Running Rational Performance tester with agents on other side of firewall

Rational Performance tester in terms of software installations as three components
1. RPT master or workbench
2. RPT License server
3. RPT Agents
RPT master is similar to controller in Loadrunner and plays central role in configuring and executing tests. In a case, where you got RPT agents inside the firewall and master outside or vice versa, the ports with which this communication generally happens becomes key as these ports need to be opened to make the test execution possible.  Also if license server is on other side of firewall with respect to workbench , it also requires to open appropriate firewalls.


RPT workbench and RPT license server
RPT workbench and RPT license server communicate through port number 27000 for the purpose of license check. If license check is not working , first thing to look at whether the port 27000 is open by doing telnet to each other on this port. This can be reconfigured to use different port by changing the port number at both license key administrator on work bench and on license server.
To change this, open up the license administrator  and then click Settings > Client/Server Configuration. This opens up the client server configuration window as shown below when the port number can be changed from default to something else

RPT workbench and RPT agent controllers
The forward communication between RPT workbench and RPT agent controllers is on ports 10002,10003 and 10005. The firewall on agents machines should be modified to allow these three ports.
The backward communication from RPT agent to RPT workbench in on range of dynamic ports. Say if you have three agents, then each of the agent would communicate back on three different ports . In total there are 9 ports 3 each for one agent. Since this number is dynamic, you can define the range beginning with certain port number. On version 8.0 and above , you can define this on following setting
Windon –> Preferences –> Agent Controller.

As in above snapshot, the port number to begin with is 25000, and if you had two agents, then first agent would communicate back on 25000, 25001, 25002 and second agent would communicate back on 25003, 25004, 25005. Thus all these ports should be open on the firewall to make the playback of test successful.