topic Re: pcfserver.exe attempting to establish a TCP/443 connection with a Microsoft IP. in Administration and Deployment

pcfserver.exe attempting to establish a TCP/443 connection with a Microsoft IP.

matthewmeserve — Thu, 17 Dec 2020 23:35:23 GMT

Hello,

Our security software appears to be blocking pcfserver.exe from establishing a connection with what appears to be a Microsoft IP. Does anyone know why it would attempt to do this?

Information: The application C:\program files\sashome\saspcfilesserver\9.4\pcfserver.exe attempted to establish a TCP/443 connection to 52.109.12.22:443 from 10.x.x.x:56617. The operation was blocked.

Thanks,
Matt

Re: pcfserver.exe attempting to establish a TCP/443 connection with a Microsoft IP.

SASKiwi — Thu, 17 Dec 2020 23:52:51 GMT

Because PCFS is breaking a network security rule implemented by your IT Security folks. It is common and indeed best practice for IT Security to limit network traffic across an organisation's IT network by imposing rules on where traffic is allowed to originate and terminate and on what network ports that can happen.

You will need to talk to IT Security about implementing a network traffic rule change to allow PCFS to work correctly.

Re: pcfserver.exe attempting to establish a TCP/443 connection with a Microsoft IP.

matthewmeserve — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 00:02:38 GMT

I agree..and I understand why it is getting blocked. What I'm trying to understand is why PCFS would be trying to establish a connection to Microsoft. That being said, this user was trying to import an Excel file so I don't know if that is the basis. But it seems interesting to me that it would be trying to connect to an MS IP...for what reason?

Re: pcfserver.exe attempting to establish a TCP/443 connection with a Microsoft IP.

SASKiwi — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 00:14:26 GMT

What MS product are you trying to use PCFS with? If it is trying to interface with an MS cloud-based product like Microsoft Office 365 that might explain what is going on.

Re: pcfserver.exe attempting to establish a TCP/443 connection with a Microsoft IP.

ballardw — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 00:16:28 GMT

@matthewmeserve wrote:
I agree..and I understand why it is getting blocked. What I'm trying to understand is why PCFS would be trying to establish a connection to Microsoft. That being said, this user was trying to import an Excel file so I don't know if that is the basis. But it seems interesting to me that it would be trying to connect to an MS IP...for what reason?

I would see if the users code is using one of the procs like HTTP or a FILENAME URL to read something stored remotely.

Re: pcfserver.exe attempting to establish a TCP/443 connection with a Microsoft IP.

matthewmeserve — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 02:41:46 GMT

This is just MS Office 2016, installed locally.

Re: pcfserver.exe attempting to establish a TCP/443 connection with a Microsoft IP.

matthewmeserve — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 02:45:13 GMT

The proc is pointed to a file on a server via mapped drive. Example: Q:\Path\Folder\filename.xmlx

Re: pcfserver.exe attempting to establish a TCP/443 connection with a Microsoft IP.

SASKiwi — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 02:49:32 GMT

OK, I think you'll need to check with SAS Tech Support to get an answer on that then.