Akeni LAN Messenger
Why doesn't my copy of LAN Messenger see the other clients on the network?
The most likely cause is that you have a personal firewall or IP Filter
running on your computer. If you running Windows, check under Network
Properties and look for "IP Filter" under the advanced Options. If you are
running Linux, try "iptables -L -n" (or "ipchains -L -n" for older version
of Linux) to see a list of ports that are being blocked. For Redhat Linux,
you can use "service iptables stop" or "service ipchains stop" to
temporarily disable the firewall to see if that is the cause of the
connection problem. Please make sure that your computer is not
connected directly to the Internet while you are trying this.
We have also provided some
diagnostic tools to help you solve this problem.
Why doesn't LAN Messenger support authentification with password?
Akeni LAN Messenger runs without a server, so there is no centralized
place where authentification can take place. Although in theory the
program can store a local password, this kind of local authentification can
be bypassed easily. For example, a malicious user can simply wipe out the
password from the registry where the local password is stored, or simply
use another computer and try to impersonate somebody else.
This problem is solved by the use of signed digital certificates. The
digital certificates can also be used for the purpose of exchanging the
session encryption key. These capabilities are available from
Akeni LAN+
Does LAN Messenger work with VPN?
The short answer: is probably not. The long answer is that Akeni LAN
Messenger uses IP Multicast to broadcast its presence to other clients on
the same physical LAN, so it may work on VPN across a router that supports
IP Multicast. Please refer to the next question on the ports used by
Akeni LAN Messenger. That information may help you setup the program on
your VPN. On the other hand, users have reported success with running
Akeni Expert Messenger and
Akeni Pro Messenger on VPNs.
Which ports needs to be opened in my firewall or IP Filter for
LAN Messenger to work properly?
Akeni LAN Messenger Client uses one inbound TCP port and two inbound UDP
port, and these needs to be opened in your firewall or IP Filter. The TCP
ports can be changed via the login screen by pressing the "Options" button.
This port is used to listen for incoming connections from other clients.
The same port value is also used to open up an UDP port that is used
internally by the application for inter-thread communication, and that port
needs to be open to allow for a connectiong from localhost. The program
also uses an UDP port that is used for IP multicasting to find other
clients running on the LAN. You can find the current value of the UDP port
by selecting (Action | Contact List | Refresh Contatcs) from the main
contact list window. This UDP port can be changed by setting the
environment variable "AKENI_LAN_MESSENGER_MULTICAST_PORT". The enviroment
variable can be set either via a batch file, or by changing it via the
property dialog in "My Computer". Look for "Environment Variables" under
the "Advanced" tab. Note that unlike the TCP port, the UDP port used for
IP multicasting can be shared by more than one instance of Akeni LAN
Messenger. There are of course more outbound ports used by the
application, but since they are outbound most firewalls will simply let
them through.
General Questions
How do I find out which application is running on the assigned port and
is conflicting with an Akeni product?
Under Windows 2000 and XP, You can use "netstat -an" to find out ALL the
ports that are currently used in your current setup. After that, you
simply pick a free port not shown by netstat and use it with our
application. Of course you need to make sure that the port if not blocked
by your firewall or IP Filter. To change the port used by an Akeni product,
simply click on the "Options" button in the login screen. If
you want to know precisely what application is currently running on port
3001, you can download the tcpview program from
sysinternals.com. Please note
that you need to run tcpview with administrator privilege or you'll get the
error "Unable to query property for System: -1"
Under Linux, you can also use "netstat -an", or use "lsof -i tcp:3001".
Akeni Jabber Client
How do I configure on the client the Jabber server port
(and other options such as the resource and priority)?
Click on "Options" in the login screen, which then
shows you all the login parameters that you can change.
|
|
Akeni Expert and Pro Messenger
Does Expert and Pro Messenger work with VPN?
Yes, users have reported success running it on their VPN. You may want
to look at the question on ports used by Akeni Expert Messenger to help you
setup your VPN.
Which ports needs to be opened in my firewall or IP Filter for
Akeni Expert Server to work properly?
The server uses one inbound TCP port and several inbound UDP port. The TCP
port is always required, and it can be changed by specifying it as the
first command line parameter when launching the server. You can see it's
current value by looking for the line "server port(xxxxx)" in the server's
output. One optional UDP port is used for IP multicasting so that clients
running on the same LAN can find the server automatically.
If you don't mind manual configuration of the clients then it can be
turned off by clicking on "Options" on the login screen and uncheck the
"Find server on LAN" option.", then enter the Akeni Expert Messenger
server's IP address manually.
For instruction on how to configure the client without using
multicasting, please refer to the answer earlier in this FAQ. Several
other UDP ports are used internally by the server for inter-thread
communication, and you should not have to worry about them as long as your
firewall is configured to allow all local UDP packets to go through.
Which ports needs to be opened in my firewall or IP Filter for
Pro Messenger to work properly?
If the client has problem finding the server on your LAN then there may be
a firewall problem. Under Redhat Linux you can use "service iptables stop"
or "service ipchains stop" to temporarily disable the firewall to see if
that is the cause of the connection problem. Please make sure that
your computer is not connected directly to the Internet while you are trying this.
Akeni Expert Messenger uses one optional inbound UDP port that is used for IP
multicasting to find the server running on the LAN. This UDP port can be
changed by setting the environment variable
"SERVICE_REGISTRY_REQUESTOR_PORT". The enviroment variable can be set
either via a batch file, or by changing it via the property dialog in "My
Computer". Look for "Environment Variables" under the "Advanced" tab.
Note that unlike the TCP port, the UDP port used for IP multicasting can be
shared by more than one instance of Akeni Expert Messenger, and the port is
only used during login and it is closed aftewards. The use of IP
multicasting is in fact optional. If you do not wish to change your
firewall configuration you can turn this feature off. Please refer to the
question above on how to do that.
Why does the crypto library fail to load when using mandatory profiles
under Windows 2000/XP?
The crypto library fails to load with mandatory profiles because the
Crypto API can not generate a private key when it has no write access to the
profile. For a more detailed explanation please see
http://support.microsoft.com/ default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;309408
We can provide you with a version that uses the OpenSSL crypto library if
you have to use crypto with mandatory profiles.
But you'll have to make a separate install of
the OpenSSL library yourself because we can not offer
you the library for download due to expert restrictions.
Custom Graphics
How can I change the graphics (such as smileys, tool bar buttons etc)?
Unpack the file resource.zip inside the directory where the program is
installed. This will create several directories such as system, images, etc.
The smileys are located in the directory images.
The files are stored as XPM files, which you can edit manually using a
text editor.
To do more extensive changes, use any GIF editor to create
the smileys you want. For example, to change the regular smiley,
create a GIF file called SmileyNormal.gif.
Make sure the new smiley have the correct dimension and a transparent
background. You can also use a BMP editor (such as MS Paint) to create
a BMP file instead of a GIF. Then only problem is that BMP do not support
transparent background.
For company wide deployment of the new graphics, you need to rename the
modified files so that they have the extension .XPM (even though they are
actually GIFs) and put them back into the file resource.zip, the copy over
the resource.zip files manually.
|