ISL Conference Proxy

 

I received an email "Authenticode will expire on YYYY-MM-DD" from ISL Conference Proxy, what should I do?

When the expiration date of the currently active codesign certificate on your ISL Conference Proxy server is getting close, you will start receiving emails with "authenticode expiry warning " in the subject and "Authenticode will expire on YYYY-MM-DD" in the body (where YYYY-MM-DD is the expiration date of the certificate).

If you take no action, then the signature past the reported date will no longer be valid for any executable (e.g. ISL Light Client) downloaded from your server, causing security warnings, issues or even blocks by security software when trying to run such executables.

In order to prevent such issues and make sure the downloaded executables from your server remain properly signed for you and your users, you should login to your ISL Online account, check that you have valid ESS (if not, purchase ESS), create a new packet, upload the resulting new licence file to your server and restart your ISL Conference Proxy to apply it.

You can check the following manual topic for more information about code signing on ISL Conference Proxy.

How do I access ISL Conference Proxy administration?

Please go to http://localhost:7615/conf using your web browser.

What is the default admin password?

Default admin password is asd - please change it after the installation for security purposes.

How do I reset my admin password?

Please follow the appropriate procedure based on your operating system:

Windows

Please open the ISL Conference Proxy installation directory and run reset_adminpwd.bat as Administrator. This will set the admin password back to asd.

Linux

Please run the the following command from a terminal on your server: confproxyctl headless

It will ask you for a new ISL Conference Proxy admin password and you will be able to specify trusted networks for web administration.

How can I update my ISL Conference Proxy?

Please refer to the Online update or Manual update chapters in the ISL Conference Proxy manual.

What server address do I need to type when creating a packet?

DNS name is recommened over IP address when specifying server address in server definition.

Specifying a separate internal address or using an IP address instead of a DNS name is no longer officially supported. There are many possible negative consequences if you decide to do this, the main three being:

  • Two different connection addresses depending on your location (you take your corporate laptop on a business trip and all those executables and bookmarks stop working!),
  • A very difficult migration (some day you will need to move your server to a different IP address and it will be a major headache),
  • Issues if you need to enable SSL on your server (e.g. in order to integrate live chat into a https website).

Technical support for such deprecated setups will be limited and you will be asked each time to consider switching to a single DNS address as soon as possible.

How do I get a license file for ISL Conference Proxy?

You should login to the console at www.islonline.com and then navigate to Server license / Packets option of the My Account menu. Check the server and licenses, assigned to the server and then create a new packet. Download the license file and upload it to the ISL Conference proxy on your newly installed server.

Can we customize the web design of ISL Conference Proxy Server?

Yes, please, check this address in our manual with instructions how to do it: Web customization.

What ports needs to be opened, which protocol and direction?

ISL Conference Proxy server: 7615 (TCP, incoming), 443 (TCP, incoming) and 80 (TCP, incoming)

ISL Light requires at least one of the following ports - 7615 (TCP, outgoing), 443 (TCP, outgoing), 80 (TCP, outgoing)

Please note that you can change these ports in the ISL Conference Proxy administration. 

If port 80 is already taken (e.g. if you are running IIS or Apache on the same IP), please go to Configuration - General - HTTPT ports and remove port 80 from the list and ISL Conference Proxy will not try to bind that port. If possible, please have a separate IP address for ISL Conference Proxy and all three ports available in order to allow most users to connect.

Is there any way I can see which service is using the 80 or 443 port?

You can try cmd line utility netstat -ano. Another option is to find processes with pid in netstat in task manager. Check also tcpdump from sysinternals (link).

Which option is better - to have ISL Conference Proxy running on Linux or Windows?

Whatever system suits you better. Performance wise, there are no differences between running ISL Conference Proxy on Linux or Windows. Please check the minimum requirements here.

Should ISL Conference Proxy run on a standalone computer?

ISL Conference proxy should be installed on a computer linked to the internet with static IP or DNS name. Use of other software on the same machine represents possible future failure points that one should avoid in the first place.

Can ISL Conference Proxy run in a virtual machine?

Yes, ISL Conference Proxy can be installed in a virtual machine as long as it is running one of the supported operating systems. Please refer to system requirements for more information.

However, please keep in mind that a virtualization environment requires proper setup and represents another possible point of failure.

How do I install a custom SSL certificate?

Please refer to this topic in the manual: Enabling SSL.

What bandwidth is necessary to have a good performance and how many fixed IP addresses do we have to provide?

The bandwidth should be 100 kbit/s per one session. Remote desktop stream in one direction is 50kbit, so for example, if you have external client and internal supporter (desk), then 50kbit goes towards the server from internet and 50kbit from server to internal.

You will need one IP and three ports on the IP - 80, 443 and 7615. If you have the possibility of opening outgoing TCP port 7615 from client and desk to the server, please do this for the best possible performance.

You can also browse the ISL Conference Proxy system requirements topic.

What kind of server hardware do we need for 20 or more simultaneous remote desktop session?

From the experience on our hosted service we can suggest a multi-core CPU, x64 processor, 3 GHz or faster, 8GB RAM and Internet bandwidth of 5 or more Mbits/s. Such a configuration should have < 10% CPU usage on 20 concurrent sessions. Don’t forget to plan for bottlenecks, not averages. Please refer to system requirements topic for recommended specifications.

How can I move my existing ISL Conference Proxy installation to a new server?

We recommend using the functionality of the backup module to perform a server migration.
This approach also allows you to migrate across platforms, i.e. from a windows server to a linux server or vice-versa. Please refer to this link for more information.

Does the ISL Conference Proxy have a log file?

Yes, please refer to the appropriate section based on your operating system for information about the location of ISL Conference Proxy log file:

Windows

C:\Program Files\ISL Conference Proxy\confproxy_server.log

Linux

/opt/confproxy/confproxy_server.log

How many IP or DNS changes are allowed?

ISL Conference Proxy allows only 2 changes of IP or DNS name. But do not worry: just contact us (either e-mail us  at support@islonline.com or come to our live chat) and we shall add some additional changes to your account.

Where can I find documentation on XMLMSG for ISL Conference Proxy ?

Please refer to the following link.

Can I integrate ISL Conference Proxy with LDAP / SAML / FreeRADIUS / Radius / Active Directory / eDirectory ?

Yes, please refer to External authentication and Single Sign On for instructions.

Is there a way to bulk-import user details?

Yes, it is possible to do so using XMLMSG protocol (link). Please send an e-mail to support@islonline.com and we can write you a short guide.

How to export Remote support or Live chat reports?

To export session information into CSV, please login to the users page of ISL Conference Proxy (http://localhost:7615/users/ if on local computer, otherwise replace "localhost" with IP or DNS name).  Click on you username in the upper right corner and select "Reports". Choose which reports do you want to export, Remote support or Live Chat. Define your search parameters by choosing users, time span and display fields. Once you are satisfied with displayed results, click on "Export" to generate CSV file.

You can also use XMLMSG for obtaining session data in XML format - login into web administration and:

1. Navigate to Configuration / General -> Database secret, click "change"

2. Set the secret to a secure value and remember it

3. Go to http://DNS_or_IP/xmlmsg_form.html

4. Put this xml into entry field, to retrieve Live chat report for October 2021:

<queryDatabase secret="dbsecret"><islProntoChat fromCreatedDateTime="2021-10-01T00:00:00Z" toCreatedDateTime="2021-11-01T00:00:00Z"/></queryDatabase>

5. Put this xml into entry field, to retrieve Remote support report for October 2021:

<queryDatabase secret="dbsecret"><islLightSession fromCreatedDateTime="2021-10-01T00:00:00Z" toCreatedDateTime="2021-11-01T00:00:00Z"/></queryDatabase>

How to make ISL Conference Proxy coexist with Microsoft Server Essentials server?

Login to the Conference proxy administration at http://localhost:7615/conf if it is installed on your local computer, otherwise replace "localhost" with IP/DNS name of the server. Then navigate to Configuration / General" and modify setting "HTTPT ports" to value 7615 only (remove ports 80 and 443).

Then restart the ISL Conference Proxy service and after that, restart IIS service and/or Microsoft Exchange. You should know that when you disable ports 80 and 443 in ISL Conference Proxy, users who have only ports 80 and 443 enabled in their firewall won't be able to use ISL Light. You might consider dedicating a machine/IP to ISL Conference Proxy.

Why do I get "Error 403: Forbidden" when I try to access http://<server-address>:7615/conf?

In ISL Conference Proxy, default security settings allow access to ISL Conference Proxy administration only from the localhost (i.e. you can access it from the same machine that is running ISL Conference Proxy). There are three ways to access it from another computer:

1. You can establish a remote desktop connection to that server and then access it locally.

2. You can establish a SSH tunnel to remote server and access it locally.

3. You can allow administration from a certain IP address - please go to Configuration - Security - 'Allowed IP addresses for server administration' and enter a trusted address.

Can we build a private cloud of ISL Conference Proxy servers?

Your current system can be expanded to a private cloud of ISL Conference Proxy servers, but you need to purchase a license for this option. A word of caution: your administrator needs to pay attention to the servers within your private cloud – if all but one server fall, the system will still be fully functional, therefore, errors need to be taken care of by the administrator before users notice them.

How much time do we need to plan for installation and testing a private cloud?

We just test all servers and DNS servers during the installation. Usually the installation of such grid takes 2-4 hours. Basic information about ISL Online Private Cloud as well as prerequisites for setting it up, general guidelines and initial test procedures are available here.

How does the performance of a private cloud of ISL Conference Proxy servers compare to a single ISL Conference proxy server?

A private cloud of ISL Conference Proxy servers works better if you have a lot of sessions or if you have servers in different geo locations. Also, it is almost 100% up. For best performance you need to have two separate internet lines. It performs best if you have constantly 20+ sessions. In this case you should also think of load balancing - for fault tolerance: a private cloud also protects from hardware failure.

If CPU or bandwidth usage is less than 10% you are below one server CPU/internet line limit and there is not much difference between a private cloud of ISL Conference Proxy servers and a single ISL Conference Proxy server. In any case: constantly monitor health of your servers!


Tags: isl proxy, conference proxy

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