Calling external webservice fails on 4 of the 5 server instances

[Former Member]

Hi!

I'm having a problem calling an external webservice. We are running ECC6 on 5 instances in our production environment. The web service call succeeds in the primary instance, but it fails in any of the other instances. Our basis team say that the ICF config is the same on all the server instances, but they are not SOA experts and might have missed something.

So what happens is that when a user logs on he is put on an instance via loadbalancing. If he is lucky enough to land on the primary instance the web service call will work. If he lands on any other instance the web service call will fail.

Any ideas on how I can fix this? What is the required ICF setup to get this to work?

Any help will be appreciated!

Iwan Ferreira

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Some ideas...

Check if the external web service provider checks the IP address of the web service client.

Do you have a firewall betwee nthe SAP ssytem and the web service provider ?

What kind of error do you get when the call fails from one of the dialog instance ?

Look in the ICM trace of the dialog instances.

Activate the full trace from SOAMANAGER.

Regards,

Olivier

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Olivier!

Thank you for your reply!

Here's what I've checked so far:

The external web service provider does not check the IP address of the caller.

There is no firewall between the SAP system and the web service provider. We can ping the external server from all the SAP instance servers and there does not appear to be any blocked ports according to our basis team.

The exact error that is given is "SOAP:1.023 SRT: Processing error in Internet Communication Framework: ("ICF Error when receiving the response: ICM_HTTP_CONNECTION_FAILED")."

We did pick up something strange along the line. The DNS lookup to some of the instance servers is not working. Our network guys are currently busy looking into this. Can this be the problem?

In the ICM trace we cannot see any info on the external webservice call. After a search through the SAP library I came upon profile parameter icm/HTTP/logging_client_<xx> that is supposed to control the logging of any outgoing web service requests. This paramater is not set in our system and I presume this is why there are no trace entries. I have asked our basis team to add this paramater in our system. I will then try to check the trace when this parameter has been set.

Any more ideas welcome!

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Iwan,

It looks like a nework problem to me.

Did you create an HTTP destination type G (HTTP Connection to External Server) to the external server from SM59 ?

If yes, use the connection test button after increasing the ICM trace level.

Then check the ICM trace file.

You can set the parameter icm/HTTP/logging_client_<xx> but it will only be usefull when your connection will work OK.

No HTTP client log is generated if the connection fails...

Regards,

Olivier

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Olivier!

Thank you! The problem has been solved. It was a network problem after all. We finally figured out that the DNS lookup to the external server was failing. To fix it all we had to do was add the DNS entry in the DNS server.

Iwan Ferreira

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Iwan,

I'm glad your problem is solved.

It was definitively looking like a network problem !

Regards,

Oliiver

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi!

I received this error when to execute Automatic diagnostics configuration in SOLMAN_SETUP in Solution Manager EHP 1.

>

> Hi Iwan,
> 
> It looks like a nework problem to me.
> 
> Did you create an HTTP destination type G (HTTP Connection to External Server) to the external server from SM59 ?
> If yes, use the connection test button after increasing the ICM trace level.

Please explain it. Which name and parameters need?

>

You can set the parameter icm/HTTP/logging_client_<xx> but it will only be usefull when your connection will work OK.
> No HTTP client log is generated if the connection fails...

and it...

in ICM trace file:

[Thr 1286] *** ERROR => Connection request from (-1/65535/0) to host: HOST, service: 8051 failed (NIEHOST_UNKNOWN) {002d60
[Thr 1286] *** ERROR => IcmJ2EEScheduleFunc: Connection to HOST:8051 failed - please check host configuration (-8) [icxxma

Thanks for your advance,

Alexander