Ace here again. I thought to clean up and re-publish my blog on AD ports requirements. Yes, they are extensive, to the dismay of the network group in your organization. But it is what it is, and it is what we need to follow to make AD work.
If so, you’ve been succumbed to the fact and realization there are possibly necessary ports being blocked causing these familiar AD communications errors. Whether between locations with firewall/VPN tunnel port blocks, Windows Firewall (which is usually not the culprit because they will auto-configure for the role of the machine and it’s current network location), or even security software or antivirus apps with some sort of “network traffic protection” feature enabled that is causing the problem.
Simply speaking, if there are replication or other AD communication problems, and you have an antivirus software installed on the endpoints or installed on all of your DCs, disable it, or better yet, uninstall it. Uninstalling it is the best bet, so you know there are no traces of other subcomponents that are active that may still be causing the block. If after uninstalling it, and you find replication now works, well there you have it. At that point, you’ll need to contact your antivirus vendor to ask them the best way to configure it to allow AD communications and replication.
If it’s not your antivirus or security app, and disabling the Windows firewall doesn’t do the trick, then it’s obvious it’s an outside factor – your edge/perimeter firewalls.
Also to point out, when testing for port blocks, tools such as telnet is not a good tool to test AD/DC to DC connectivity, nor is any sort of standard port scan, such as using nmap, or a simple ping, resolving with nslookup (although resolving required records is a pre-requisite), or other tools. The only reliable test is using Microsoft’s PortQry, which tests specific AD ports and the ephemeral ports, and the required responses from the services on the required AD ports it specifically scans for.
Oh, and don’t expect to get this to work through a NAT. NATs cannot translate the encrypted RPC traffic therefore bonking LDAP communications.
Description of Support boundaries for Active Directory over NAT
How to configure RPC dynamic port allocation to work with firewalls”AD communications won’t work through a NAT port translation, such as you cannot use DCOM through a NAT firewall that performs address translation (e.g. where a client connects to virtual address 198.252.145.1, which the firewall maps transparently to the server’s actual internal IP address of, say, 192.100.81.101). This is because DCOM stores raw IP addresses in the interface marshaling packets and if the client cannot connect to the address specified in the packet, it will not work.”Quoted from:
Windows 2000 NAT Does Not Translate Netlogon Traffic (this applies to all DCs)Quoted: “Windows 2000 NAT does not support Netlogon and translate Kerberos. If you have clients that are located behind a Windows 2000-based NAT server and need access to domain resources, consider creating a Routing and Remote Access virtual private network (VPN) tunnel for Netlogon traffic, or upgrade the clients to Windows 2000.”Quoted from:
Now you’re thinking that your network infrastructure engineers know what they’re doing and opened up the necessary ports, so you’re thinking, this can’t be the reason? or is it? Well, let’s find out. We can use PortQry to test it. And no, you don’t want to use ping, nslookup, nmap or any other port scanner, because they’re not designed to query the necessary AD ports to see if they are responding or not.
First, download it:
PortQryUI – GUI – Version 2.0 8/2/2004
Then run the “Domains & Trusts” option between DCs, or between DCs and any machine (other servers you want to promote, or even from a client machine), or from the bridgeheads in each site to the other bridgehead in the other site., pretty much anywhere that you want to test if there are any blocked AD ports.
The point is, you’ll want to run it in any scenario where a DC must communicate to another DC or to a client.
If you get any errors with “NOTLISTENING,” 0x00000001, and 0x00000002, that means there is a port block. Take note on which ports they are.
You can ignore UDP 389 and UDP 88 messages. If you see TCP 42 errors, that just means WINS is not running on the target server.
Knock Knock Is That Port Open?By Mark Morowczynski [MSFT] 18 Apr 2011, Quick tutorial about PortQry GUI version.
“At times you may see errors such as The RPC server is unavailable or There are no more endpoints available from the endpoint mapper …”
How to use Portqry to troubleshoot Active Directory connectivity issues
Download details: PortQry Command Line Only Port Scanner Version 2.0
Understanding portqry and the command’s output: New features and functionality in PortQry version 2.0
Description of the Portqry.exe command-line utility
Portqry Remarks
There’s no secret to this. That’s the simplest I can put it.
And, the list of ports required is long, to the dismay of network infrastructure engineering teams that must bequest ports to allow AD to communicate, replicate, etc., these ports must be opened. There really isn’t much that can be done otherwise.
And most of all, the Ephemeral ports, or also known as the “service response ports,” that are required for communications. These ports are dynamically created for session responses for each client that establishes a session, (no matter what the ‘client’ may be), and not only to Windows, but to Linux and Unix as well.
See below in the references section to find out more on what ‘ephemeral’ means.are used only for that session. Once the session has dissolved, the ports are put back into the pool for reuse. This applies not only to Windows, but to Linux, Unix and other operating systems, as well. See below in the references section to find out more on what ‘ephemeral’ means.
The following Ephemeral ports must be opened (yes, it’s pretty much the whole range):
You also have the ability to restrict DC to DC replication traffic, and DC to client communications, to a specific ports. Keep in mind, it also depends on what ports and services you’ll want to restrict. When choosing this option, you must specify the correct ports for the correct service.
It depends on what ports and services you want to restrict?
This is to used to set the specific AD replication port. By default it uses dynamic port to replicate data from DC in one site to another.
This is applicable for restriction AD replication to a specific port range.
Procedure: Modify registry to select a static port. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NTDS\Parameters HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters
Restricting Active Directory replication traffic and client RPC traffic to a specific port
This is for configuring the port range(s) in the Windows Firewall.
Netsh – use the following examples to set a starting port range, and number of ports after it to use
netsh int ipv4 set dynamicport tcp start=10000 num=1000netsh int ipv4 set dynamicport udp start=10000 num=1000
The default dynamic port range for TCP/IP has changed in Windows Vista and in Windows Server 2008
This is for Windows services communications. It also affects AD communications. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Rpc
How to configure RPC dynamic port allocation to work with firewalls
Reference thread:
RODC Firewall Port Requirements
Active Directory Replication over Firewalls
Designing RODCs in the Perimeter Network
Restricting Active Directory replication traffic and client RPC traffic to a specific port
Good discussion on RODC and firewall ports required:
Further info on how RODC authentication works will help understand the ports:Understanding “Read Only Domain Controller” authentication
How to configure a firewall for domains and trusts
Active Directory and Active Directory Domain Services Port Requirements, Updated: June 18, 2009 (includes updated new ephemeral ports for Windows Vista/2008 and newer). This also discusses RODC port requirements. You must also make sure the ephemeral ports are opened. They are: TCP & UDP 1025-5000 TCP & UDP 49152-65535
Windows 2008, 2008 R2, Vista and Windows 7 Ephemeral Port range has changed from the ports used by Windows 2003 Windows XP, and Windows 2000. Default ephemeral (Random service dynamic response ports) are UDP 1024 – 65535 (See KB179442 below), but for Vista and Windows 2008 it’s different. Their default start port range is UDP 49152 to UDP 65535 (see KB929851 below).
Quoted from KB929851 (link posted below): “To comply with Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) recommendations, Microsoft has increased the dynamic client port range for outgoing connections in Windows Vista and in Windows Server 2008. The new default start port is 49152, and the default end port is 65535. This is a change from the configuration of earlier versions of Microsoft Windows that used a default port range of 1025 through 5000.”
Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 2008 and Windows 2008 R2 Service Response Ports (ephemeral ports) have changed.
Active Directory and Firewall Ports – I found it hard to find a definitive list on the internet for what ports needed opening for Active Directory to replication between Firewalls. …
Active Directory Replication over Firewalls, Jan 31, 2006. (includes older pre-Windows Vista/2008 ephemeral ports)
How Domains and Forests WorkAlso shows a list of ports needed.
Paul Bergson’s Blog on AD Replication and Firewall Ports
Configuring an Intranet Firewall for Exchange 2003, April 14, 2006. Protocol ports required for the intranet firewall and ports required for Active Directory and Kerberos communications
Restricting Active Directory replication traffic and client RPC …Restricting Active Directory replication traffic and client RPC traffic to a … unique port, and you restart the Netlogon service on the domain controller. …
How to restrict FRS replication traffic to a specific static port – How to restrict FRS replication traffic to a specific static port … Windows 2000-based domain controllers and servers use FRS to replicate system policy …
Some firewalls may reject network traffic that originates from Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1-based or Windows Vista-based computersThis KB indicates Checkpoint firewalls having an issue with AD communications.
Checkpoint firewalls have a known issue if you are running version R55 or older. You will need to make a registry entry to allows traffic to flow between the 2 sites via the vpn. The preferred solution is to upgrade the Checkpoint firewall.
Some firewalls may reject network traffic that originates from Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1-based or Windows Vista-based computers(This link relates to and helps resolve the Checkpoint issue)
Note from one poster on the internet with a Checkpoint firewall:For Windows 2003 R2 and non-R2 remote domain controller we added the Server2003NegotiateDisable entry in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Rpc
Well, whether you did or not, at least you now know what to do to make it work.
I hope this helps!
Original Publication Date: 11/1/2011Updated 11/4/2014
Ace FekayMVP, MCT, MCSE 2012, MCITP EA & MCTS Windows 2008/R2, Exchange 2013, 2010 EA & 2007, MCSE & MCSA 2003/2000, MCSA Messaging 2003Microsoft Certified TrainerMicrosoft MVP – Directory Services
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