Cisco Cisco TelePresence Video Communication Server Expressway

Appendix 7 – Troubleshooting 

If Cisco TMS cluster diagnostics reports a difference in configuration on Cisco VCS peers, it is 
comparing the output of https://<ip address>/alternatesconfiguration.xml for each 
Cisco VCS. 

To manually check the differences, on a Unix / Linux system, run: 
wget --user=admin --password=<password> --no-check-certificate https://<IP 

or FQDN of VCS>/alternatesconfiguration.xml 

for each of the Cisco VCS peers, then use diff to check for differences. 

This is by design; the Conference Factory %% value is NOT shared between cluster peers and the 
Conference Factory application configuration is NOT replicated across a cluster. 

See the section “Conference Factory (Multiway™)” above.

 

Cisco TMS can be configured to force specific management settings on connected systems. This 
includes ensuring that a Cisco VCS uses HTTPS for feedback. If enabled, Cisco TMS will (on a time 
period defined by Cisco TMS) re-configure the Cisco VCS’s System configuration > External 
manager Protocol to HTTPS. 

If HTTPS must be used for Cisco VCS to supply feedback to Cisco TMS, see details in “Appendix 3 – 
Adding a Cisco VCS to Cisco TMS” to see how to set up certificates etc. 

Cisco TMS will force HTTPS on Cisco VCS if: 

 

Administrative Tools > Configuration > Network Settings, TMS Services > Enforce 
Management Settings on Systems = On 
and 

 

Administrative Tools > Configuration > Network Settings, Secure-Only Device 
Communication > Secure-Only Device Communication = On 

Set Enforce Management Settings on Systems to Off if Cisco TMS does not need to force the 
management settings. 

Set Secure-Only Device Communication to Off if it is unnecessary for Cisco VCS to provide 
feedback to Cisco TMS using HTTPS (if HTTP is sufficient). 

For Cisco VCS cluster peers to keep up to date, each Cisco VCS peer in a cluster logs in over SSH to 
every other peer in that cluster once per minute. The SSH process performs a reverse DNS lookup at 
every login to identify the connecting party. 

Therefore in a cluster: 
(n-1) reverse DNS lookups per Cisco VCS per minute are expected 

n*(n-1) reverse DNS lookups per cluster per minute are expected 

Cisco VCS Deployment Guide: Cluster creation and maintenance (Cisco VCS X5) 

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