it.

I'm picking that WinGate must have thought your adapter was external as well in order to firewall it. It doesn't deny connections to WinGate from LAN, only from the Internet, so I'm picking you're not using private IP addresses on your LAN. So you may want to set your adapter usage to internal if it is indeed internal.

Also, you can add a port range setting (under extended networking) to allow the port used for VNC.

You can re-activate your trial if you want to test it.

In fact do you even need WinGate's firewall at all? What are you planning on using WinGate for?

Regards

Adrien