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pro256
pro256
Known Participant
February 2, 2018
Question

Adobe Reader URLs

  • February 2, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 841 views

We need to know what URLs Adobe Reader uses to "call home" (example:  to check for updates, download updates, ect.) to allow that traffic through our gateway firewall.    System:  Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit, IE 11.

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    2 replies

    T
    Test Screen Name
    Legend
    February 13, 2018

    The update service (not Reader) probably does have a hard coded list of names. Or one name. But it probably gets a list of version info and available servers for download This could be dynamic. There’s a lot of calling home especially for offering online services in save/open and to check licensing of add-ons. Some can be disabled using info in the Enterprise Deployment Toolkit.

    T
    Test Screen Name
    Legend
    February 3, 2018

    The number of hosts and domains used is almost unlimited. These things are now done by pools of machines in many countries and hosted by many companies; at busy times thousands of new machines can be created as needed. So the need to do these things has moved far beyond anyone's ability to whitelist them. Companies needing full control manage the update process via corporate routes.

    pro256
    pro256Author
    Known Participant
    February 13, 2018

    OK, so the updates are done by pools of machines, etc., etc.  However, the Adobe Reader installed on the client has to have a FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) or URL coded in it so it knows what to use connect to for an update.  Otherwise, how does it know?  For example, we assume something like fpdownload.macromedia.com is compiled in the product code. fpdownload.macromedia.com is probably what you are talking about being dynamically pooled across servers, etc. The exact IP address is resolved dynamically at execution time.   We don't need to know specific hosts, IPs, or domains.   That's resolved by the network.

    We'll run a network trace next time we invoke Adobe Reader and see what it connects to.  We were hoping someone had already done that and could share the results with us.

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