Setting up XSockets on Windows Server 2003 R2, IIS6

Question

I am looking for some guidance on setting up an MVC/XSockets project on our servers running Windows Server 2003, R2 with IIS6.

Our team is developing a webapp that uses XSockets 3.x to dynamically display data in real time. We are using our time entry system to show current time entries on a "dashboard." Employees enter their times via a separate app, and the dashboard app is supposed to show most recent activity updates.

The project is made using the MVC4 framework. This works great when testing from my development machine, separate from the server. The ws server instance is setup on ws://x.x.x.x:4502, where x.x.x.x is the server's IP. The XSockets components are integrated in the same project.

After pushing my local project onto the server and doing some setup, everything works okay except the XSockets functionality. The XSockets server cannot be accessed from outside the server. When I test from within the server, meaning opening up a browser and going to the webapp, it works fine as it does on my dev machine.

I have tried following the custom configuration setup outlined on xsockets.net, but I am a little confused as to how to define the ws server instance. Do I use the server's IP? The localhost IP (127.0.0.1)? I tried both, but it won't work. I tried adding this custom config settings:

public class XSocketsConfig : ConfigurationSetting
{
    public XSocketsConfig() : base(new Uri("ws://dashboard.ourdomain.com:4502/"), new Uri("ws://x.x.x.x:4502")) { }
}

From javascript I access the XSocket through the "ws://dashboard.ourdomain.com:4502/" connection, but it didn't work when I tested it after deploying to the server. I also tried:

public class XSocketsConfig : ConfigurationSetting
{
    public XSocketsConfig() : base(new Uri("ws://x.x.x.x:4502")) { }
}

or

public class XSocketsConfig : ConfigurationSetting
{
    public XSocketsConfig() : base(new Uri("ws://127.0.0.1:4502")) { }
}

I did enable the server firewall to let traffic through port 4502. Again, everything works great on my local machine, so this leaves me to believe it is either a setting on the server, or a config setting for XSockets.

What is the proper way of achieving a client-server connection on IIS 6? Pointers and suggestions are greatly appreciated as my several-day search has yielded no effective results yet.

Answer 1

Okay so I have finally figured it out. It was after all a firewall issue. I had to configure the firewall to allow traffic on the public ip and port and to forward that traffic to the private ip and port. My XSockets configuration ended up looking like this:

//http://xsockets.net/docs/configuration#public--private-endpoint
public class XSocketsConfig : ConfigurationSetting
{
    public XSocketsConfig() : base(new Uri("ws://x.x.x.x:4502/"), new Uri("ws://y.y.y.y:4502")) { }
}

Where x.x.x.x is the server's public IP address and y.y.y.y the private IP address on the LAN. On the client side (js) I then do:

var conn = new XSockets.WebSocket('ws://x.x.x.x:4502/Activity');

That took a serious amount of troubleshooting but I am glad I got it figured out.