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February 24, 2004Xbox Live and ISA serverPosted 2347 days ago on February 24, 2004Sensible modern houses have an ethernet port in every room. Wireless, did you say? Fair enough, but I hate having to watch that little connection quality icon as it drifts from good to excellent or occasionally to poor. Wireless is for mobile computing (including around the house); but there's no sense in using wireless for fixed boxes such as an Xbox or home theatre PC. So it was with these last two items in mind that I crawled under the floorboards last weekend to run an ethernet cable from the study to the living room. Mine is not a modern house. Home theatre PC is the next project. I get the impression that these things are not quite ready, but lving to some extent on the bleeding edge is part of journalism. Not sure whether it will be Windows Media Center or not; watch this space for more comments. In the meantime, here's a tip for anyone trying to run Xbox Live behind ISA server. There's a well-known tip sheet by Aaron Shimmons which explains how to do this. It didn't work for me. The Xbox could find the Live server OK, but would not connect, reporting possible problems with the service. However if I connected to the ADSL router, bypassing ISA, it worked fine. I didn't want to do that, because it complicates the cabling, so I eventually found a solution for ISA. What I did was to create an additional Protocol Rule (under the Access Policy node in the ISA Management snap-in) for the four defined protocols mentioned in Aaron's article. Under Applies To, I created a new client set that includes only the Xbox. I've reserved a fixed internal IP for the Xbox in the DHCP server. Restarted the ISA service and Xbox Live sprang into life. Why is this necessary on my system but not on some others? No idea. Re: Xbox Live and ISA serverPosted 2313 days ago by Justin • • • ReplyI had the same problem; I am pretty sure that my protocol rules applied to all my internal addresses and was not specific to authorized users. In the end I found it easier to stop the web and firewall services and setup routing and remote access to route the entire network to the internet. Sure this is some what of a security risk, but for the few hours that I was online for I thought it was worth it. Re: Xbox Live and ISA serverPosted 2309 days ago by Matt • • • Reply
Just wandered if you managed to get your xbox to update its dashboard through isa? if you did can you please let me know how. Re: Xbox Live and ISA serverPosted 2304 days ago by Anonymous • • • Reply
Yes this actually works since I made the change mentioned. I've just downloaded the content for KOTOR. Disappointing content, but it worked. Re: Xbox Live and ISA serverPosted 2097 days ago by John Maunder • • • Reply
Guys, Re: Xbox Live and ISA serverPosted 1863 days ago by Tim Anderson • • • ReplyLate response but I have only just installed ISA 2004. However it works fine. I did pretty much the same as before. Access rule specially for XBOX. ISA Server and Xbox Live: Not Officially Supported. But I'm interested...Trackback from extra bits that didn't fit Posted 2096 days ago • Reply
Re: Xbox Live and ISA serverPosted 1151 days ago by Schoony • • • ReplyI keep getting a "Strict" NAT with ISA and can't seem to open the ports correctly with ISA 2004 to lessen this restriction. This has been causing numerous headaches between me and a few friends that have Medium NATs since we can't connect at all. I'd gladly stick my 360 directly on the network wide open if only I could get that to work. Help! Re: Xbox Live and ISA serverPosted 827 days ago by Yvos • • • Reply
Really not worth the bother the default ports for Live should allow updates and downloads etc BUT not all games companies follow the MS way of doing things, any MS game such as Gears of War or Forza etc should work with no problems. If you decide to play something such as Call of Duty 4 it randomly selcts the ports it uses and you cannot get a game you can create rules but there are some instances where ISA will overule it regardless (especially if you use Enterprise edition) |
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Re: Xbox Live and ISA server
Posted 2332 days ago by Scott S • • • ReplyIt's probably because the Protocol rule that permits outbound access is restricted to authorized users. You can verify my theory by checking the "Applies To" tab on the Protocol rule that permits outbound access and see if it applies to "Users and groups specified below". If you apply the rule to "Any Request", you probably won't need your custom protocol.
For what its worth, I have found it to be a royal PITA trying to get my ISA Server to handle requests from non-Windows devices (like XBox and ReplayTV), as well as Windows computers that are not part of my domain (like my wife's notebook).
One other thing - Although my Xbox connects to play games, I was NOT able to update my Xbox dashboard software going through my ISA Server, and had to resort to a direct connection.
Finally, I notice a ton of entries in my Packet Filter log whenever I play Xbox Live. It appears that other Xboxes are trying to respond on ports other than UDP 3074. Check your Packet Filter logs and see if this is true for you.