Tunneled Remote Debugging

[Arno]

Hello,

did anyone ever manage to configure VS2005 Remote Debugging to work
with a tunnel of some sort? I tried insecure TCP/IP debugging mode
with HTTPTunnel, but only got the connect message in msvsmon, that's
it. With SSH, I got nothing.

Looking at TCPView, it is clear that msvsmon uses some two ports in
addition to the TCP/IP port you give it on start-up, and I cannot
think of a way to make this work...

Arno

[Charles Wang[MSFT]]

Hi Arno,
To let me better understand your issue, could you please answer me the
following questions?
1. Can you remote debug your VS2005 application?
2. Why did you use SSH for remote debugging?
3. Could you please describe your process more detailed so that we can
reproduce your issue if it is possible?

For now, I would like to provide the following articles for your reference:
Visual Studio 2005 Remote Debugging
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa569599.aspx
How to implement remote debugging in Visual Studio 2005
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/910448

Per my test, I can debug my application remotely with insecure TCP/IP
debugging mode.

Look forward to your response.

Best regards,
Charles Wang
Microsoft Online Community Support
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[Arno]

Hello Charles,

I can remote-debug just fine. But sometimes it would be beneficial to
debug on a customer machine that is sitting behind a firewall.

In these cases, we usually use a remote desktop tool, of which there
are many, to investigate the problem. But if we want to debug, we need
to upload windbg (some may love it, but I don't find it particularly
user-friendly), .pdb and source files and then work with the slow
remote connection. It would be much nicer to use VS2005 connecting
remotely to the customer machine, but that would be require tunneling,
since the customer is often behind a firewall. I hope this clears
things up.

Thanks for your help!

Arno

[Charles Wang[MSFT]]

Hi Arno,
Thanks for your response.

I understand your situations, but two more question, why do you think the
VS 2005 remote debugging requires tunneling? Where do you see VS 2005
remote debugging requires tunneling?

From this KB article,
How to implement remote debugging in Visual Studio 2005
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/910448
I think that it should be no problem to setup remote debugging with VS
2005. If your customer is sitting behind a firewall, you can just ask them
to add the remote debugging to the exception list. For the detailed
firewall configuration, please refer to:
How to: Set Up Remote Debugging
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bt727f1t.aspx

Hope this helps. Please feel free to let me know if you have any other
questions or concerns.

Best regards,
Charles Wang
Microsoft Online Community Support

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[Arno]

Hello Charles,

corporations are not using the Windows XP built-in firewall, but a
centrally administered firewall somewhere in their network routing
system. No chance that the IT department is going to allow any
exceptions. So tunneling is the only way to work around the firewall.
This usually works with simple TCP/IP connections, such as POP3 or
SMTP, but does not with VS2005 remote debugging, because it opens
additional ports, at least that's my current understanding.

Arno

[Charles Wang[MSFT]]

Hi Arno,
Thanks for your response.

It seems that this issue has become "Does VS2005 remote debugging support
tunneling?". By now, I have not found any document talking about this.
Could you please let me know how you configured tunneling to work around
firewall?

I am consulting the product team on this issue, but the process may need a
long time. Appreciate your understanding that since your environment is
complex and no document talking about this issue, to get the best support,
effectively and immediately I recommend that you contact Microsoft Customer
Support Services (CSS) for the best support. Please be advised that
contacting phone support will be a charged call.

To obtain the phone numbers for specific technology request please take a
look at the web site listed below.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;PHONENUMBERS

If you are outside the US please see http://support.microsoft.com for
regional support phone numbers.

Best regards,
Charles Wang
Microsoft Online Community Support
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[Charles Wang[MSFT]]

Hi Arno,
I just got the confirmation from the product team. This seems to be a
product limitation. They told me that it might be possible to do but not
sure. The current architecture may be very difficult for getting this to
work since Remote debugging randomizes the ports it uses for communication.

Appreciate your understanding that due to its limiation, I am afraid that
you may still use the Remote desktop.

Please feel free to let me know if you have any other questions or
concerns.

Best regards,
Charles Wang
Microsoft Online Community Support
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[Charles Wang[MSFT]]

Hi Arno,
Just a kind reminder that I have not received your response. Please feel
free to post back at your convenience if you need further assistance.

Have a great day!

Charles Wang
Microsoft Online Community Support

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[Arno]

Charles, thanks for your research! I just thought about the topic
again, and I wondered whether windbg is easier to tunnel. It may not
be as convenient as Visual Studio, but my biggest problem is the super-
sluggish UI response when doing remote support sessions. Using windbg
per se is not so bad.

Regards,

Arno

[Charles Wang[MSFT]]

Hi Arno,
You may try and check if Windbg suppot tunnel debugging since there seems
no documents talking about this scenario. If it also does not support
tunnel debugging, I recommend that you may give Microsoft feedback via the
following link:
http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/

Best regards,
Charles Wang
Microsoft Online Community Support
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