AOS networking

From Axaptapedia

An understanding of AOS networking is useful to troubleshoot connection problems in an Axapta 3-tier environment.

Introduction

Setting the AOS port

A brief technical description of the 3-tier architecture is useful as a starting point. See the Axapta AOS architecture article for more general information on 3-tier installations.

For the purposes of this article, we can look at the Axapta AOS as consisting of two discrete parts.

AOS Manager (ax32mgr.exe)
One or more individual AOS instances (ax32serv.exe)

The AOS manager is responsible for listening for client requests to the server and responding with information about available AOS instances. This information is transferred using port 2712/UDP. This port, along with 2712/TCP is [officially registered] for the Axapta Object Communications Protocol (AOCP).

Each AOS instance listens on a port which is either randomly assigned by the AOS Manager or is set by the administrator in the AOS setup. See the image to the right for the port setup location.

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Standard connection process

The standard connection process between an Axapta 3-tier client, and the AOS, is as follows:

Client broadcasts on 2712/UDP requesting a response from the AOS Manager
AOS Manager responds on 2712/UDP with details of the AOS instances available, including their port number and IP address
Client contacts the AOS instance directly on the supplied IP address and port number (using TCP)

There are two situations where the standard connection procedure will prove troublesome

UDP traffic is blocked due to a firewall
The internal IP address of the server is not publically available to the clients

In these situations, it may be necessary for the clients to bypass the UDP broadcast/receipt and contact the AOS directly.

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Connecting directly

Connecting directly to the AOS instance requires knowing the public IP address (or name) of the server and the port on which the desired AOS instance is running. Therefore you must have manually specified a port number on the Configuration of the AOS instance.

If for example, the server is running at IP 192.168.1.1 on port 4000, then clients will need to add the following into the Advanced box at the bottom of the General tab of the Axapta Configuration Utility.