Sybase ASA Database won't connect over VPN

P

PedroDaGr8

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 17, 2004
Messages
489
I do IT support for my father's dental office and they use a practice management software called Eaglesoft (UGH!). Well my mom (who is the business manager of the office) had the fourth surgery on a broken arm last week. I am trying to set up OpenVPN to allow her to connect to Eaglesoft so that she could work from home while recovering. While I was able to properly setup OpenVPN, meaning her computer receives an office IP and I can ping the server etc.; Eaglesoft STILL throws an error saying it can't find the database. Does anyone have any ideas on what may be causing this or does anyone have any advice on how to get this to work?
 
Can you ping the server by name?

Might be worth adding it to the local host file temporarily.
 
Eaglesoft clients send out a broadcast packet to the local LAN looking for the Eaglesoft Server. By default, VPNs do not allow broadcast packets to traverse from one network to another.

I don't know if it is possible to reconfigure Eaglesoft to operate over a VPN. If the office has an up to date support contract, you can (and SHOULD) try contacting Eaglesoft Tech support for assistance.

FYI - they will tell you what you are trying to do is not supported and if you have problems getting it to work, they can't really offer you any real help.

As an alternative, look into setting up a dedicated PC at the dental office where she can RDP over VPN from home. This will be a better option speed wise because the client isn't trying to pull data across the slower WAN connection and your less likely to run into connection problems.
 
Last edited:
SJConsultant said:
As an alternative, look into setting up a dedicated PC at the dental office where she can RDP over VPN from home. This will be a better option speed wise because the client isn't trying to pull data across the slower WAN connection.
Click to expand...

I second this...Patterson/Eaglesoft is "heavy"...in addition to the VPN traffic limitation SJ mentioned above, you don't want to run it through a skinny VPN connection anyways. Just have her remote into a PC at the office, using Remote Desktop, or something like LogMeIn or GoToMyPC.
 
Hmm, OpenVPN says that it relays broadcasts when being used in bridged mode. Which is what I am doing. I did notice that for some reason when I pinged the computers name, it was pinging the network card that is being used for OpenVPN (on the server) instead of the other network card. So I am going to try defining the host file. If all else fails I may just setup RDP like you mentioned.

Under bridging...
# Broadcasts traverse the VPN -- this allows software that depends on LAN broadcasts such as Windows NetBIOS file sharing and network neighborhood browsing to work.
 
Yeah but some ODBC software is a bit more picky with very precise name resolution, I forget the specific one, but something that WINS often helped with node type B if running across a WAN.
She probably just has a peer to peer network there?
 
Yep. Just a workgroup right now. I've been lobbying for switching to a domain setup but it has been shot down so far.
 
PedroDaGr8 said:
Yep. Just a workgroup right now. I've been lobbying for switching to a domain setup but it has been shot down so far.
Click to expand...

Eh, depending on the size of the office a domain can be overkill. I have one small dentist office client, 4x PCs...(3x PCs full time, 4th is just a once a week book keeper) they run on Eagle, peer to peer is fine for them.
 
We have 11 computers running in the office (4 Op computers, 2 front desk computers, 2 in the business section, the server, the lab, etc.). Honestly, so far it works just fine. Though this one is def a head scratcher.
 
Hmm...that's crossing the line....I usually shoot for domain once it crosses 8 nodes...esp 10.

You run your Eaglesoft server on a dedicated machine at least, nobody sits in front of it and works on it?
 
Hook her up with LogMeIn to a computer not being used at the office. You won't get Eaglesoft working properly over the VPN, and even if you do, it will be balls slow, its just not designed to be used over the WAN.
 
Weird now its working. I changed one setting (explicitly defined the TAP interface in the config) and was checking a few things mentioned on here over the phone. I had her connect and eaglesoft wouldn't connect. So I had her try pinging the server by name and it didn't work, so I had her try pinging it by IP and it worked just fine. Then she accidentally clicked on eaglesoft again and it OPENED. So odd.

Yeah stonecat, no one is allowed to touch the server except for myself and my mom. Its an old HPDL380 G3, we purchased it for a steal ($120 with two 32GB 15K drives) and reliability wise its hands down better than the off-the-shelf computers we used before.

As for speed, the schedule took a bit to pull up the first time but she said everything else was working just fine. Knock on wood so far.

EDIT: Also, thank you so much everyone for the advice. I GREATLY appreciate it.
 
Last edited:
PedroDaGr8 said:
Weird now its working. I changed one setting (explicitly defined the TAP interface in the config) and was checking a few things mentioned on here over the phone. I had her connect and eaglesoft wouldn't connect. So I had her try pinging the server by name and it didn't work, so I had her try pinging it by IP and it worked just fine. Then she accidentally clicked on eaglesoft again and it OPENED. So odd.

Yeah stonecat, no one is allowed to touch the server except for myself and my mom. Its an old HPDL380 G3, we purchased it for a steal ($120 with two 32GB 15K drives) and reliability wise its hands down better than the off-the-shelf computers we used before.

As for speed, the schedule took a bit to pull up the first time but she said everything else was working just fine. Knock on wood so far.
Click to expand...

Heh...I have a DL360 G3 next to my desk now we just retired from a restaurant. Solid boxes!
 
PedroDaGr8 said:
Weird now its working. I changed one setting (explicitly defined the TAP interface in the config) and was checking a few things mentioned on here over the phone. I had her connect and eaglesoft wouldn't connect. So I had her try pinging the server by name and it didn't work, so I had her try pinging it by IP and it worked just fine. Then she accidentally clicked on eaglesoft again and it OPENED. So odd.

Yeah stonecat, no one is allowed to touch the server except for myself and my mom. Its an old HPDL380 G3, we purchased it for a steal ($120 with two 32GB 15K drives) and reliability wise its hands down better than the off-the-shelf computers we used before.

As for speed, the schedule took a bit to pull up the first time but she said everything else was working just fine. Knock on wood so far.

EDIT: Also, thank you so much everyone for the advice. I GREATLY appreciate it.
Click to expand...

I had an old proprietary app that ran on the Sysbase 6.x platform and experienced similar random connection behavior to Pedro when connecting via VPN. What finally solved it was an entry in the ODBC connection under the Network tab. The Sybase documentation mentions the "Host" command. In the TCP/IP line on the network tab of your ODBC connection try adding: Host=X.X.X.X, where X.X.X.X being the IP of theSybase Server. This specifies where the server is rather than it having to broadcast and find it.
 
Thanks for that advice as well. I may have to wait until this evening to do that since lunch just ended, but I will definitely do that as well. Assuming I can find where to specify that setting.
 
Hi Pedro I am having this issue myself with a Dr Friend I support we have open vpn running and he can RDP to his terminal which works great but he was still looking to have Eaglesoft run from his local but we get the same error you were getting, is there anything special I need to allow for on my openvpn config for this to work? Any help would be appreciated
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top