Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Hi,

we're having trouble connecting iPad to DAWs and I was wondering which ports need to be open for AVID Control to work?

There a Ubiquity AP in the network and iPads are on a closed VLAN with the DAWs. Everything workd incl Spancontrol for Spanner so there's definitely flow of data from the iPad to the Mac. The only thing that doesn't work is AVID Control. I have allowed all TCP/UDP traffic from iPad to the DAW in the firewall.

The only thing that DOES work however is connecting when the Wifi is enabled on the MAC connected to the same SSID/Network. I can enable the iPad in Eucon and I can then disable Wifi on the Mac and it will then keep on working across the net with the iPad connecting to the VLAN via the Ubiquity AP and the MAC via the normal ethernet connection. Only the initial connect only works when both are in the same Wifi.

Very odd. I guess it's because they can see each other from within the AP for the connect.

But why does this not work without turning on Wifi on the Mac side? I have tried everything from rules wide open on the firewall (pfsense) to specifically allowing all traffic iPad IP to MAC IP. No difference.

Any other idea?

I tried the recommendations in the tech info (IGMP snooping off etc. etc., no difference). mDNS (Bonjour) is enabled as well.

This is with the latest AVID Control app and Eucon version

Thanks!

Frank.

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Ok so I did some more digging and it turns out that as soon as the network carrying the Eucon traffic is set to a virtual interface (tagged VLAN under network prefs) the Eucon client will not see the iPads for initial contact.

As soon as you've made contact by connecting to wifi you can switch off wifi and the traffic will continue to flow across the wire which is weird.

So I guess the Eucon client simply doesn't fully support the use of virtual interfaces on OSX.

Does anyone know? Bit of a bummer as several other MFGs do this and I can't possibly add another physical network card for every single protocol I need to receive. So far those would be Dante, (wired) Eucon for Artist controllers, AVID Control coming in on a VLAN from the WIFI AP, plus a bunch of other VLAN tags I need to be able to access.

My mac only has 2 physical ports and one I already need for the Artists and I don't want to have Wifi on for security reasons.

Thanks!

Frank.

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Can you not put a router on the EUCON port to serve both the Surfaces and the Tablets? Thats the recommended way.

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Thanks Eddie,

I have it setup that way. The iPad are on their own SSID and VLAN on the Ubiquity AP and land on the same VLAN that has the DAWs on them.

After hours of packet capture and Wireshark analysis I have now found that the data flows fine between the devices but the initial broadcast the AVID Control sends out is simply not seen by Eucon on the Mac if you have that subnet setup as a virtual interface tagged to that VLAN in system prefs on the Mac. The actual control data flows just fine once they are connected.
I've opened a support case but so far no body was able to tell me which TCP/UDP ports are used by these programs or if virtual interfaces should work.

Log story short, virtual interfaces sort of work but only if you initiate the connect over a physical port.

Unfortunately Dante DVS doesn't support virtual interfaces either so I have now changed everything so that Dante, Eucon flows on the same untagged VLAN. Not ideal as I wanted to keep Dante on a separate subnet but so far it has been working. Even though Eucon wants IGMP snooping turned off and Dante wants it on (as per the read-mes) . I have it on to avoid multicast overload on all network ports and it still all seems to work.

I can't isolate the iPads only for Eucon as I'm using other remote apps to control my monitor matrix. The latter seem to work fine even with virtual interfaces on the Mac.

It's a bit ironic that networking is to keep everything flowing across a single wire but then some protocols insist on living on their own on a dedicated physical network interface.

It took days to narrow this down but it seems to be stable now.

Thanks,

Frank.

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Can you do one check for me. EUCON relies on Bonjour. Can you run a Bonjour Browser and see if its getting the Control App added. The issue could be Bonjour not EUCON.

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Yes it does in my current setup. I'll have to change the network to the old one (with that subnet on a virtual interface) for comparison.

I do know that even on the old setup Spancontrol ( for the Spanner plugin) and the Xilica Control app worked, just not AVID Control. The two former also use Bonjour.

I even tried running Avahi on the firewall which re-transmits mDNS (Bonjour) across subnets but it didn't help. At any given time Spancontrol kept working. hm...

I'll have to wait for some downtime to check the old setup with that tool. I'll post back.

F.

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Thanks...it would be a good data point.

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

I'll leave this here in case someone else gets stuck.

Support has gotten back to me and said that virtual interfaces are not supported. Case closed for now I guess.

Frank.

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Thats the official Avid line (we can't support virtual interfaces) but I'm the Product Manager/Designer so am interested in the use case and whether we can get it to work etc. So please ping back if you every get to do the Bonjour test on EUCON.

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Ah, OK, no problem. I'll report back when I get a moment to test this.

Thanks Eddie!

Frank.

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Similar issue. Every time I launch ProTools I have to go thru this dance:

1. Turn on WiFi on the Mac
2. Wait until the Dock and Control Ap show up in My Surfaces
3. Remove both, and wait until they show up *available* in All Surfaces
4. Turn off WiFi on the Mac
5. Add both to MySurfaces

After than, everything works. I'm not running a VLAN.

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

A few questions.

1. Do you really mean every time you launch Pro Tools...or is this when you start the Mac ?
2. How is the iPad connecting to your network...directly to the Mac or to a Router (or even the camera kit cable?)
3. How is the Dock connecting to the network?
4. Is EuControl set to auto launch?

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

1. Yes
2. WiFi (same router/same subnet as iMac)
3. Ethernet cable to switch->router in #2 above
4. Yes

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Can you try as a test turning of EuControl Auto Launch? and doing it manually.

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

No difference

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

have you tried connecting the imac via ethernet to the router (and not use WiFi)

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

The iMac _is_ connected to the router via ethernet. The only time I turn on Wi-Fi is to get eControl to connect. Once that's successful, I turn Wi-Fi back off.

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Turning Wifi on or off whilst EuControl is running i known to cause issues, could it be that ?

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Well, turning on Wi-Fi temporarily is the only way I can get EuControl to see AVID Control, hence the problem. Is there some preference to reset EuControl's network stack?

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Maybe run the installer and select remove all apps and remove all prefs. Reboot and then install EuControl with Wifi Off.

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

That solved it! Thanks for your help!

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Hi Eddie,

so I finally had some time to test this out further. As a quick recap: I was trying to get Eucon to work across 2 subnets (VLANs) and it seemed like mDNS (Bonjour) wasn't getting across so you recommended to use Discovery to see if the iPad shows up there.
It actually does but still the Eucon App on the MacPro still won't see it.

So here's my "lab" setup:

iPad on a test SSID on my Ubiquity AP AC Pro access point (it's the only device on that SSID). This SSID is assigned to an isolated test VLAN50. On the AP I have IGMP snooping on and turned off blocking of broadcast traffic from wire to wifi. This VLAN is at 10.10.50.0/24

The Mac running PT is on VLAN21 (10.10.21.0/24).

I have avahi running on the firewall which repeats mDNS across both VLANs for discovery and I've allowed IP and UDP traffic between the MacPro and the iPad.

No virtual interfaces involved this time. Access port from switch to physical ethernet interfaces on the Mac.

I have the discovery app open and as soon as I start AVID Control on my iPad I can see that pop up in discovery on the MacPro so Bonjour is definitely coming across. I force quit AVID Control and it's gone, launch it on the iPad and it shows up immediately. So basically the MacPro sees the app. But for some reason the Eucon App just does not show AVID control under "All surfaces".

I can also ping the iPad from the MacPro via terminal.

I wish I could get this to work as I want to be able to be able to give iPads controlled access to the network and "consumer type" setups with home routers added to every room is just too scary as they just add potential doors to the network.

Should Eucon not see the iPad as long as it reports to Bonjour?

Or is the conclusion that the Mac and Ipad just have to be on the same subnet even if the firewall rules perfectly allow both devices to see each other? Can Eucon just not establish a connection even when Bonjour allows them to discover each other?

What's also remarkable is that when I use the Spanner plugin and the Spancontrol app on the iPad (which also uses Bonjour) it works like a charm even across the two subnets so there must be some odd traffic that's being blocked.

My personal conclusion about this it that EC and AVID Control are unable to communicate with each other even when being given their addresses via mDNS (Bonjours) successfully. Seems like communication to addresses on a different subnet simply isn't implemented? Is this the case. Would be a great piece of info to have so I can stop investigating ;-)

If that's true it's a bit of a bummer as it would mean that you always have to expose your network to Wifi in some way without any way of applying firewall rules which isn't great from a network safety POV.

Many thanks!

Frank.

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Your assumptions are correct. We did look at EUCON across wider networks but it was deemed such a big job that features and bugs fixing would suffer and the market need was small compared to other workflows.
I don't understand the worry about individual routers, these can be locked down pretty well.

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Thanks for confirming Eddie, that's very helpful and I'll stop experimenting now :)

The thing with additional routers for every room just for Eucon is that it makes things overly complex to maintain. I was hoping to be able to setup rules in a centralised way and have a single point of control over where packets can go. Especially with the cheese graters it becomes increasingly tricky to setup networks because a couple of audio apps just won't work over virtual interfaces (Dante DVS, Eucon just to name the most important ones) and just have to be on a single physical NIC in order to work at all. So it becomes a bit tricky if to want to fence off servers on your LAN from Wifi access and Dante etc.
I was hoping to find an elegant way to put all wifi Eucon traffic on it's own subnet that allows me to block any access to other networks via Wifi. As you know WPA2 isn't the greatest protocol in terms of security. So I started this little project.

But I'll have another brain storm and see how I can isolate Eucon in another way.

Thanks for your quick response!

Frank.

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Avid Control should be able to connect to a single wifi network, as long as the WS are on that network. The the Control Surfaces can then connect using a basic switch(self assigned) to the individual WS.

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Hey Frank, did you find a solution yet? I found this thread, because I also got my WiFi in a separate VLAN and no connection between iPad and EuControl. I checked with the Discovery app on my iPad and all the Eucon stuff shows up, so mDNS is working. I‘ll probably end up merging the WiFi and studio network to make Avid Control work, but if you did came up with something that works on two subnets I’d be very interested!

Cheers
Vincent

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Hi there,

long story cut short:

All Eucon devices incl. the ProTools rig need to be on the same network segment AND Eucon won't work over virtual interface (tagged VLAN) added to your (other) physical network interface. Even if mDNS (bonjour) is broadcast across 2 different VLANS Eucon will not be able to connect even if your firewall has pass rules for inter-VLAN routing. Even if you can ping from VLAN1 one to your iPAD in VLAN 2 they won't be able to connect (see my earlier posting above). Even if Discovery sees all of them.
You have to put all of them on the same VLAN, there is no other way I'm afraid. If you're out of en ports a USB-EN-dongle can help.
Also make sure that you're not blocking broadcast traffic to your wifi AP. Some APs default to blocking that as it avoids flooding Wifi with broadcast traffic but in a smaller setup that's a non-issue.

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Thanks for your reply! Just what I thought. The last option I can think of would be a wired connection to the switch (untagged interface) which hopefully works with PT. When I’m done mixing, I’d just unplug the dongle, turn on WiFi and use the iPad as always. I’ll try that tomorrow.


Edit: It works! Can connect my iPad to EuControl via Ethernet. Very cool!

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

USB to Ethernet adapter with the camera kit is the way to go if you want to avoid using WiFi.

Re: Which IP ports for AVID Control?
 

Hello,
We're not able to put individual routers on our networks nor implement WiFi. IT security is an issue. We do as Luke suggested making the iPads hard wired.
Hugh