Which ports should be open in a properly configured Vuforia Experience Service?

[lcase]

Hi,

I am currently working on deploying my company's Vuforia Experience Service. Right now we are having difficulties validating the Vuforia Experience Service. We are currently using the following set of instructions for validation: https://www.ptc.com/support/-/media/6FCDB63E6C444D5CA0DEE998A52AC8FF.pdf?sc_lang=en#pdflink76aeb9f9 (page 104)
However, this set of instructions assumes the experience service is connecting through a single port: 2019. According to another set of documentation: https://www.ptc.com/support/-/media/6FCDB63E6C444D5CA0DEE998A52AC8FF.pdf?sc_lang=en#pdflink-506fe4df (page 12) the experience service should have two open ports, 2019 as well as 443. While our experience service seems functional (according to the validation documentation) it only has port 2019 open. How can we troubleshoot the absence of a 443 port? In general could you explain the use and purpose of each of these ports (2019 and 443)? Why does the Experience Service need a separate port to bring in Thingworx IoT data? For context, in this deployment the Vuforia Experience Service is located on the same server as Thingworx.

Thanks!

[dupatel]

@lcase  You need port 2019(default or any custom ) configured with ES to communicate directly or via View, Studio app. Port 443 is used by ES to communicate securely with GIX and  ThingWorx.

[lcase]

Thanks for the clarification! I am hoping you can help me determine how to alter the Experience Service's configuration such that port 443 is open and listening. The biggest challenge I am encountering is that the studio-es/configuration.json file only has one port referenced. As a result I am finding it challenging to configure two ports when only one port is mentioned inside the configuration file.

Question 1: Could you suggest a possible reason why port 443 is not open?

Question 2: Could you explain what functionality I would be missing if port 443 is not open? (I ask because as of the moment I can publish to the experience service and retrieve experiences from the service no problem)

Context specific to my deployment:

* The experience service is stood up and I am able to both publish via Studio and retrieve via View from my Experience Service. Furthermore, I am able to bring Thingworx IoT data into Vuforia Studio.

* The experience service, while fully deployed, is not yet registered with GXI.

* The experience service is deployed on the same box as Thingworx and Thingworx is using port 8080

* Lastly, as I already mentioned, the only listening port is 2019.

Cheers,

Laura

[dupatel]

@lcase  Since, I was not sure if GXI registration was done or not.  As you confirmed, GXI is not done so port 443 should not come into play. GXI works only with HTTPS ES setup and uses secured communication only to launch the public experiences over the internet on external devices/view user.

As your TWX & ES are on the same server/machine so you would not need any other port except 2019 to communicate with ES from outside.  I hope that clarifies & answers your questions.

[lcase]

Thank you Mr.Patel for pointing me in the right direction. I really appreciate your input on this matter. If I am correctly understanding your explanation, the reason that I only have one open port (2019) is twofold: I have not yet registered with GXI and the Vuforia Experience Service is on the same box as Thingworx.

Q. Could you please confirm that given these two facts there should only be one port in use and open: 2019?

Q. Once I do register with GXI what will change? Would I need to reconfigure my experience service and open a second port? As you mentioned GXI uses port 443, currently 443 is not open. At what step in setting up the Experience service should port 443 open?

We plan to register our Experience Service with GXI shortly. But before we move forward with the registration we are want to verify that our current deployment is properly configured.

[dupatel · Accepted solution]

Q. Could you please confirm that given these two facts there should only be one port in use and open: 2019?

A: Yes

Q. Once I do register with GXI what will change? Would I need to reconfigure my experience service and open a second port? As you mentioned GXI uses port 443, currently 443 is not open. At what step in setting up the Experience service should port 443 open?

A: Please note that if enable_irs_federation is set to true,  then there will be outbound communication to port 443.  For more details, you can refer the section - IRS Federation inside Installing and Deploying an Experience Service

Sorry for the delayed response and hope it clarifies your query.

-Durgesh

[lcase]

Thank you Mr. Patel! Sounds like we are on track and now we know it! Because of your help we are now able to progress to GXI registration. Thanks!

[dupatel]

@lcase  Happy to be of help and request to mark the thread which resolved your query as "Accepted Solution" so that others can also benefit from this and knows there exists a solution.

Thanks,

Durgesh