IPXIPGW.NLM returns "press any key to close screen" warning message

  • 3787872
  • 03-May-2007
  • 26-Apr-2012

Environment

Novell BorderManager 3.8
Novell NetWare 6.5 Support Pack 5
Novell NetWare 6.5 Support Pack 6

Situation

The BorderManager IPXIPGW.NLM (Socks Proxy) sometimes just displays "Press any key to close screen" when loaded, and then exits. It also displays a message similar to this:
3.05.2007 10.28.13: IPXIPGW-6.0-1
port 48
After several attempts, it will load. Also it will load after rebooting the server.
Port 1080 (this is the default port the socks gateway uses) is already in use by normal server to server or server to client communication.
This happens because normal outbound TCP connections, for instance the BorderManager server connecting to other servers on port 524 for NDS communication, use TCP ports 1024 and up for outbound. So if the BM server had started more than 56 (1080 - 1024) TCP connections before IPXIPGW.NLM loads, port 1080 is likely in use by such a connection

Resolution

In really big networks, there is likely no way to fix this automatically. However, make sure IPXIPGW loads as early as possible in AUTOEXEC.NCF. A manual fix is to load TCPCON, find the outbound TCP connection that occupies port 1080 locally and reset that using the "DEL" key in TCPCON. Then immediately load IPXIPGW.NLM manually