How to troubleshoot OTB connections using Putty

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Summary

This article provides steps for checking if the OTB connection is working or why it isn't working.

You want to check whether the OTB connection does work or why it isn't working.

An easy way to check whether the OTB connection does work or not is using telnet or putty (which has telnet built in)

To do so, follow these steps:

Download Putty.exe
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html
Start Putty.exe
Enter the name of the OTB receiver server (Columbus or Spider Data Receiver or Spider Data Collector)
use FQDN if required - for testing use as much as possible exactly the same writing than you can find in the details log and select Telnet as connection type
Enter the OTB port (defaults: Columbus=24784, SDC/Columbus Inventory=24786, SDR=1685)
Click open to establish an OTB connection to the Columbus server
Enter Test or any other string to be recognized in the brainware.log on the server
Check the brainware.log on the Columbus server for an entry with "Unknown OTB Command received"

If you get the An Unknown OTB command (see above) entry in the brainware.log OTB is working fine
If you see the server's answer (500-Syntax error, OTB command not recognized.) in PuTTY but don't get the entry in the brainware.log, you look on the wrong Columbus server
If you get a PuTTY error: Unable to open a connection to <Servername> - Host does not exist, your address cannot be resolved by your DNS
If you get a PuTTY error: Network error: Connection refused, PuTTY can resolve the name but the connection is rejected either by IDP, a firewall or something similar

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