thelinuxlink.net

Is the IRC down? I was hoping I could find someone that could help me out with a problem I'm having. Host is blaming ISP for problems, and I need someone who's not using Cox.

Yes, it looks down. Paging Dan, the internets are down!

Patrick wrote:Yes, it looks down. Paging Dan, the internets are down!

It's them tubes again!! They just got overloaded!!!

Well, quick enough replies on the forum, anyhow. If anyone here is not using Cox, would you try to do a quick telnet for me?
If you can connect or get some sort of 220 message, please let me know. I'd like to end the cycle of:

Host: "It's your ISP."
ISP: "It's your host."

thanks goodness dan killed it, i thought i was kicked off for asking if anyone was around

Let me rephrase that initial call for help. If anyone can try that telnet and tell me what you get, regardless of the response, I would greatly appreciate it. We haven't been able to send any mail for over 2 days. It's killing us.

Vogateer, I can connect. I get the following:
I've got to run but I can try to test and help more later.

Thank you Chess, that's what I needed to know. Looks like my host was right to tell me to look at my ISP. Now what in the Hell do I tell my ISP?

Chess, may I ask what ISP are you using? I would like to give them specifics when I call them, "Such and such is getting a connection from the University and somebody else is getting a connection at this ISP, so it's only when I'm using Cox that I'm not getting a connection."

Okay, looks like my ISP was the problem. They were assigning me a residential IP, and blocking port 25. That explains a lot. Wish someone would have verified that the first time I asked them.

Thanks again for taking some time out to help me out, Chess. You gave me the info I needed to derail the "check your host" route they were trying to send me down, and stop the vicious circle of pointing fingers.

I'm back for a moment... glad it helped, Vogateer. Just in case you still need it, my ISP is Time Warner cable in Raleigh, NC.

I'm coming in from a t1 I own and operate, via an ISP I work for.

snarkout@pinkwater ~]$ telnet mail36.opentransfer.com 25
Trying 72.41.255.201...
Connected to mail36.opentransfer.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 mail36.opentransfer.com ESMTP

Looks fine. Cox blocks all outbound 25 traffic except their own mail server, and all inbound 25 except for their business custoemrs, and even then there used to be a procedure the customer had to go through to get inbound 25. I haven't worked for Cox for several years though - things may have changed.

Snarkout wrote:I'm coming in from a t1 I own and operate, via an ISP I work for.

Man, wish we had T1. I don't know about inbound 25. I may set up ssh and try it on that port sometime. Doubt we'll need it, but it's good to know.

Thanks again to both of you for testing the host, which was fine the whole time. I asked Cox the first day to make sure we were still set up with the business account, and they said we were, and then I asked them to make sure they weren't blocking any ports, and they said, "We don't block ports on business accounts." And that's true until they somehow give you an IP from their residential IP block.

This was the first time I had to talk to the second level of support. It took a lot of convincing just to get them to even check if there was a problem. I had to repeat the situation at least four times and be really persistent with the first guy, but the second person was a girl who only had to hear it twice before she went in to verify my IP address. I probably wouldn't have gotten anywhere without the proof provided here.

I'd much rather have our DSL - I'd get much better speeds and I'd be paying a 10th of what I currently am. I can't get DSL here though. Managing your own internet pipe is something I'll miss dearly if it ever goes away, though - I manage my telephone service as well as my data service, so I have complete control. I like that

Oh, and a good tool for troubleshooting this sort of issue is tcptraceroute. I use it daily along with nmap to troubleshoot "higher level" issues. Check it out.

Brilliant. I used traceroute while trying to figure something out, but didn't know about tcptraceroute. I'll be sure to add that one to my toolbelt.

What it all came down to was a false assumption. I should never have assumed that Cox wasn't blocking our ports because we have a business account. You'd think I'd learned that lesson by now.