Thanks to all who replied. It's a pisser when work gets in the way of other stuff. Also I forgot to originally mention that I am on a cable internet system provided by Cablespeed.com (Millenium Digital Media).
Sak - Turing off the XP _firewall_ was tried and did not help.
Ray - I apoligize for not supplying more info. I had that feeling after the send button was clicked.
Michael - Thanks for the informative data on the ISP's DNS issues. (I have include Michael's reply as a link due to it's size
( http://www.mail-archive.com/leaf-user%40lists.sourceforge.net/msg16965.html ). I'm not surprised that there is a problem as I have had a problems with dhcp from the beginning (late Oct 2002)
Oct 30 19:06:50 firewall dhclient: ip length 340 disagrees with bytes received 344. Oct 30 19:06:50 firewall dhclient: accepting packet with data after udp payload.
my syslog continues to fill with these messages.
I have been able to get the mail client working by using the server mail.cablespeed.com, so my wife is happy in that respect. When I can get the time to sit on the phone I'll try to get some more information from my ISP. Everything was fine until they made server changes on 16 Feb 04.
However, to be complete, I have some additional data on the apparent problem that may or may not explain things given the ISP DNS inconsistances identified by Ray and Michael.
The LEAF box is getting the external ip address via dhcp and the internal XP box is getting ip addresses via dhcp from the LEAF box (when the LEAF box in in-line). The mail client used is Outlook Express (I can hear the shudders now ;)) The error that is returned with Outlook express is:
The host 'mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com' could not be found. Please verify that you have entered the server name correctly. Account: 'mail.cablespeed.com', Server: 'mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com', Protocol: POP3, Port: 110, Secure(SSL): No, Socket Error: 11004, Error Number: 0x800CCC0D
when using mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com as the mail server with the LEAF box in place.
Ping tests ---
1) From XP box connected directly to cablemodem -- ping mail.cablespeed.com -- OK ping mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com -- OK receive mail from mail.cablespeed.com -- OK receive mail from mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com -- OK
2) From XP box connected to LEAF box connected to cablemodem ping mail.cablespeed.com -- OK ping mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com -- NO receive mail from mail.cablespeed.com -- OK receive mail from mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com -- NO
3) From Leaf box connected to cablemodem ping mail.cablespeed.com -- OK ping mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com -- OK
For items 2 & 3 above, test the data was the same with config_DNS set to NO and config_DNS set to YES with the ISP DNS ip addrs used. The DNS ip addresses were determined by executing ipconfig /all from the XP box when it was connected directly to the cablemodem (item 1).
Also, if I retreived the ip address 66.235.59.17 from the XP _firewall_ logs during item 1 above. I'm assuming the ISP must be doing some ip translation (?) as the ip addresses discovered by Ray and Michael don't match the 66.235.59.17 address the XP log recorded.
Thanks to all who have taken their time. When I manage to get some (non)answers from my ISP I'll post the results.
Thanks,
John
From: Ray Olszewski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [leaf-user] ISP and DNS issues Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 16:05:12 -0800
At 02:46 PM 2/28/2004 -0800, John Wittenberg wrote:A few weeks back, our ISP decided that they were going to upgrade the mail servers. On the day they were upgraded we could no longer access the mail servers. My wife, who was and still may be extremely pissed, spent two days with the Technicians who could not help. At the end of the second day, my wife mentioned that we had a router and was told that was the problem. That evening I removed the LEAF router and the mail connection was _all well_ as the Windows XP box could connect to the mail server. Thinking that the problem was with my setup of the LEAF box, I am using Dachstein CD V1.0.2, I set up the box to use the default Dach settings. This still did not allow connection to the mail server. At this time I was beginning to believe that DNS could be that problem. About a year and a half ago, the ISP changed the mail server name. Using XP's built in _firewall_ I discovered the IP address for the mail server and using that instead of a the FQN, I was able to get access to the mail server through the LEAF box with the XP Box.
So thinking that since the XP box could connect to the mail server without the LEAF box using the FQN, I changed the LEAF box, at least I think I did, to use my ISP's DNS instead of dnscache in the LEAF box. But alass this _still did not_ work. I added my ISPs servers to DNS0 and DNS1 and set CONFIG_DNS to YES. Soooo, on a hunch I changed my mail Client to access the original mail server name and it works! Original server name = mail.cablespeed.com and the one that was working before the change = mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com.
The real question becomes, why when using the mail server name when connected direct from XP it works, where as having the LEAF box connected using the mail server name does not work. Is there some difference when using the ISP DNS versus going through the LEAF box with the ISP DNSs identified.
Thanks for any and all help in advance and sorry about the convoluted message.
I don't think you have really told us enough to let us spot the problem.
First thing: does your ISP have a policy against its customers using home routers? Assuming not (if they do, I really would consider changing ISP and telling this one why), the natural thing to do is to ask them how to access their mail server through a router.
Second thing: from out here, both the FQNs you list above resolve to the same IP address:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ ping mail.cablespeed.com PING mail.cablespeed.com (216.15.205.76): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 216.15.205.76: icmp_seq=0 ttl=46 time=68.3 ms [...] [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ ping mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com PING mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com (216.15.205.76): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 216.15.205.76: icmp_seq=0 ttl=46 time=67.7 ms [...]
This makes me inclined to dismiss any "solution" achieved by changing SMTP server name as a red herring.
Third thing: I would try to sort out the DNS issues directly. Log on to the router and try to ping both FQNs, and see whether they resolve or not. If they don't, stick with the DNS approach to sorting out the problem. IF they don't, then leave it behind and focus on service issues. Or, for that matter, try to ping them from the XP host when it is connected through the Dach router.
Fourth thing: might there be an auth (ident) service issue here? Do you have the Dach box set to ACCEPT traffic to the ident port? For obscure reasons, auth requests respond differently to the connection failure associated with an accessible port that has nothing listening on it than they do to the connection failure associated with a firewall REJECT or DENY.
Last thing: One other way to sort out the DNS component is to tell your XP host to use the ISP's DNS servers, not the forwarder running on Dach. Telling the Dach router to use them, the way you did it (DNS0 and DNS1, I mean), doesn't cause it to use them when resolving connections requested by LAN hosts, just when resolviing connections it needs to make itself.
If none of these thoughts get you anywhere, you might post a followup describing "does not work" in more detail. Do you have a reason, based on the exact failure you see, to blame DNS for this, rather than some problem at the SMTP, or other service, level? (That is, do you get a message like "no such host" when you try to connect, rather then the FQN seeming to resolve but the SMTP connection not completing? I can't be more exact here, since I don't know what e-mail client you use on the XP host ... but here, using Eudora on Win2K, it is easy to distinguish the two types of failure.) For example, if you get your external IP address via DHCP, the hostname of a LAN host might not match the hostname the ISP expects to be associated with that address ... a bit of a long shot, but anti-SPAM measures are getting weirder and weirder.
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