Client Management Suite

Having an issue getting our Macs to connect for remote control access through the pcAnywhere solution in CMS 7.1.  All of the Microsoft based computers will connect fine using AD authentication.  None of the Macs will connect using pcAnywhere authentication, though.  There is a single user setup in the policy that is on the Macs.  The username and password are correct (including case sensitivity on the username and password), but the Macs refuse to connect and always show the following error message:

"Communications error Unable to attach to specified device"

 

I have researched this error and attempted all fixes I have found.  None of them seem to work.  I still cannot get the Macs to connect for remote control access.  The pcAnywhere solution installed on the CMS 7.1 server shows it is version 12.6.8096.  The Macs themselves show that they have Symantec pcA Plugin 12.6.8096.7 installed on them.  Again, I have verified the account setup in the pcA policy for Macs is on the client machine with the correct username and password.

I'm just not sure what I am missing here.  Everything seems to be installed and setup properly.  All Microsoft based pcs will connect without any problems via the CMS console and pcA Quick Connect.  I cannot get the Macs to connect with either.  They always give the same error.  Any thoughts?

Forgot to mention the account setup in the policy (and on the machine) is in the admin group not a standard user.  Changed this setting just to make sure that wasn't the problem.

I have tested this on a MacBook Pro that I also dual boot Windows 8 on.  When the MacBook is booted up to Windows 8, pcA works flawlessly just like it does on all other Microsoft based pcs.  There is just something missing from the Mac setup and I can't find it.

Check the attach articles https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/symantec-pcanywhere-security-best-practices http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH41502 http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO40183

Unfortunately, I have already seen all of these articles.  They were of no assistance to me.  The pcA agent is installed and running on the Macs in question.  They just refuse to connect and I'm not quite sure why.  Are they using a different port for the Macs for some reason?  When I try to telnet using telnet machine_name 5631, it does not connect.  It does, however, connect with this telnet command on the Microsoft based pcs.  Maybe I need to open up this port on the Mac itself in some way?  I know there's a firewall on Macs, but the ones I'm testing on have the firewall completely turned off and all connections are allowed.  One of the Macs I'm testing with is running Lion and the other one is running Mountain Lion.

Is there, perhaps, a log file on the server that would give me some insight as to why pcA will not connect on our Macs?  I have everything configured properly as far as I've been able to tell but they still refuse to connect.  Maybe pcAnywhere has a log file on the CMS that would give me some information as to why it's not connecting?

Is there anywhere on either the CMS log file or a log file on one of the Mac clients themselves that might indicate where my hang up is with this?  I'm just sitting here spinning my wheels and I don't really have time to sit on the phone with support.  I always try to get them to e-mail me information but support always seems to have to call me to work on problems.

Have you taken a look at this article yet?  This is a common problem that is seen.

Application Layer Firewall constantly requests to accept incoming network connections from a "Thin Host" when the firewall is enabled. 

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH177045

I checked out this article.  The Readme file says it is only for version 12.6.7, though, and we currently have version 12.6.8096.0 of pcA Solution installed according to the console.  Was this fix not incorporated into the newer version?

Please verify, Through symantec installation manager on the Altiris server you will see the name as  Symantec pcAnywhere Solution 12.6.7, and then the version you will see 12.6.8096 so these are the same.  This article was not part of the initial 12.6.7 release through SIM so this would still need to be applied.    

Thanks to Dan_C, I finally have this working...as well as it can be for now.  I had to manually uninstall the pcA Agent from each of the Macs as the uninstall job in CMS did not seem to be doing the job.  I did that by logging into the Mac as the root user.  I copied the entire pcAMacAgent from the NSCap folder on the CMS to the Mac and ran terminal.  After a few cd commands to get to the correct folder, I then ran sh rollout_Mac.sh -uninstall. 

I then forced the agent to communicate with the CMS and manually updated all the pcAnywhere filters (that were not hidden) in the CMS console so I could speed up the process.  This is not entirely necessary if you are willing to wait for the normal times.  I was not, however, so I manually updated the filters.

Once pcA agent was showing it was not installed on either of the Macs, I followed the instructions on the document provided here:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH177045

There is a Readme file inside of the zip file with specific instructions on what to do.  Once I did all of that, I once again verified all of the pcA for Mac settings were correct and set the pcA agent for Mac installation policy to enabled.  I manually forced each of the Macs to update and they installed the pcA agent again.

After all of this my final results are mixed.  The OS X 10.7.5 Mac I have allows me to remote control it with pcA now.  I was even able to use the Quick Connect feature even though I read that it would not work for Macs. It worked fine for me on this one.

The OS X 10.8.3 Mac still will not connect, however.  With all the troubleshooting and online article reading I've been doing, I'm pretty sure I read this is expected, though.  I think I saw that remote control with pcA on OS X 10.8 is not supported at this point in time.  Hopefully that will be enabled sometime soon as most of the Macs in our environment are running this OS.

For now, though, it looks like I have my Macs working with pcA now.  I was able to remote control the one running OS X 10.7.  I am going to get everything installed on a few more Macs that I have just to verify some more.  I'm pretty sure that all is well now that they are installing from the updated files provided in the above mentioned tech article.