remote control service - wingate 6.0.1 build 995

[han]

Hi,

When trying to access Wingate through Gatekeeper on another network PC, Gatekeeper logs in, starts and then shutsdown again in a flash. RCS is enabled for all internal adapters, link to /wingate has been mapped to check on history, etc. Its all there for less than a second and Gatekeeper shuts down again. Any thoughts on this one?

Regards,

Han.

[adrien]

Hi Han

We have had reports of this from one other customer, so you are part of an exclusive club. We are still trying to replicate the problem here, so any information you can give us about your setup would help.

When you activated WinGate, what sort of license did you activate? A trial, or a purchased key?

How many network adapters do you have and/or dialup connections?

I presume this is WinGate build 995?

Adrien

[han]

Hi Han

We have had reports of this from one other customer, so you are part of an exclusive club. We are still trying to replicate the problem here, so any information you can give us about your setup would help.

When you activated WinGate, what sort of license did you activate? A trial, or a purchased key?

*Activated from scratch with a purchased key (Wingate Pro 6 users)

How many network adapters do you have and/or dialup connections?

*There are two network adapters on the machine which runs as the Wingate server; one connects to the internet (external, adsl) the other to the local network (internal)

*The client machine on which I tried to run Gatekeeper has one adapter connecting to the local network.

*There are no dialup connections.

*Both machines are running Windows XP Pro fully patched but not SP2.

I presume this is WinGate build 995?

*Yep.

Adrien

Some more possibly interesting facts: when I start Gatekeeper locally, i.e. the exe which is on the local client machine, I get the result which I mentioned. However if I run Gatekeeper via the mapped link to the /wingate directory on the server it works fine apart from the history not showing; apologies for not using the correct english terms possibly but I'm running Windows XP Pro in the Dutch language version; but what I mean is that I've made a W: drive on the local machine which is the /Wingate directory on the server machine; starting Gatekeeper that way seems to work fine apart from the history pane remaining empty.

Also I just noticed that the Gatekeeper which exits immediately, does remain showing as an open session in Gatekeeper. That is when I open Gatekeeper using the w: drive option it shows two WinGate Login: register for everything sessions from the client machine in the activity pane.

Hope that provides some pointers.

Han.

[adrien]

Hi

Yes, that is quite helpful.

If you stop the engine, remove the history database files (history.*) from the WinGate directory, then start the engine again, does this solve the problem?

Adrien

[adrien]

Actually, if instead of deleting these files you could send me a copy to adrien at qbik dot com, then we can try and figure out what particular problem with these files may be causing the issue. That is of course if these files are to blame.

Thanks

Adrien

[han]

Adrien,

I've deleted both the history files but this hasn't solved anything. The problem remains. I can send you the files but the dbf is around 14 Mb, are you sure you want to receive that :o) ? Just to be sure: there are two issues here (1) gatekeeper dissapearing as soon as login has occurred when running the gatekeeper.exe on a local client as opposed to starting gatekeeper.exe on the local server via a mapped drive; (2) the history pane not showing in gatekeeper on the local client, history is showing when gatekeeper is running on the local server i.e. the pc which has wingate on it. Hope that clarifies it a bit further.

Han.

[han]

Just to add some more: when gatekeeper dissapears after 3 secs it does indeed still show as running in taskmanager which is probably why I get two or more log ins showing as mentioned before; it seems that the process runs but the user interface just shuts down.

[Pascal]

One thing for me then, please. Look in the folder where GateKeeper is running from. Make sure that the application (GK) is shut down and that all GateKeeper processes have been terminated.

Do you have a "DLL Cache" folder that lives off that root ? If yes, can you rename the files in there - should be 69*******.dll and 45 or 5d or 54*****.dll to .dll.old files (So they cease to exist, effectively, but without deleting them)

Then re-run GateKeeper. Secondly, do you have any data scanning plugins installed - including perhaps some of the older ones, such as GateFilter or Visnetic AntiVirus ?

Okay, just to double check as well so I can try to reproduce this one -

If you run GateKeeper from a client PC and connect to WinGate (No mapped drive) it disappears.

If you run GateKeeper from a client PC and connect to WinGate (Mapped drive) it's fine.

If you run GateKeeper from the local PC and connect to WinGate it's fine ? (Not so sure about that one)

[han]

One thing for me then, please. Look in the folder where GateKeeper is running from. Make sure that the application (GK) is shut down and that all GateKeeper processes have been terminated.

> hmm ... which folder do you mean, the one on the Wingate PC or the one on the client containing gatekeeper.exe?

Do you have a "DLL Cache" folder that lives off that root ? If yes, can you rename the files in there - should be 69*******.dll and 45 or 5d or 54*****.dll to .dll.old files (So they cease to exist, effectively, but without deleting them)

> On the Wingate PC there is a DLL Cache folder but it only contains one dll, a d468****.dll which I can't access presumably because Wingate is running. Do you want me to shutdown Wingate and the access this dll and change it to .old ?

Then re-run GateKeeper. Secondly, do you have any data scanning plugins installed - including perhaps some of the older ones, such as GateFilter or Visnetic AntiVirus ?

> I have no Gatefilter, Wingate has Kaspersky as plugin which is the latest version; on the client PC Kaspersky Anti-virus personal is running.

Okay, just to double check as well so I can try to reproduce this one -

If you run GateKeeper from a client PC and connect to WinGate (No mapped drive) it disappears.

> correct

If you run GateKeeper from a client PC and connect to WinGate (Mapped drive) it's fine.

> correct, apart from the missing history info in the history pane (also the big difference is that I'm effectively starting gatekeeper.exe on the Wngate PC using the mapped drive as opposed to the gatekeeper.exe in a local file on the client PC as in the former)

If you run GateKeeper from the local PC and connect to WinGate it's fine ? (Not so sure about that one)

> if by local PC you mean the PC which has Wingate installed on it, i.e. the 'server' that is also correct

[Pascal]

Thanks for that info. I tried it and it seemed fine. I'm starting to think this is going to be setup related - so to try and narrow that down ...

What OS are you running on the client computer ? And what version of IE / etc. ? Can you try this from different computers, please ? (If you have a second client, try logging in from that one, please) (Ditto for the server)

[han]

Thanks for that info. I tried it and it seemed fine. I'm starting to think this is going to be setup related - so to try and narrow that down ...

What OS are you running on the client computer ? And what version of IE / etc. ? Can you try this from different computers, please ? (If you have a second client, try logging in from that one, please) (Ditto for the server)

Hi Pascal,

Ok some setup info for you:

Wingate is running on 192.168.1.1, its a Dell Dimension DIM 4600, Pentium 4 - 2.8 GHz with 512 MB RAM; Windows XP Pro SP1; IE 6.0.2800.1106.xpsp2.030422-1633; both OS and IE fully patched

There are two client PC's: 192.168.1.2 which has an identical config to 192.168.1.1. The second client 192.168.1.3 (which is the one the problems were encountered on) is a Gateway Pentium 3 - 448 MHZ with 384 MB RAM; OS and IE identical to the other two PC's.

I tried the following on 192.168.1.3:
(1) Selective startup with all services etc disabled; result when starting gatekeeper local as previous: flash appearance.
(2) Diagnostic startup: same as (1)

When gatekeeper makes its flash appearance it seems that its just the GUI which dissapears; task manager shows gatekeeper as an active process and netstat gives an established connection between 192.168.1.3:1038 and 192.168.1.1:808.

I tried the following on 192.168.1.2:
(3) Downloaded gatekeeper.exe to the PC using the 'gatekeeper.exe' option using 'http://192.168.1.1:8010'
(4) Started Gatekeeper locally which resulted in a startup of the GUI but it only showed the left-hand window of Gatekeeper (system-services-users) with a white background and no content; the menu bar showed; the right hand window remained grey
(5) Started Gatekeeper using the mapped drive option, i.e. running Gatekeeper from 192.168.1.1: same result as (4)
(6) Just to make sure I shut down ZoneAlarm, Spy Sweeper and Kaspersky on 192.168.1.2 but this made no difference to the result.
(7) After exiting Gatekeeper there is no task or process showing in the Windows task manager.

Hoped this provides you with some more insight in the setup here. Also just to reiterate; it worked fine under the previous version of WinGate albeit that I didn't get the history info then but I hadn't tried the mapped drive in that setup.

Han.

[han]

Pascal,

Think I've cracked part of the problem. I decided to try to install Gatekeeper on my laptop as it had been working from there as well. At first I tried the version which was on it but obviously this wouldn't work as it was the 'old' version of gatekeeper.exe. I then downloaded gatekeeper.exe directly to d:/program files/wingate directory through the utility 'http://192.168.1.1:8010'. I started gatekeeper, logged in and to my amazement all worked. I then compared the directory with the directory on 192.168.1.3. What I noticed was that on the laptop apart from gatekeeper.exe also a subdirectory /dll cache was added with a dll file.

I remembered that as the download hadn't worked through the utilty mentioned on 192.168.1.3, I had directly copied gatekeeper.exe to a directory d:/program files/gatekeeper. I changed this to d:/program files/wingate and copied the subdirectory /dll cache to it. He presto, it worked and gatekeeper is running. Actually its running on all machines now so the missing /dll cache seems to have been the problem.

Learning point is that to install gatekeeper on a client machine, create a directory /wingate and use the gatekeeper.exe utility to copy gatekeeper directly to this directory as this will also create the /dll cache subdirectory. Any other methods will not work.

Then the history pane. This remains quite empty. I also notice that when I do a right click properties, the database path is greyed out and is the actual wingate directory on 192.168.1.1. Making a mapped drive to this directory doesn't seem to make any sense if you can't point to it. Am I doing something wrong here?

For the moment I'm quite relieved I've solved it, getting the history info would be an added bonus :o)

Han

[HenriLemmers]

Hello Han,

I may have the solution to your history pane.
I use to start Gatekeeper by a shortcut to the exe-file on the mapped directory of my server (\\GW\Wingate). Also the "start in" folder is directed to the mapped drive, and all works well.
As I installed Gatekeeper on the local machine (in Program files\Wingate) I also had a blank History pane. I think this is because Gatekeeper is looking for the history file in the local directory where it is not.
I started using the mapped drive because I also wanted to use Kaspersky's scan on my local machine from within Gatekeeper, which only worked with the mapped drive, as it to is looking for its files in the "current" directory.

Henri

[Pascal]

That's what I saw yesterday as well here. For some or other reason - GateKeeper is not allowed to create the "DLLCache" directory and copy the files across. I'm trying to reproduce it in a debugable environment, but no luck so far.

It should not be necessary to copy those files, as WinGate delivers the components GateKeeper needs - but obviously, if GateKeeper cannot create the file / folder it can't complete the process. It still shouldn't stop - and that's what I'm trying to track down at the moment.

Do you know if there is any difference between the folders that GateKeeper is located in for the different machines ? (Like permissions / compression / etc.)

[Pascal]

The rules for GateKeeper loading the history view is 'slightly' different with 6.0.

If you are logging in from the local machine:

It will first look in the path specified by the WinGate Engine. (This is the path you've set your history to, which defaults to WinGate's installation folder)

If that is not set, it will use the folder GateKeeper is in. E.g. C:\WinGate\GateKeeper.exe will look in C:\WinGate.

If you are logging in from a remote machine:

It will use the folder GateKeeper is in. E.g. Z:\GateKeeper.exe will look in Z:\.

If that fails, it will look at the current directory (Normaly specified as the working directory for a shortcut, etc.) to see if the files exist there.

The second case (Remote machine) is where the mapped drive works well - if you map Z:\ (Or whatever) to where WinGate is installed, and run GateKeeper from there - it should be fine and showing history. [/u]

[Pascal]

(4) Started Gatekeeper locally which resulted in a startup of the GUI but it only showed the left-hand window of Gatekeeper (system-services-users) with a white background and no content; the menu bar showed; the right hand window remained grey

That happens if the user who logs in to GateKeeper has insufficient rights to see various interesting bits of information. Were you using your adminsitrator / standard user to log in to GateKeeper when it had the other problem ?

[han]

That's what I saw yesterday as well here. For some or other reason - GateKeeper is not allowed to create the "DLLCache" directory and copy the files across. I'm trying to reproduce it in a debugable environment, but no luck so far.

It should not be necessary to copy those files, as WinGate delivers the components GateKeeper needs - but obviously, if GateKeeper cannot create the file / folder it can't complete the process. It still shouldn't stop - and that's what I'm trying to track down at the moment.

Do you know if there is any difference between the folders that GateKeeper is located in for the different machines ? (Like permissions / compression / etc.)

Hi Pascal,

I've had a look at the various folders but they're all 'standard', so no compression set or permissions. The only thing I can think off is that it went wrong when I tried to get Wingate to deliver to a folder which wasn't called 'Wingate'; i.e. E:/downloads or D:/program files/gatekeeper. When I tried it on the laptop it was straight to a folder D:/program files/wingate and that worked ok.

As far as the history info is concerned: I've tried this from all angles, but whatever I do, the history panel remains blank.

For the moment I'm satisfied though, all the other options work, including the cmd panel. The latter might be of interest because that gives access to the wingate folder on 192.168.1.1 irrespective from what remote I'm working and irrespective of which method I use to login; i.e. gatekeeper on the remote machine or through the mapped drive option.

Good luck!

Han.

[Pascal]

Hi Han,

A quick question regarding your setup. The details you gave about the machines seem to indicate they are all XP based. I just want to confirm this - because it seems as if certain versions of the kernel will complain (Notable 2K unpatched) if certain conditions are met. (That's how I managed to reproduce it here)

Do you have any machines running 2K that exhibited this problem?

[HenriLemmers]

Hi Han,

Once more on the history pane, I found out in the help file they do advise on the mapped drive settings:
History Tab


The History tab displays selected from the real time history database.

Right-clicking this viewer opens a context-sensitive menu with the following options.

Edit Columns – to select which columns you want to display in the History tab.
Clear History – to permanently delete all History records.
Blackhole IP – to ban a particular IP from accessing WinGate. Click here to learn more.
Properties – to configure general settings for the history tab. Click here to learn more.
Save History – Open a Save As window to save the history in a text file.


More info about History Tab:

- Previous session history is available in GateKeeper if you are logged in to localhost.
- Sessions are displayed in the order in which they terminated, oldest at the bottom of the screen. DNS requests are very fast due to DNS caching and usually display duration of 0 seconds.
- If your system crashes, the database may get corrupted. If GateKeeper does not seem to be able to log in even though the engine is running, this may be the problem. If you think this is the case, then stop WinGate, back up the two Database files and remove them from the WinGate directory. Restart WinGate. If GateKeeper then works, Database corruption was the problem. If not, put the files back in the directory.
- In order to view the History Database through a remote control session opf GateKeeper, you need to map a network drive to the \WinGate directory on the WinGate server that holds the GateKeeper.exe used for Logging in.
Especially the last paragraph. Your configuration states a start from D:\program files\wingate but I can't see if this is a local drive, or a mapped network drive from your wingate server.

I hope this helps.