Troubleshooting tools

These tools can be used to investigate and resolve issues that occur in Access Gateway, Okta, applications, the network, and browsers.

Ping

Ping is a computer network administration software utility used to test the reachability of a host on an Internet Protocol (IP) network. It measures the round-trip time for messages sent from the originating host to a destination computer that are echoed back to the source.

Usage:
ping <destination>

Sample output:

root@Access Gateway ~]# ping example.oag.info
PING localhost (192.168.0.211) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from example.oag.info (192.168.0.211): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.033 ms
. . . 
64 bytes from example.oag.info (192.168.0.211): icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=0.048 ms
^C
--- Access Gateway ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4479ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.033/0.042/0.048/0.006 ms

Error:
In case there is no response from the target host, most implementations of ping display nothing, or periodically print notifications about timing out. Possible ping outputs indicating a problem include the following:

  • H, !N, or !P — host, network, or protocol unreachable

  • S — source route failed

  • T — return time in milliseconds or 1/4 meters-second (normally in telephone meters per and in traffic control milli per second)

  • F — fragmentation needed

  • U or !W — destination network/host unknown

  • I — source host is isolated

  • A — communication with destination network administratively prohibited

  • Z — communication with destination host administratively prohibited

  • Q — for this ToS, the destination network is unreachable

  • X — communication administratively prohibited

  • V — host precendence violation

  • C — precendence cutoff in effect

In case of an error, the target host or an intermediate router sends back an ICMP error message, such as “host unreachable” or “TTL exceeded in transit.” Additionally, these messages include the first eight bytes of the original message (in this case, the header of the ICMP echo request, including the quench value), so the ping utility can match responses to originating queries.

NS Lookup

nslookup is a network administration command-line tool available for many computer operating systems for querying the Domain Name System (DNS) to obtain domain name, IP address mapping, or any other specific DNS record.

Usage:
nslookup [-option] [name | -] [server]

See nslookup documentation for more details on available options.

Sample output:

[root@localhost ~]# nslookup www.okta.com
Server:		10.0.1.1
Address:	10.0.1.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
www.okta.com	canonical name = www.okta.com.cdn.cloudflare.net.
Name:	www.okta.com.cdn.cloudflare.net
Address: 104.18.211.105
Name:	www.okta.com.cdn.cloudflare.net
Address: 104.18.212.105

Error:Here is sample output when nslookup fails to find the DNS record:
[root@localhost ~]# nslookup unknown.server.com
Server:	10.0.1.1
Address:	10.0.1.1#53
** server can't find unknown.server.com: NXDOMAIN

Telnet

The telnet command is used for interactive communication with another host using the TELNET protocol. It begins in command mode where it prints a telnet command prompt (telnet>).

Usage:
telnet <host> <port>

Sample output of Successful Connection:

[root@localhost ~]# telnet 192.168.0.211 443
Trying 192.168.0.211...
Connected to gw-admin-gateway.info.
Escape character is '^]'.
^C
Connection closed by foreign host.`

Sample output of Failed Connection:

[root@localhost ~]# telnet example.oag.info 445
Trying 192.168.0.211...
telnet: connect to address 192.168.0.211: Connection refused

In the example, the host example.oag.info is listening on port 443, but not on port 445.

If telnet is not available on Windows, it can be enabled using these steps:

  1. Click Start → Control Panel.

  2. Click Programs and Features.

  3. Click Turn Windows features on or off.

  4. In the Windows Features dialog box, select the Telnet Client option.

  5. Click OK. The system installs the appropriate files. This takes a few moments to complete.

The nc (or netcat) utility is used for many tasks involving TCP, UDP, or UNIX-domain sockets. It can open TCP connections, send UDP packets, listen on arbitrary TCP and UDP ports, scan ports, and deal with both IPv4 and IPv6. Unlike telnet, nc scripts well and separates error messages into standard errors instead of sending them to standard output like telnet does.

Usage: nc [options] <host> <port>

Example: Similar to telnet, nc can also be used to validate whether a host is listening on a specified port.

 

The following are examples of output of both successful and failed connections:

Successful connection:

[root@Access Gateway ~]# nc -v -z -w 1 example.oag.info 443
Connection to example.oag.info 443 port [tcp/https] succeeded!

Failed Connection:

[root@Access Gateway ~]# nc -v -z -w 1 example.oag.infoo 445
nc: connect to example.oag.info port 445 (tcp) failed: Connection refused

nc is only available on Unix, Linux, and Mac operating systems.

Access Gateway sample header application

The sample header application is bundled with Access Gateway and can be used to validate the state of the environment and identify issues. You can perfomr the following tests using the sample header application to identify the root cause of some issues.

No. Component to Validate Validation Steps

1

Connectivity with Okta

  1. Add/Edit an application in Access Gateway.

  2. Access Gateway fails to create/save application if it fails to connect to Okta.

2

Okta API token

  1. Add/Edit an application in Access Gateway.

  2. Access Gateway reports an error if Okta API key is not active.

3

Okta attributes

  1. Add/Edit the sample header app inAccess Gateway.

  2. Add the required attribute in the Attributes tab, and pass it to the header.

  3. Open the sample header app and validate the value of the attribute.

4

Access Gateway

  1. Open the sample header application.

  2. This should redirect you to Okta for authentication (if Okta session does not exist and policy is set to protect the app).

  3. Any discrepancy in application flow points to an issue in the environment.

5

Application in Okta

This can be tested in two ways.

Application in Okta:

  1. Sign in to Okta.

  2. Click the application.

  3. This should redirect you to the application. If it does not, there is an issue in the environment.

Application URL in Access Gateway:

  1. Sign in to the Access Gateway Admin UI console.

  2. Go to the Applications tab.

  3. Right-click the Goto application button.

  4. If using Chrome or Firefox, click Copy link address. For Safari, click Copy Link and for Internet Explorer, click Copy shortcut.

  5. Paste the URL in the address bar, and press Enter.

  6. This takes you to Okta for authentication before proceeding to the application. If you aren't directed to the application after authentication, there is an issue with the environment.

6

Application in Access Gateway

  1. Open the public URL configured in Access Gateway Admin UI console for the application in a browser window.

  2. This should take you to Okta for authentication before proceeding to the application. If you are not directed to the application after authentication, there is an issue with the environment.