Softphone R6 through Citrix VPN

[vaoldschl]

I am trying to get R6 softphone working through a Citrix Access Gateway. I have IP Pooling on in the gateway and I've configured the phone to use the IP address of the VPN client. The access gateway is inside the network so once the tunnel is up no firewalls are interacting. The softphone client finds the server, takes over the phone but then gets hung up and never completes the login process. A status of the station shows out of service, the IP address of my CLAN, the set-end as unavailable and the native NAT address of the VPN client. While this process is cycling through a trace on the station shows:

snd GCF endpt (ip address)port) switch (ip address):1719
rcv RRQ (same, same from here on down)
snd RCF
rcv NSM
snd NSM
rcv GRQ
snd GCF ad infinitum

I've spent th last hour trying to find out what all those messages are, I assume it's setup stuff to establish the call server connection but am getting nowhere. Any thoughts on what is preventing this? If I sit internal on the network I can log in to the softphone just fine. I can also ping all the IP addresses from all the other IP addresses. My network folks aren't seeing anything blocking but then, it's never a problem with the network is it

 

[Mitch672]

Well, from what I remember, the IP Softphone for Citrix CANNOT do VoIP, it can only be used in "telecommuter" mode (when you connect, you tell the switch a number to call you back on, to complete the audio portion of the call)

I don't believe you will ever get a citrix IP softphone to do VoIP, try as you might



Mitch

AVAYA Certified Expert

 

[vaoldschl]

The Citrix Access Gateway docs and Avaya IP Softphone docs say differently as long as IP Pooling is enabled on the Gateway. Also, just tried Telecommuter mode and it is doing the exact same thing.

 

[Mitch672]

There is no mention of it on the AVAYA R6 notes:

http://support.avaya.com/elmodocs2/ip_softphone/IP_Softphone_Overall_6.pdf

Can I ask you a question? Have you tried the IP Softphone on a normal, standard PC? Does it work? You might have some settings wrong on the station programming.

Still, I would not put much effort (read: zero) into trying to get IP Softphone working in Road Warrior mode on Citrix.



Mitch

AVAYA Certified Expert

 

[Mitch672]

looks like it has issues, even if you get it working, it will never be "correct"

http://support.avaya.com/elmodocs2/tech_tips/312210.htm

Avaya IP Softphone with Citrix

The Avaya IP Softphone Release 6.0 installation program cannot detect whether a previous version of Avaya IP Softphone is currently installed. You must uninstall the previous version of Avaya IP Softphone before installing Avaya IP Softphone Release 6.0.
Two users on the same server may be able to log in using the same extension.
If you click the Refresh button in the Microsoft Internet Explorer window, the highlighting for the Click-to-Dial feature disappears for dialable numbers on that web page. Click the link in the Address box, and then click the Go button restore the highlighting.
If the CPU usage reaches 99% after you log off using Telecommuter mode, start Task Manager and stop Avaya IP Softphone.
If you receive two incoming calls at the same time and press the Enter key to answer a call, the second call is answered.
Dial tone may be active on a station after completing a transfer between two existing calls when you are using shared control mode via the telephone.
If you add a new party to a conference after the maximum number of participants has been reached, the host will be dropped from the call.


Mitch

AVAYA Certified Expert

 

[vaoldschl]

If only I could be so lucky as to have those issues but they assume that you are able to register via the softphone to the PBX. That I can not do.

 

[Mitch672]

Have you tried "IP Softphone R6" on a standard XP or Vista PC? Are you able to login to an extension, using "normal" supported software? You still have not answered this question. Maybe there are station programming issues.



Mitch

AVAYA Certified Expert

 

[vaoldschl]

If I am connected directly to the corporate network and run the softphone I am able to successfully register. The only time I am not is when I am coming through the VPN tunnel. The problem began when, unbeknowst to telecom, changes were made to the Citrix Access Gateway.

 

[vaoldschl]

Also, are you thinking that I'm trying to run the softphone on a Citrix desktop? That's not the case. This is a VPN Access gateway; The Citrix Access Gateway client runs on the PC across the internet and makes the pc look inside to the network. The softphone is installed and runs on the PC using the IP address assigned by the gateway as configured by the user by selecting the Advanced tab on the softphone login settings screen.

 

[Mitch672]

The the issue is, you are not passing all of the ports required, or you are having a VPN "NAT" issue (Network Address Translation). In the IP Softphone, there are some settings you can play with for VPN acces, try adjusting some of those.


Mitch

AVAYA Certified Expert

 

[vaoldschl]

According to my reading the IP Pooling should get me past the NAT issue so I'm inclined to think it is a port issue. My network guy says it's not, though, because once I obtain the IP address from the Access Gateway (he says) I'm inside the network and none of his firewalls are interfering. I think I'm going to crack into his routers and check the ACLs. The Access Gateway is in our secondary data center and the phones could be coming from anywhere in the country and going to any one of 20 call servers so, even if I am on the network, there's routing involved. Am I correct in thinking I need to be allowing port 1719 all the way through for the phone? Are there any other ports I should be concerned with?

 

[Mitch672]

there are many, many, many ports, 1719/1720 is just the tip of the iceburg. You need to "display ip-network-region x" (there can be up to 250 regions), to see the UDP port range that also needs to be opened well. There are some documents on support.avaya.com that show the handshake protocol of an IP phone logging in, the number of ports involved is staggering.


Mitch

AVAYA Certified Expert

 

[vaoldschl]

Thanks, I'll pull up the docs. I know the network guy will be super psyched about opening ports! They love that stuff.

 

[vaoldschl]

If anyone else is interested here's a link to the IP softphone port utilization doc:

http://support.avaya.com/elmodocs2/ip_agent/Port_Utilization.pdf