Mavericks Caching Server Doesn't Work

I'm with Telus (Canada). I have two area's on the router I can change settings (besides wifi). Firewall has firewall (basic low medium high), port forwarding by port or app, dmz, and upnp. Advanced tab is services and website blocking, scheduling access, dhcp reservation, and ping ect. It's their latest and greatest router/modem but it's been super simplified. I went looking for a manual for it and found this can be a great little machine until they put their front end on it.

@t.pawelek

What are you using for a firewall? If it has a logging feature try looking for denied packets to apple from your server. I have seen instances where incomming data was being blocked, even thought the connection was initiated from the internal side of the network. Especially when data is replied over a different port.

right now there is no firewalls active on any routers or machines, just nat. The isp'd router doesn't let me see the logs anyway. 😟

My connection is ADSL but the router has no real advanced settings. I do agree with your earlier post about how it should just work (as most apple things do) as that is how all the documentation reads. I did try a reinstall of the server and I tried installing it on another machine as a peer, but there was no joy. I am willing to try that again, if someone knows how to completly remove all the server settings (remove from applications, then deleting the server folder didn't get rid of everything).

@t.pawelek

Thats a possibilty, but i doubt this because i use caching server just fine. I've seen instances of firewalls blocking response packets because they come in on a different port. If you can log some denied packets.

Same problem here. Caching Server is working for system updates, but not for Mac/iOS Apps.

I am in Canada. And am wondering: Is it working for some people outsite of the US? Those of you who got it working, can you tell us in what country your server is located and if the Apple ID you are using is associated with the same country?

Thanks!

fieldgeek wrote:

Thanks for the quick response. So I tried setting time capsule on a DMZ with my isp's router, but it still complained of double nat. I guess it isn't going to be that easy. I know I can set up time capsule into bridge mode to solve this part way. My ISP's router is pretty locked down, I don't have access to the DHCP settings, I can't even turn it off and I know it would be cleanest for server to provide DHCP. Will portforwarding on the router to server for DNS be enough or will I have to manualy insert it in each machine's DNS list?

Time Capsule can be configured as an access point (what Apple calls bridging) as you've found, but it's not AFAIK capable of being a firewall other than via its NAT capabilities. Open-source or commercial devices can be used in that capacity. Alternatively, some ISPs are willing to switch the modems from a gateway-router over into a bridged mode — and where the ISP modem supports bridging — which would allow you to return your Time Capsule to its NAT mode and out of its access point (bridged) mode, or you could choose to install some other NAT-capable firewall.

The component of DNS that's important here is not the DNS-name-to-IP-address translation, it's the IP address to DNS name translation. With NAT and the private IP address block that you're using, that translation is not feasible with your ISP DNS servers. Which means local DNS services. Which means configuring OS X Server DNS either in a bogus domain such as host.fieldgeek or (far preferable) in a real domain (or subdomain of a domain) that you've registered and are using within your local network, and set up by following the directions I'd linked earlier.

But this question really belongs in its own separate thread, as it's just going to serve to further confuse this Caching Server thread.

Working here in Sydney Australia.

MacOSX and iOS, multiple devices on both platforms.

Think I just fluked it.

If it hadn't worked i'd be here asking noob questions…!

A2 and B2 would be the main suspects. You dont need to know the packets contents, but rather just look in the logs of your firewall (which i assume router os has?)

You will see things like "denied connection from <APPLE IP> to <LAN IP OF CLIENT>" it also describe ports.

I'm having similar issues. I've set it up and the logs show it registered sucessfully with Apple. Mini is running as DNS and Caching Server for local network, router is handeling DHCP. Everything looks like its working but no iOS stuff is cached. Mac updates and MAc apps show up in cache but nothing else.

My only thought at this point is maybe the fact that my ISP isn't giving me a static IP is causing problems? The IP hasnt changed in months but technically its a dynamic IP. Might try moving my server to a static IP and seeing what happens.

Router is a Cisco RV180, Mac mini is mid 2010, everything uptodate. In Canada, ISP is Shaw Cable, using Canadian iTunes account.

shuether wrote:

My only thought at this point is maybe the fact that my ISP isn't giving me a static IP is causing problems? The IP hasnt changed in months but technically its a dynamic IP. Might try moving my server to a static IP and seeing what happens.

I doubt if dynamic IPs are the problem. According to the server Debug.log, the caching server renews its registration with Apple about once an hour, and reports the current external IP address each time.