Kaseya server connectivity issues (curl.exe)

SYMPTOM
1) Kaseya server cannot download latest hotfixes

2) Kaseya server cannot update licence code - VSA keeps prompting for new code on login

3) Error in kserver log when trying to auto-create a new agent account: -

Thu Jan 24 12:29:22 2008: ERROR: Automatic account creation process failed for .ds while retrieving new password from the database.
Thu Jan 24 12:29:22 2008: Failed to locate error file to report proper Kaseya error.
Thu Jan 24 12:29:22 2008: Automatic account creation web page used was AgentTab/createAccountCtl.asp -d "CreateHit=Create&defaultAccount=&userEmailAddr=&groupId=ds" -o "C:\Kaseya\WebPages\install\ds.txt"

CAUSE
These processes use a program called curl.exe to connect either to localhost or to the Kaseya central licence server. Curl can fail for various reasons, such as network or IIS problems.

RESOLUTION
Download & run the curltest package found here to test the process on the Kaseya server:

http://dl.kaseya.com/download/support/vsa/utilities/curltest.zip

1) Extract the curltest directory to somewhere on the Kaseya server, e.g. c:\curltest

2) If IIS on your K server is configured for HTTP, run curltest.cmd. If you are using SSL, run curltest-ssl.cmd

3) Look at the resulting localhost.txt and vsaupdate.txt files: -

- if they contain html code, the curl command was successful
- if they contain an error such as below, then curl has failed

Error=28, URL=http://vsaupdate.kaseya.net/blank.asp, Filein=NULL, Fileout=vsaupdate.txt

If the vsaupdate.txt file contains an error, then the K server cannot connect to the Kaseya licence server (vsaupdate.kaseya.net) over the internet.

If the localhost.txt file contains an error, then the K server cannot connect to its own IIS server.

4) If you are using SSL, ensure that IIS is configured to allow connection to localhost over SSL. It does NOT need to have a certificate installed for localhost access

MORE INFORMATION
This web page contains descriptions of curl errors - http://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/c/libcurl-errors.html

In the example above, there was a timeout trying to download from the Kaseya licence server (vsaupdate.kaseya.net) because a firewall was preventing access to the internet.