1.5 Access and Communication Requirements across Your Protection Network

Before you set up workloads for protection and recovery, ensure that you configure your network with the access and communications settings described in this section.

1.5.1 Network Requirements for the Forge VM Web Interface

Table 1-4 describes the ports that must be open for on the Forge VM to allow access to the Web Interface.

Table 1-4 Open Port Requirements for the Forge VM

Port (Default)

Remarks

TCP 80

For HTTP communication

TCP 443

For HTTPS communication (if SSL is enabled)

1.5.2 Network Requirements for Workloads

Table 1-5 describes the software, network, and firewall requirements for workloads that you intend to protect by using PlateSpin Forge.

Table 1-5 Access and Communication Requirements for Workloads

Workload Type

Prerequisites

Required Ports (Defaults)

All workloads

Ping (ICMP echo request and response) support

All Windows workloads. See Supported Windows Workloads.

  • Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1

  • Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0

For discovery, source workloads must be running Microsoft .NET Framework 2 SP2 or later.

All Windows Server Cluster workloads. See Clusters in Supported Windows Workloads.

Ensure that the PlateSpin Forge Server can resolve DNS forward lookup and reverse lookup for the IP addresses of the Windows Server Cluster and its cluster nodes. You can update the DNS server or update the local hosts file (%systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) on the Forge VM.

 

All Windows workloads. See Supported Windows Workloads.

  • Built-in Administrator or domain administrator account credentials (membership only in the local Administrators group is insufficient).

  • The Windows Firewall configured to allow File and Printer Sharing. Use one of these options:

    • Option 1, using Windows Firewall: Use the basic Windows Firewall Control Panel item (firewall.cpl) and select File and printer Sharing in the list of exceptions.

      - OR -

    • Option 2, using Firewall with Advanced Security: Use the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security utility (wf.msc) with the following Inbound Rules enabled and set to Allow:

      • File and Printer Sharing (Echo Request - ICMPv4In)

      • File and Printer Sharing (Echo Request - ICMPv6In)

      • File and Printer Sharing (NB-Datagram-In)

      • File and Printer Sharing (NB-Name-In)

      • File and Printer Sharing (NB-Session-In)

      • File and Printer Sharing (SMB-In)

      • File and Printer Sharing (Spooler Service - RPC)

      • File and Printer Sharing (Spooler Service - RPC-EPMAP)

TCP 3725

NetBIOS (TCP 137 - 139)

SMB (TCP 139, 445 and UDP 137, 138)

RPC (TCP 135, 445)

Windows Server 2003 (including SP1 Standard, SP2 Enterprise, and R2 SP2 Enterprise).

NOTE:After enabling the required ports, run the following command at the server prompt to enable PlateSpin remote administration:

netsh firewall set service RemoteAdmin enable

For more information about netsh, see the Microsoft TechNet article, The Netsh Command Line Utility.

TCP 3725, 135, 139, 445

UDP 137, 138, 139

All Linux workloads. See Supported Linux Workloads.

Secure Shell (SSH) server

TCP 22, 3725

1.5.3 Requirements for Protection across Public and Private Networks through NAT

In some cases, a source, a target, or PlateSpin Forge itself, might be located in an internal (private) network behind a network address translator (NAT) device, unable to communicate with its counterpart during protection.

PlateSpin Forge enables you to address this issue, depending on which of the following hosts is located behind the NAT device:

  • PlateSpin Server: Using your server’s PlateSpin Configuration tool, record the additional IP addresses assigned to the Forge VM. See Requirements for the PlateSpin Server to Function through NAT.

  • Workload: When you attempt to add a workload, specify the public (external) IP address of that workload in the discovery parameters.

  • Failed-over VM: During failback, you can specify an alternative IP address for the failed-over workload in Failback Details (Workload to VM).

  • Failback Target: During an attempt to register a failback target, when you are prompted to provide the IP address of the PlateSpin Server, provide either the local address of the Forge VM or one of its public (external) addresses recorded in the server’s PlateSpin Configuration database. See Requirements for the PlateSpin Server to Function through NAT.

1.5.4 Requirements for the PlateSpin Server to Function through NAT

The PlateSpin Server needs additional IP addresses in order to function across environments that are enabled for Network Address Translation. See Requirements for the PlateSpin Server to Function through NAT.

1.5.5 Overriding the Default bash Shell for Executing Commands on Linux Workloads

By default, the PlateSpin Server uses the /bin/bash shell when executing commands on a Linux source workload.

If required, you can override the default shell by modifying the corresponding registry key on the PlateSpin Server. See Knowledgebase Article 7010676 Linux Default Shell Override Procedure.