Strange Issue connecting to school internal servers

[Simcfc73]

Sounds kinda simliar to an issue here. Users with TalkTalk lines can't use our SSL VPN or DirectAccess. Everyone else is fine.

 

Sorry not helpful but it does sound like ISP issue (routing?).

 

Do you have anything to do with BT at your place?

[timbo343]

But who does he contact if its ISP? Thats what he needs help with. The trouble with ISPs is they wont listen to the customer and trying to talk to 3rd line is impossible. Its almost like he needs to threaten them.

[sparkeh]

Do you have anything to do with BT at your place?

Well our ISP is RM, which partner with TalkTalk that use BT lines. Bit a tangled web when trying to get stuff done :/

Can't get to the bottom of it at the moment.

[sparkeh]

But who does he contact if its ISP? Thats what he needs help with. The trouble with ISPs is they wont listen to the customer and trying to talk to 3rd line is impossible. Its almost like he needs to threaten them.

 

Agreed it's not an easy task, as a consumer they aren't interested in this stuff. Perhaps asking all affected staff to make a joint complaint might do something?

[Simcfc73]

All this seemed to start when the BT network went down a couple of months ago (I think). I'll contact BT tomorrow, I am not holding my breathe though.

 

I'll keep the traces when its working on my OWA and see if its different to when it doesn't work.

[Simcfc73]

Had my first chat with BT.. they said they do not block any ports, so will try again tomorrow.

 

Today I thought I would try to use the BT router to do the port forwarding... but the POS they provided doesn't do port forwarding for static IP's if you don't use their DHCP.

 

Here is an interesting thing.

 

2 traces to my servers I am having trouble with.

 

This doesn't work

 

1 3 ms 1 ms 4 ms SkyRouter.Home [192.168.0.1]

2 * * * Request timed out.

3 28 ms 23 ms 26 ms be378.pr2.enlba.isp.sky.com [2.120.8.90]

4 29 ms 23 ms 24 ms 195.66.224.185

5 24 ms 21 ms 24 ms core4-BE4.faraday.ukcore.bt.net [213.121.193.182]

6 23 ms 23 ms 46 ms acc2-10GigE-0-4-0-8.l-far.21cn-ipp.bt.net [109.159.249.130]

7 22 ms 23 ms 31 ms 109.159.249.193

8 23 ms 22 ms 24 ms 217.41.168.108

9 22 ms 24 ms 22 ms 217.41.168.216

10 21 ms 21 ms 26 ms 213.120.177.101

11 22 ms 20 ms 24 ms 213.120.178.149

12 35 ms 34 ms 32 ms *********.99]

 

This does

 

1 5 ms 10 ms 2 ms SkyRouter.Home [192.168.0.1]

2 * * * Request timed out.

3 27 ms 24 ms 24 ms be378.pr3.enlba.isp.sky.com [2.120.8.92]

4 24 ms 22 ms 23 ms linx1.ukcore.bt.net [195.66.224.69]

5 21 ms 25 ms 27 ms core4-hu0-6-0-0.faraday.ukcore.bt.net [62.172.103.40]

6 22 ms 28 ms 25 ms acc2-10GigE-0-5-0-0.l-far.21cn-ipp.bt.net [109.159.249.160]

7 22 ms 21 ms 23 ms 109.159.249.207

8 27 ms 22 ms 27 ms 217.41.168.108

9 22 ms 24 ms 28 ms 217.41.168.216

10 27 ms 25 ms 21 ms 213.120.177.101

11 20 ms 20 ms 21 ms 213.120.178.149

12 42 ms 35 ms 36 ms *****.102]

 

There is an extra step at hop 4 with the one that doesn't work... and they mention BT

[timbo343]

Theres the same amount of hops but like you say hop 4 on the one that doesnt work doesnt resolve within bt.

[Simcfc73]

Right so here goes.

 

I bought a Draytek modem so I could bypass the BT modem and smoothwall to go some testing (its pain that I only managed to get this working with 1 day left).

 

And guess what.. it worked FFS

 

So on the Draytek I put the exact same assigned IP address I was using on the Smoothwall to connect to my server and managed to connect on 80 and 443.

 

Sooooo, its either a major coinkydink that the BT issues fixed themselves or there is an issue with my Smoothwall which got copied across when I rebuilt the Smoothwall box.

 

 

Sat at home the port forwarding through SW fails but works through Draytek... its a different Fibre line but both are with BT.

[Simcfc73]

And now its started working all on its own FFFFFFSSSSSSS

[timbo343]

sooo... where are you with all of this now lol? sounds like you've had a right mare with it all.

[Simcfc73]

Still broken, it did start working but has fallen back to being rubbish. I was tempted to move one of my fibre lines away from BT

[timbo343]

Still broken, it did start working but has fallen back to being rubbish. I was tempted to move one of my fibre lines away from BT

 

That's not a bad thing is it unless you have some kind of fancy configuration?

[Simcfc73]

Right so I tried some new stuff as its still broken and found out something interesting.

 

I bought a new vdsl modem and it worked.. then stopped

 

So I have managed to get it working from home but not sure why.

 

I have a block of statics 178.177 to 178.181

 

My servers I am having issues with are 178 and 179... previously 178 worked.. now its vice versa

 

What I have found is that if I connect to 178.178 I get a page from Smoothwall. There are no port forwards setup on 443 on this IP

 

[h=1]ERROR[/h][h=2]The requested URL could not be retrieved[/h]

---

The following error was encountered while trying to retrieve the URL: https://*.*.178.178/

Unable to forward this request at this time.

This request could not be forwarded to the origin server or to any parent caches.

Some possible problems are:

 

• An Internet connection needed to access this domains origin servers may be down.
  
• All configured parent caches may be currently unreachable.
  
• The administrator may not allow this cache to make direct connections to origin servers.
  

Your cache administrator is webmaster.

 

 

BONKERS

[timbo343]

Seems to me like you need to move away from your supplier or is it the smoothie now thats at fault?

[Simcfc73]

Smoothwall didn't have a clue, he tried it on his work pc and it failed..tried it on his mobile phone and it works. The traffic shows up as going through. I am dreading changing my ISP because I still think it's smoothwall. I might try one last thing at half term and install the smootheall from scratch AGAIN and just put basic rules in.

 

 

Oh and the other day I enable IPS on the connections and it stopped everything. It was the zero day rule I think.

[Simcfc73]

So after weeks and weeks of faffing someone from Smoothwall attached and by god I think they have cracked it.

 

M

T

U

 

It makes sense when I thought about it. The setting BT recommend is 1492 which was set correctly on all my NIC's on the smoothwall. When SW attaches they did some testing and it looked like 1492 is hitting somewhere that does like it so its dropping. They set it to 1450 on all the external NICs and the internal ones... after they blipped out and reconnected I tested and it seemes to have fixed it. I've come home and its lightening quick without any issues.

 

I've asked staff to let me know but I hope its the solution.

[timbo343]

So after weeks and weeks of faffing someone from Smoothwall attached and by god I think they have cracked it.

 

M

T

U

 

It makes sense when I thought about it. The setting BT recommend is 1492 which was set correctly on all my NIC's on the smoothwall. When SW attaches they did some testing and it looked like 1492 is hitting somewhere that does like it so its dropping. They set it to 1450 on all the external NICs and the internal ones... after they blipped out and reconnected I tested and it seemes to have fixed it. I've come home and its lightening quick without any issues.

 

I've asked staff to let me know but I hope its the solution.

 

All that and its the MTU.. god almightly. Damm that MTU. Fingers crossed that sorts out the issue.

[mrnoisy]

Wish I'd seen this thread earlier, 2 weeks of the same issue, also tried all of the above, turned out to be MTU after smoothwall had a look today ( excellent support ) , we spent weeks checking over everything, trading the Internet , didn't find a thing, so wish I'd seen this earlier.

[Simcfc73]

Mines gone funny again, GGGGGGRRRRRRRRR

[adamholt1]

Mines gone funny again, GGGGGGRRRRRRRRR

 

Do you have any update??

 

We are experiencing similar problems here!!!

[Simcfc73]

It ended up being a bug

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/smoothwall-direct-support/173834-ports-opening-closing.html

 

He disabled the setting to start with and all came back to life without issues... then they went in and did some changes so it allowed the traffic into the exchange server properly.