Gate Service Issues

The Gate service is used to monitor and control access from Terminals. Your BATMs will connect via VPN to the CAS server, and the Gate service will then verify the identity and authenticate the Terminal. Once successful, the BATM will have access to CAS.

Confirm the symptom.

There’s no reason to try the “solutions” in this article if you haven’t confirmed the problem/symptom.

First, identify if the Gate service is running.

1. Login to your CAS server console via SSH.

2. From your server's command line interface (CLI), type:

• sudo /batm/batm-manage info

Investigate the Gate log:

You should still be able to access the CAS GUI/Admin. You can easily view the Gate log from there:        

• Navigate to: Log Viewer/Gate Log

• Click on "GO TO END OF FILE".

• The Gate log contains authentication notes between your server and BATMs.

  • Examine the log for errors which might explain the problem (“FATAL”).

Start the Gate service using the “fg” option.

The Gate service can be started in verbose mode using this special command:

• The Gate service will then attempt to start - but it will display ALL messages onscreen - successes AND failures. Not all failures are unexpected or unwanted; they are merely reporting tools and the information is used for complex debugging.

• Errors reported towards the end are the most relevant.

If the Gate service is started without the “fg" switch (using “start"), then the Gate log will be concatenated to any previous Gate log, and can be examined live by typing:

Try these possible solutions:

Ubuntu should be updated regularly, and it will need to be restarted occasionally. This is easy to overlook. If the Master service is suddenly problematic, update Ubuntu and reboot your server.

• Should report at least 5gb free for the Master service to run reliably.

• If the CPU or memory of any individual process exceeds 50%, you may need to increase your system specifications.

• Usage surges (of either type) may result in random intermittent server reboots.

• Memory depletion may result in the unpredictable termination of processes (killed).

• hardware failure,

• bandwidth limitations (each BATM may consume up to 4gb/mo),

• attacks by malicious actors overloading your server,

• JAVA version mismatch. Installing extra software on your server may cause your server's JAVA be switched to a different, incompatible version. YOUR SERVER SHOULD BE DEDICATED TO CAS!

These problems are outside the scope of General Bytes support. Please contact your hosting provider or a third-party trusted vendor to address server issues and/or required upgrades. Watch your server usage graphs (if available). Use the "top" utility to watch processor load. It should stay well below 50% on a normal system.

• Create a Support Ticketand

• https://generalbytes.atlassian.net/l/cp/fqN1R1GM for further investigation by Support.

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