Franking Machine

[the_quick]

Hello all

 

School decided that they don't want to buy stamps ever so often, as you can print post labels on franking machine.

 

So, franking machine (from NeoPost) arrived, static ip assigned + proxy (we got those from LA) + firewall opened for requested ports - and it does not work !!!???

 

Changed to different dns(county one instead of ours) change to dynamic ip, restarted few times - machine will not connect to neopost servers - or where ever it needs to connect at first installation.

 

Firewall guys said all is done here, it should be all working, but it does not. I can ping ip of the machine no probs, but it does not talk to outside server (where it gets all information)

 

Anyone had any experience with franking machine and have it working?

 

Please share, pulling my hairs out.

Thanks

[pete]

Happily, ours uses a GPRS connection and I have very little to do with it.

 

Assuming black box (no real diagnostics beyond "didn't work") I'd mirror the franking machine's port to another spare port on the switch and then attach a laptop running Wireshark to capture packet data to work out what it's actually doing (vs what it should be doing).

 

Are the URLs / IP addresses it accesses whitelisted?

Are the URLs / IP addresses it's accessing (pulled from Wireshark capture) the same as those detailled in the documentation?

[rush_tech]

Hello all

 

School decided that they don't want to buy stamps ever so often, as you can print post labels on franking machine.

 

So, franking machine (from NeoPost) arrived, static ip assigned + proxy (we got those from LA) + firewall opened for requested ports - and it does not work !!!???

 

Changed to different dns(county one instead of ours) change to dynamic ip, restarted few times - machine will not connect to neopost servers - or where ever it needs to connect at first installation.

 

Firewall guys said all is done here, it should be all working, but it does not. I can ping ip of the machine no probs, but it does not talk to outside server (where it gets all information)

 

Anyone had any experience with franking machine and have it working?

 

Please share, pulling my hairs out.

Thanks

 

What model do you have?

 

Ours won't connect plugged in any switch that is 100mb or gigabit we have our plugged into a old 10mb switch and its happy with that.

Edited June 12, 2012 by rush_tech

[tom_newton]

Ours is neopost but it uses a modem. Doesn't work worth anything over a SIP ATA mind.

 

Suggest you put a switch port into "monitor"/"span" mode and use wireshark to debug what the franking machine is up to.

[mavhc]

Can't we print stamps from a website yet in the uk? Need a special machine still?

[the_quick]

Thanks guys for help. Will probably later try some troubleshooting with wireshark.

 

Model is IS350. I have tried connecting it to my home broadband and it is working absolutely fine there, just not in school.

 

The problem with printing from website, you do not get discount, you need additional scale, you need to print using normal printer on sticky labels, etc. Franking machine does it all in one and much faster.

[soveryapt]

Can't we print stamps from a website yet in the uk? Need a special machine still?

 

Online Postage | Royal Mail Ltd is one online solution ..

[DSapseid]

The one that we have plugs straight into a phone line and connects that way.

[joe90bass]

Ours (Pitney Bowes) will send usage updates via the internet, but will not download via it. It won't work over VOIP either (doesn't like signal converted) best result we've had is plugging into a standard phone connection for downloads.

 

And Ithought it was the 21st Century.....

[the_quick]

Update

 

Got it working, we sent request to open ports 80 and 443 for address neopost gave us plus to allow ICMP requests (ping) to go through. Than accidental I have removed proxy settings from franking machine and it worked. Still not sure why it does not need proxy settings, but hey, it works !!!