APNS - Issue

(imported topic written by SystemAdmin)

Hi,

I have a communication issue with APNS.

I previously had the Management extender for Apple iOS in the beta phase. I removed the old version and installed the last version since G.A.

I submitted a new certificate file through "mdm_beta-bigfix-ww@wwpdl.vnet.ibm.com" and “https://identity.apple.com/pushcert/”.

When I tried to enroll an IPhone (which was working in beta) It doesn’t appear in the console.

The only error message I found is this one in iosmdm.log :

2012-03-19 15:05:58

INFO

iOSMDM

2012-03-19 15:05:58

INFO

iOSMDM

  • Starting IBM Endpoint Manager iOS Server: version 8.2.10257

2012-03-19 15:05:58

INFO

iOSMDM

2012-03-19 15:05:58

INFO

iOSMDM

2012-03-19 15:06:02

INFO

AppVerifier

  • Starting App download verifier…

2012-03-19 15:06:02

INFO

AppDownloader

  • Starting App downloader…

2012-03-19 15:06:02

INFO

APNSFeedbackChecker

  • Starting APNS Feedback checker…

2012-03-19 15:06:02

INFO

APNSSender

  • Starting APNS sender…

2012-03-19 15:06:02

INFO

http://mortbay.log

  • Started SslSocketConnector@0.0.0.0:443

2012-03-19 15:06:02

INFO

http://mortbay.log

  • Started SslSocketConnector@0.0.0.0:52315

2012-03-19 15:06:02

INFO

http://mdm.JettyLauncher

  • The IBM Endpoint Manager iOS Server was started successfully.

2012-03-19 15:06:08

WARN

APNS

http://com.apple.mgmt

Error opening connection: #<OpenSSL::SSL::SSLError: An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.>

2012-03-19 15:06:08

WARN

APNSFeedbackChecker

  • Cannot connect to APNS Feedback Service for mdm

Does anyone have the same issue ?

David

(imported comment written by MattHauck)

Hello,

The error message about the APNS Feedback Service actually does not affect the ability of devices to check in to the MDM server; it is simply a service offered by Apple to check to see if devices we think we are still managing have since unenrolled.

When you changed out your certificates, did you also re-enroll your phone? If not, then you would need to re-enroll before it works. If this is difficult, then perhaps you can go back to using the same APNS push key / certificate as you used in beta and see if that helps?

(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

Hi,

Yes, I re-enrolled my Iphone. I also enrolled a new one but it did not appear too in TEM Console.

(imported comment written by MattHauck)

Can you check the “Management Extender\DeviceReports” folder to see if there are device reports there that are just not being picked up by the Proxy Agent?

If not, perhaps you could look into the iosmdm.log and look for something like this:

APNSSender

  • Sending 1 mdm push notification(s)

or

iOSMDM

  • MDM check-in for device XYZ123

And see if there are any errors around those log statements? Or perhaps you could upload your iosmdm.log file and I could take a look at it to figure out what’s going on.

(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

The “Management Extender\DeviceReports” folder is empty.

there is this error message after “APNSSender - Sending 1 mdm push notification(s)”:

2012-03-19 18:08:55] WARN

APNS

http://com.apple.mgmt

Error opening connection: #<OpenSSL::SSL::SSLError: An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.>

2012-03-19 18:08:55

WARN

APNSSender

  • Cannot connect to APNS server to send push notifications. These notifications will be retried next time the notification queue is run

(imported comment written by MattHauck)

The only time I’ve seen these errors is when there was a problem with my APNS certs. Could it be possible that the APNS certificate does not match the APNS key? Maybe there was a misunderstanding in the Configuration Wizard and you uploaded only an old APNS cert that doesn’t match the newly generated APNS key? Or did you just drop them into the “private” folder directly? You mentioned it worked fine in the past – perhaps you could switch out these new APNS certs for the old ones you used previously and see if that works?

(imported comment written by MattHauck)

It looks like a few others are running into this same error, and it looks like the root cause is a misconfiguration, a crisscrossed APNS key and APNS certificate.

You can try issuing the following two commands on the command line (requires openssl and shasum executables, I’m running them on a mac):

$ openssl x509 -in push.cer -noout -modulus | shasum

$ openssl rsa -in push_key.pem -noout -modulus | shasum

The modulus of the push key and its certificate should be identical. If they are different, then you know it is a configuration issue. If they are indeed the same and you’re still running into this same error, then let me know and we can keep looking into it.

(imported comment written by SystemAdmin)

I manage to solve this issue last weekend after doing the whole MDM installation but with an additional step.

Before re-installing the IOS Management Extender I removed the “openSSL” directory in “C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Client”.

After reviewing the Install Fixlet, I found that this directory is not removed when we uninstall the Mngt Extender and is not re-installed if the directory exist.

I’m not 100% sure if it was really the problem but after this removal it worked.

(imported comment written by MattHauck)

Interesting. Thank you for sharing this note; we will look into it. I am glad you got it working!

(imported comment written by fireman7)

I am having a similar problem where it does not look like I can communicate with the Apple APNS server. I was in the beta and had it working well. When going to the full release product, I went through the steps in your wiki to create the certs and I can’t get any devices to show up in my Management Console. I looked through my logs and have found these two lines:

2012-04-09 11:36:28

ERROR

iOSMDM

  • Error: Cert file does not exist: C:/Program Files (x86)/BigFix Enterprise/Management Extender/MDM Provider/private/push.cer

2012-04-09 11:36:28

FATAL

iOSMDM

  • Apple push certificates are required before the MDM server can send push notifications to communicate with devices. Missing files: ‘C:/Program Files (x86)/BigFix Enterprise/Management Extender/MDM Provider/private/push_key.pem’, ‘C:/Program Files (x86)/BigFix Enterprise/Management Extender/MDM Provider/private/push.cer’

But I’ve looked in this file location and both of those files are there.

I also get these error messages:

2012-04-09 11:41:02

WARN

APNS

http://com.apple.mgmt

Error opening connection: #<OpenSSL::SSL::SSLError: An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine.>

2012-04-09 11:41:02

WARN

APNSFeedbackChecker

  • Cannot connect to APNS Feedback Service for mdm

2012-04-09 11:42:12

WARN

http://mortbay.log

  • EXCEPTION

Let me know what your thoughts are on fixing. When going to GA release from beta, I did not rerun the openssl commands to create the cert. I just used the one I created to begin with. Do I need to redo this step?

(imported comment written by MattHauck)

Let me make sure I understand what happened:

  1. In the beta, you generated your own push key and CSR, and obtained an APNS cert

  2. you backed up your push_key.pem and push.cer

  3. you upgraded to GA release with a fresh install of the iOS extender

  4. you used the configuration wizard and entered in only your APNS cert from step 1

If this is what happened, then it makes sense you are seeing this SSLError, because your APNS key does not match your APNS cert. Every certificate has a matching private key. If the key doesn’t match the certificate, then APNS will (rightly) close the connection.

The process was changed to generate a key and a CSR upon install. These two match. If you used this CSR to get signed and submit to Apple to get your APNS cert, then in the configuration wizard, you need only enter your cert. But since you are using an older APNS cert, it does not match the key generated on that box, and thus it does not work.

Long story short, I think that if you enter in

both

your old backed up APNS cert and key (from beta) into the configuration wizard (or just plop those two files into place), then it should start working.

(btw, the FATAL log message might have come up before you ran the config wizard? It displays that message on startup. Perhaps on startup they weren’t there yet, but then were found later after you put them in place.)

(imported comment written by fireman7)

Thanks Matt,

I used my two old files from the beta and it is up and running now. Thanks for the quick responses and help.

(imported comment written by MT8D_Luis_Peralta)

I’ve been fighting similar issues for at least a week now…with a fresh 8.2.1175 install with newly created cert. I’m not getting anywhere.

(imported comment written by MT8D_Luis_Peralta)

Arrrgh!..just figured it out…certs cross matched of course!