Which hosts/IPs to allow through Proxy for license authorization/activation

Working in a restricted (network-wise) corporate environment and were previously able to set up a fully offline installation of Sketchup, through the copying of a license file.

Now, with the removal of the ‘classic’ license, it looks like each computer must connect to Trimble servers to run for the first time and then every 28 days thereafter.

I am going to try to get the needed hosts/domains allowed through the corporate proxy and get it working like this.

Does anyone have any experience doing this?

Does anyone know which specific domains/hosts/IPs are required for signing in/activating the Sketchup program?

Unfortunately it is not an option to have a direct open internet connection to these computers.

As a note, if there is still a way to do a fully offline activation or whatever would be ideal and much preferred to having to connect periodically.

Is it just that single host that is needed?

A private server can handle the rlm internally.
It can only run on a physical machine (no virtual environment)
Minimum 5 seats one or two year valid (only the version you buy, no major updates)

The sign in uses Trimble’s identity services.

Makes sense, thanks for the prompt answers.

I will try that out now and see what happens.

I got identity.trimble.com through the proxy but when Sketchup starts it still says that I am offline.

Is it possible it will be trying to contact other domains as part of starting up or logging in?

Or are there some settings I need to change in Sketchup so that it can connect through the proxy?

This is what I see, even when the proxy is passing through identity.trimble.com (http:80 and https:443)

I think it checks if it is licensed, first, and if not, then checks if you are online to get the activation.
It used google.com or bing.com to ping to.

jbvbnm

Ok that would make sense.

I’m far from an expert but in my attempt at packet sniffing I did see requests to bing.com so that could be that.

It also appears to make requests to client.sketchup.com, not sure if that is part of the activation or if that is just Sketchup looking to see if there are updates.

I have a question as well about this. In a secure environment such as render1, can bing and google be replaced with a different destination (i.e. autodesk.com, adobe.com) as those are already whitelisted through our firewall and the google and bing pings pose a security issue with our vendors.

This is still unresolved for me.

I have gotten quite a few destinations allowed through the corporate proxy, and Sketchup still thinks it is offline and allows no action beyond this.

Has anyone else gotten something like this working?

Ideally if there were a list of the destinations/addresses that need to be allowed through the proxy then I could just get these added and then I could get this activated and working.

Is there someone from the Sketchup team that might be able to look into it? I’m sure this would also help others running into the same situation.

Here is something from the help article. If you follow these steps you can get SketchUp to check your Intranet as a way to see if you are online:

  1. Open a File Explorer window.
  2. Copy and paste this text into the path field in the File Explorer window (replace 20## with your SketchUp version number):

%LocalAppData%\SketchUp\SketchUp 20##\SketchUp\

  1. Open the PrivatePreferences.json file with Notepad.

  2. Locate the line which looks like this:
    "OnlineTestURL": "",

  3. Change the " " value to a URL that you can reliably contact without any kind of redirect or Proxy interference. This could even be your company’s Intranet site. For example:
    "OnlineTestURL": "http://intranet.mycompany.com",

  4. Save the PrivatePreferences.json file.

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One thing, SketchUp needs to be closed when editing the .json file, otherwise it gets rewritten upon closing again.

@colin Thank you so much! This works!

I closed sketchup, and changed this value to point to an internal address.

I fired up Sketchup, and it immediately indicated that I was online and had the option to sign in.

Clicking the Sign in button takes me to the trimble sign in page, which, with this address allowed through the proxy, it shows up and I am able to log in successfully.

Thanks for your help with this, I really appreciate it. I did search fairly extensively for this issue, but did not find any links to it in the documentation, so I must’ve been using the wrong keywords.

So it looks like the steps to get this working are:

  1. Allow the specific address(es) through corporate proxy
  2. Activate/configure proxy to be used on current workstation
  3. Change ‘OnlineTestUrl’ as above
  4. Fire up Sketchup and log in
  5. Push/Pull to your hearts content
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This doesn’t work for us. Whitelisted all domains, added in ports as detailed, tried changing the Test URL - etc; still no luck.

We are using a Sophos Web Appliance. Running in Explicit mode.

All we ever get is this:

I’ve tried contacting SketchUp directly for support but have had no response at all. I’ve been in contact with our reseller who has done everything within their power but is unable to help us any further. Can anyone else please advise? In this day and age, software like this should be made proxy aware - especially when being installed in a school environment.

I have Sketchup Pro 2021 and can confirm that it does use the proxy successfully – I have the proxy configured in the Windows 10 proxy settings and Sketchup uses this proxy automatically without any custom configuration.

From the screenshot you posted, it looks like you are attempting to use a ‘Classic’ license, which I think were cancelled by Sketchup ( see SketchUp Classic License | SketchUp Help ).

Do you have a Classic license or something else?

It was a pain for me to get Sketchup working over a proxy, mainly due to the lack of documentation on what needs to be done, but I did get it resolved in the end.

Hi render1,

We have the proxy configured in Windows 10 Proxy settings and within IE, all functioning elsewhere absolutely fine.

Yes, that’s right we were given Classic licenses - the documentation mentioned dropping them into the following location:

C:\ProgramData\SketchUp\SketchUp 2021\activation_info.txt

The MSI is rolling out too via a GPO, no issues that side.

It does seem interesting from the link you’ve given that classic licenses appear to no longer be in operation… however when installing on my PC in the office (bypassing the proxy) using the same MSI / txt file it works fine and activates with no trouble.

It’s as soon as it hits the Sophos Web Appliance we encounter problems.

I’ve contacted Sophos hoping that they’ll come back to me with a resolution, but based on previous experiences with their support I’m not holding out much hope!