How to: Configure Application Listening Ports
This content is no longer actively maintained. It is provided as is, for anyone who may still be using these technologies, with no warranties or claims of accuracy with regard to the most recent product version or service release.
In normal operations, Speech Server listens for incoming Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) INVITE messages on the network ports specified for the entire computer running Speech Server. Messages are initially received on these ports and then redirected by Speech Server to randomly selected ports for the target applications. However, under certain circumstances, you might want to have application-specific listening ports that circumvent the general listening ports. These connections do not get redirected. All SIP traffic between the application and the SIP peers occur over these application-specific ports.
The following circumstances might warrant using application-specific listening ports over general ones:
To support applications intended to communicate with Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 Speech Server, which does not support message redirection.
To use specific ports that can be opened in Windows Firewall. Normally SIP traffic for a particular call initiates on one of the default ports and is then redirected to a randomly selected port for the remainder of the call. If Windows Firewall is enabled, it must be configured to allow connections to the W3wp.exe process (which hosts the application instance) or the call fails. Alternatively, by specifying the specific listening ports for exclusive use by an application, you can configure Windows Firewall to allow connections for only those ports.
Important
Carefully select ports and keep their identity confidential. Exposing ports in Windows Firewall is a security risk and should be managed carefully. For more information, see Configuring Windows Firewall for Speech Server.
To use application listening ports, consider the following issues:
The ports must be unique. Carefully select the ports, considering all the processes that run on the computer that require network ports. Be sure to not specify ports that are being used by other processes for other purposes (including other applications).
The SIP peer communicating with the application must be configured to route messages for the application to the specified listening ports.
The specified ports are only effective for the particular application. Other applications use other application-specific listening ports or the ports allocated to it by Speech Server.
Note
Ports for SIP traffic are linked to the virtual directory in which the application runs. Speech Server does not support deploying more than one application to a particular virtual directory. Each application must have its own virtual directory to avoid conflicts communicating with SIP peers. For more information, see How to: Configure the Application Run-time Environment.
To configure application listening ports
Open the Speech Server??Administrator console.
For more information, see How to: Start the Speech Server Administrator Console.
In the console tree, expand the applicable group, and then click Applications.
In the details pane, double-click the applicable application, and then click Advanced.
In Advanced Application Settings dialog box, clear the Use default listening ports check box, and then specify ports in the TCP listening port and TLS listening port boxes.
Click OK, and then click OK in the Application Properties dialog box.
Note
You can also configure application listening ports with a Microsoft Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) script. For more information, see the TCPListeningPort and TLSListeningPort properties in Application Class.