How to … make sure the Thortspace App can access the Thortspace cloud service, and participate in Real-time Collaboration
This is a Technical Article. Most users should not need to know any of this.
This technical article for system admins and other technical types is an addenda to the main article of Thortspace Information for Techies which is here:
Most people should not need to read either of these articles !
For most users on typical networks no additional network configuration should be needed to enable the Thortspace App to connect to the Thortspace cloud service and participate in real-time collaboration. However some Business and Educational networks (such as schools and universities), there are sometimes efforts in place that deliberately block network traffic.
You can log in in the web-browser version of Thortspace, but not in the App
“I can log in to Thortspace Web Browser Version at https://thort.space/overlay/account/login , but when I try to log in in the Thortspace App, I get a message:
‘Unable to log in. Check user name and password’
Or
‘Unable to log in. Please check your internet connection and try again.’ ”
This may be because you have a proxy server or transparent proxy that is allowing your web browser access to the internet, but specifically not allowing other apps to connect outside the local network.
One approach to enabling Thortspace to connect via your Proxy Server is set up a Group Policy on each of the target client machines and thereby enable Thortspace to use the proxy server.
Download and Configure a Group Policy file
https://www.thortspace.com/ThortspaceGroupPolicy.adm
Windows 10: Type “Edit group policy” into the start menu search thing (it’s the local group policy editor). Right-click on “Administrative Templates” and choose Add/remove Group Policy to open the dialog.
Open the ThortspaceGroupPolicy.adm file in the Group Policy Editor applied to the machine.
You can go into the group policy editor and enable TS to use the system proxy, if there’s one configured.
Windows 7: The group policy editor looks almost identical and can be launched by running “gpedit.msc” from the run dialog.
General Considerations
(1) In order to connect to Thortspace Cloud Service,
The Thortspace App connects to https://thortsphere.appspot.com/ (which is on google cloud service) on port 443.
Sometimes this domain is aliased as https://thort.space (so it may be just as well to make allowances for either of these)
(If you do enable the above connections for the App, I believe you should be able to log in.)
Additionally,
(2) To enable realtime collaboration with other sharing users
Being able to log in, doesn’t guarantee that realtime collaboration will work!
- The Thortspace App connects to a List server (and under some router situations a Relay server)
The IP address of the List Server and Relay Server is: 52.174.89.243
From the Server’s point of view:
So I think this means that from the clients point of view, outward bound ports 2808 and 443 must be accessible.
- And it then establishes direct p2p (“peer-to-peer”) connections with the other collaborators. I need to check what ports are these are used on this, and will update this article when I find them.
