Faronics Insight Tech Console - Manual (Page 12)

Insight Tech Console User Guide
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Installing Tech Console and Report Server
Tech Console Network Configuration
By default, Insight assumes that all devices will be on the same IP-subnet as the Tech Console.
However, it is possible to configure it to function properly even when the devices reside on a
different subnet (or even a separate segment) from the Tech Console.
IP-Subnets and VLANs
If the Tech Console is on a different IP-Subnet from the client computers (Students or Teachers if
Insight is installed), the default “IPBroadcast” UDP packets used by Insight will not be received by
the clients, and that machine will not be displayed in the User List. Instead, you must configure
the Tech Console software to use either IP-Multicast or IP-Directed Broadcast packets.
IP-Multicast supports the ability to have one device (the Tech Console) send a message to a set of
recipients (Students) with special multicast addresses rather than a single device. IP-Directed
Broadcasts are special addresses which (when properly formed) will traverse your network as a
single directed UDP packet until the destination subnet is reached. Upon reaching the destination
subnet, the router will then convert the packet into a standard UDP-Broadcast packet.
For either transport method to work, it is important to first verify that your network routers have
support for that feature enabled. For IP-Directed Broadcast to work, your routers must also be
configured to forward IP-Directed Broadcast packets (sometimes routers refer to these as “UDP
Directed Broadcasts) and the address of these packets must be properly formed. You should
contact your network administrator or refer to your hardware manufacturer's documentation for
further information on your network device features and configuration.
Insight Port Usage
Tech Console’s main port number is 796 (or 0x31C hex). All non-status broadcast and multicast
packets are sent to this port (796). The source port for these packets is dynamic (sometimes
referred to as ephemeral), meaning is it decided by TCP/IP at run time and cannot be specified.
Generally it is in the range of 49152–65535. All Insight PC’s must allow data traffic on port 796 to
be received and should not attempt to curtail the transmittal of data on ephemeral sockets.
For activities like Remote Control, Thumbnail acquisition, Chat, etc. the session oriented TCP
packets are used. If the Student is a Fat Client machine, then the destination port will also be 796.
Again, the source port is dynamic.
Thin Clients are a special case. All UDP non-status broadcast and multicast packets are still sent
to port 796, but if the Student is a Thin Client Student, all TCP packets are sent to a dynamic port.
The port for each Student is therefore unique. In this case, it is possible for a Teacher to send a
TCP packet from a dynamic port to a dynamic port. However, in the Terminal Server
environment, most TCP/IP traffic takes place within the same computer and is little more than
inter-process communication.
There is an additional UDP Status packet which is used to monitor Insight activity on the
network. This traffic originates on port 1053 and is always sent to port 1053. It is either a
broadcast or a multicast packet. Insight will function without Status Packets, but functionality is
reduced.