Sun Java Plug-in bug and SCORM communication

A few users have encountered the following issue that affects tracking of SCORM courses on a small number of EKP sites.

Symptoms: SCORM courses fail to communicate with EKP, and one or more messages like the one below appear in the browser's Java console.

java.security.AccessControlException: access denied (java.net.SocketPermission www.example.com:80 connect,resolve)

Analysis: This issue is caused by a bug in certain versions of Sun's Java Plug-in. The bug was introduced in Java 6 Update 3, and is fixed in Java 6 Update 10. It affects Firefox and Safari; Internet Explorer is not affected.

Note that this problem does not affect all sites. It appears to affect a small proportion of sites, and is related to the site's DNS configuration.

Solution: Users who encounter the problem described above can apply one of the following solutions.

• Ensure that your users are using a version of the Sun Java Plug-in that is not affected by this problem. Users who currently have Java 6 Update 3 or above can upgrade to Java 6 Update 10. (Note that, as of 9 July 2008, Update 10 is flagged as “beta.” However, it is the first version offered on the downloads page.)
• Another solution that appears to be effective is to ensure that each EKP domain (e.g. ekp.example.com) is mapped (via DNS) to a unique IP address. That is, where multiple EKP instances are located on a single server, ensure that each instance on the server is associated with a different IP address.