Getting MSDN PeerChannel "SecureChat" Running on Windows Server 2008 R2

Question

I can get this sample PeerChannel SecureChat SDK to work in the following scenarios on a core home network:

• Locally among instances running on the same computer, or
• Among Windows 7 machines

I cannot get this to work between my Windows Server 2008 R2 and any other machine (no exceptions are thrown, but the nodes never find each other and, therefore, do not go online). I CAN ping IPv6 addresses among all machines. The executable file has a firewall exclusion rule, but I also tried to completely disable the Windows 2008 firewall. The PRNP service is running.

• Is it possible to make it work? How?

• Does it work on your 2008 car?

My best guess: I noticed that on Windows 7 machines there are peer-to-peer network grouping and peer-to-peer network manager services. The description of the service “Peer-to-Peer Network Grouping” there and online negotiations specifically on the inclusion of multi-party conversations, but related to home groups. This service is not available on a computer running Windows Server.

So, I suspect that the missing service is the reason that the SecureChat sample will not work on the Windows Server machine, but I don’t understand why Microsoft blocked the Peer Channel from working with the Server product. Could this be the reason?

Thank!

Answer 1

Try enabling these services on the server:

• Peer Name Resolution Server (installation through server management)
• Peer Discovery server (installation through server management)
• Simple Service Protocol Service (SSDP)

Then just make sure the firewall rules are changed; by default, they block the IPv4 / IPv6 Teredo tunneling driver. IPv6 must be supported as required by PNRP.

You should also configure your service in two ways; through the Internet Information Systems (IIS) or as a Windows service. It’s best to use IIS, here you can find an article on how to configure it: Hosting and Using the WCF Service

Here are some tips I can come up with to start it. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

This MSDN page describes this subtle detail of the Windows PNRP implementation:

Any two clients running the same version of PNRP can find each other using this protocol ...