BlackBerry® PlayBook™

[tvdm12000]

BlackBerry Playbook OS v2.0

BlackBerry phone 9870

SSH Software PaderSync SSH

Carrier: Bell Canada

I am trying to use a Playbook to connect remotely via SSH (using PaderSync SSH) to an office server while bridged to a BlackBerry phone but keep getting 'unable to connect' error. When I disconnect the bridge and connect remotely via a WiFi network only I have no problems using the exact same settings in PaderSync SSH. So, I don't think it is the application but rather some kind of restrictions on the phone.

To try to isolate the problem and make sure it isn't the PaderSync application, I have downloaded and installed a Telnet application. Again issues occur when bridged. The telnet application will not connect remotely when bridged to the phone but with WiFi everything works fine.

Is anyone able to shed some light on the issue and possible solutions to work around it?

Thank you

[knottyrope]

i was not able to get SSH working on Bridge either

it might not be a supported protocol

[tvdm12000]

Grrr. Not good. I was hoping to provide my client another solution instead of VPN for retrieval of files from their office server. VPN access is soooo slow.

I tried other port numbers (8022, 1022) on the router instead of the standard (22) with no luck. I even temporarily replaced the working port # 8080 to forward to port #22 on the server. From a desktop machine it worked on port 8080 but a bridged Playbook no go.

Anyone have suggestions on which ports MIGHT work or is it not a port # issue at all?

Thank you

[rleoinformatica]

In order to verify whether is a playbook problem or a phone problem you could try to install BBSSH on the phone (it's free) and try to SSH from the phone, if it will connect it's a playbook problem,otherwise of course it's a phone problem.

I think you have a BIS connection and not a BES connection so port 22/tcp could be not working for that reason.

My personal experience: I live in Italy and I cannot SSH directly to 22/tcp from the phone because of BIS, I have to do some NAT/port forwarding on some port >1024 in order to SSH properly.

I remember a Blackberry Technical Solution Center about this question but I am not able to find it.

Hope this helps

[rleoinformatica]

Sorry I forgot one more thing: if you don't want to forward a port to establish a VPN, you could consider using TCP connection with GPRS/EDGE/3G traffic (you could pay the traffic !) or, if your customer has a Lotus Domino server or Microsoft Exchange server, you can install Blackberry Enterprise Server Express which is free and it makes a direct connection with the same LAN where mail server is located and you could not need VPN connection anymore and reach port 22 directly.

[tvdm12000 · Accepted solution]

My client had some time to play with this and found that if he first tethered the Playbook and phone he was then able to connect to the office server.

I guess I misunderstood how it all worked. I assumed that 'bridging' the devices was enough to make it work.

Just thought I would update the status in case others ran into similar issues.

[knottyrope]

thanks for the update