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Beaver · Joined: 11 Feb 2006 Posts: 26

When i restart the FirstSpot system i am seeing packets being sent from FirstSpot gateway to the internet?

e.g. 68.178.210.116 tcp port 443

What are these packets and what data is being sent back?

alan · **Forum facilitator** Joined: 26 Sep 2003 Posts: 4435

This is due to the Online License Validation mechanism. Refer to http://www.patronsoft.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=945 for more information.

Note that only the encrypted version of your MAC address is sent.
_________________
~ Patronsoft Limited ~

Beaver · Joined: 11 Feb 2006 Posts: 26

Thanks

Beaver · Joined: 11 Feb 2006 Posts: 26

You asked for some feedback on your new licence system.

I am a bit concerned about your software disabling itself if unable to contact your licence server.

As you know Windows likes to reboot and with Automatic updates turned on this would only increase the risk and amount of times the system would have to "Phone Home"

I dont mind the first licence check this is to be expected but to check everytime the system starts could be a future problem to me and my customers.

Not many software companys would take this approch due to the risk involved.

Thanks

Beaver · Joined: 11 Feb 2006 Posts: 26

Hi,

Last night i tried to get to your website and could not. This lasted for about 30 Minutes. The website came up then i could not get to the forums.

Today everything seems OK

My concern is that the licence server is using the same ip address that i was failing to connect to using internet explorer and as such could cause a problem with my First Spot server and my customers. If my server had rebooted at the time of your server failure it would have impacted on my customers.

I have a Tier-1 ISP grade link with montioring and did not record any other outages during this time.

My request is there any way you could remove this "Feature"?

I checked with nslookup and got this.

Default Server: proliant.dingo.local
Address: 192.168.100.10

> www.patronsoft.com
Server: proliant.dingo.local
Address: 192.168.100.10

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: patronsoft.com
Address: 209.50.241.72
Aliases: www.patronsoft.com

> exit

Here is the error when trying to contact your website www.patronsoft.com

The page cannot be displayed
Explanation: The request timed out before the page could be retrieved.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Try the following:

Refresh page: Search for the page again by clicking the Refresh button. The timeout may have occurred due to Internet congestion.
Check spelling: Check that you typed the Web page address correctly. The address may have been mistyped.
Contact website: You may want to contact the website administrator to make sure the Web page still exists. You can do this by using the e-mail address or phone number listed on the website home page.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Technical Information (for support personnel)

Error Code 10060: Connection timeout
Background: There was a time out before the page could be retrieved. This might indicated that the network is congested or that the website is experiencing technical difficulties.

When i tried to connect to the forums after the website came back up i got this message.

phpBB : Critical Error

Could not connect to the database

alan · **Forum facilitator** Joined: 26 Sep 2003 Posts: 4435

We have backup server for the Online License Validation. So even though patronsoft.com is down, the validation will still work.
_________________
~ Patronsoft Limited ~

intramanga · Joined: 28 Nov 2004 Posts: 10

>>"So even though patronsoft.com is down, the validation will still work."

And if patronsoft stops there business , we are ALL out of business !!

>>"check everytime the system starts could be a future problem to me and my customers"

it IS is problem for us and our customers !!

Had this problem a year ago with a billing program for a web-sever.
Developers gone and there servers down >> program totally useless >> wasted money.
Wanted to upgrade to V4, but with this in mind , I wont.
No company stays for ever , will not take this risk, sorry.
I don't want to rely on other peoples systems, even if they have a dozen backup servers , the risk is just TOO HIGH ! If you buy a $1000 program it is supposed to work ALL the time , not only when the developer's servers are running.

Ed,

humphrey22 · Joined: 18 May 2005 Posts: 14

So Alan what do you propose to do about this? I for one really feel your pain. You are the person who spent lots of money, research and development plus devoted countless hours of sacrifice into making a great product. On the other hand it is true that what are we supposed to do if you--God forbid--go out of business? Maybe you fall ill and can't even make a permanent fix to allow all licenses all the time.

In other words you say "Well...I will set my servers to just permanently issue all valid customers a perpetual license before I close my doors", but again--God forbid--you fall ill or worse BEFORE you can make this change (If its even possible to do)?

intramanga · Joined: 28 Nov 2004 Posts: 10

I also want a solution for this before I go on with firstspot.
This is absolutely not a good solution for paying customers.
By the way , it is not even a good solution to prevent copying , crackers just remove the call-home function in no time, they did it with other programs , so why shouldn't they do it with this one.
It is only us customers who are the victims when whatever happens with Patronsoft , and this is NOT fair for us , paying customers.
And please don't tell me this never can happen , because I was already a victim from something similar.
Hope you guys will come to sense regarding this issue.

Ed,

humphrey22 · Joined: 18 May 2005 Posts: 14

It's a tough spot to be in as a developer.

I am curious as to the thinking regarding our feedback so far. I myself really, really like what I am seeing and think I will get this software in a few days once I complete my testing/demo phase.

I have to be honest and admit that I am very concerned about this new feature I am hearing about. I really don't want to pay honestly then--due to no fault of my own--am suddenly cut off from using the very software I paid for....FOR ANY REASON.

Tough, tough spot for a developer. Especially one that is giving such great pre-sales support as I have been given thus far.

shylow · Joined: 31 Jul 2005 Posts: 18 Location: Iraq

Thought I would include my 2 cents.

First off, I love the software, primarily because it has been reliable in the past, and is easy manage. Version 4 makes user management less of a pain.

I am worried about the license check for the software. I am running eveyrone off of a satellite link, and the link does go up and down.

I will be keeping the 3.14 version handy in case there are problems with the version 4.

mcfleeg · Joined: 03 Aug 2006 Posts: 1 Location: South Dakota

I have been using "visitor based network" software and appliances for the past 7 years including: SecureLAN, IP3 Networks, Nomadix, Solution Inc. etc.

Most recently I stumbled upon PatronSoft and I'm about to go through an evaluation. The new licensing "feature" is definitely of concern. I am all about paying for using good software, however the scheme is eventually doomed for failure.

So, as I'm contemplating using PatronSoft, I also have my eye on FreeSide - a completely open source solution. Albeit, not fully baked out of the box in that you need to know a thing or two about Unix, and do some work setting it up. The reason I'm looking at FirstSpot is EASE of USE.

So, I will post my evaluation results and the final decision could in fact come down to the goofy licensing issue.

I hope PatronSoft will figure out a way to do the licensing in a way that is more customer friendly.

Regards,
--Lee McKenna
Lake County Wi-Fi, LLC
lee@lakecountywifi.com