Connection Troubles

[Koron]

To whom it may concern (e.g. Zeno, but advice from anyone is welcome),

We've got a player who can connect to the server when using his home network connection on his laptop, but when he connects to the intertubes using his AT&T Sierra Wireless Lightning LaptopConnect card, he can't connect to any mud on zeno.biyg.org. He CAN, however, connect to the server website. I've about run out of ideas for what to do to troubleshoot this, but this isn't really my area of expertise to begin with.

This is actually the second player we've had report a problem like this. Could it be an issue with some security software here (blocked IP)? At this point, I'm basically shooting in the dark.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Zeno]

Let's try and debug this.

Can the person do a tracert to zeno.biyg.org on both his home and AT&T connection? Paste the results here.

Can the person connect to a MUD on the same port (on a different server) with AT&T?

I don't block anyone from the server, so unless the server is doing it automatically it shouldn't be me.

Normally I would suggest removing the router and using just the modem to test the connection, but I assume this is not possible with LaptopConnect?

[Koron]

Can the person do a tracert to zeno.biyg.org on both his home and AT&T connection? Paste the results here.

His tracert doesn't complete, but tracert does at least initially show the correct IP. He said it goes about 30 hops and then times out. I don't have his full report, but I'll get it when I see him next if you think it'll be helpful.

Can the person connect to a MUD on the same port (on a different server) with AT&T?

Yes.

Normally I would suggest removing the router and using just the modem to test the connection, but I assume this is not possible with LaptopConnect?

Correct. It's a USB dongle that uses a cell connection to access the tubes.

[Zeno]

If the two tracerts don't differ, I don't need them. But if they differ yeah I would have to see them.

[Koron]

Fascinating.

Normal wifi connection looks normal. Omitting most of it.

Tracing route to zeno.biyg.org [74.67.44.255]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
. . .
11 82 ms 63 ms 62 ms 66.109.6.73
12 73 ms 69 ms 83 ms gig12-0-0.albynywav-rtr02.nyroc.rr.com [24.29.39 //This is not a paste error on my part. The final number was missing.
13 75 ms 63 ms 71 ms gig2-0-0.albynywav-rtr01.nyroc.rr.com [24.29.36.241]
14 80 ms 64 ms 87 ms gig16-1.albynysat-ar402.nyroc.rr.com [24.29.39.190]
15 * * * Request timed out.

Here's how the LaptopConnect tracert starts:

Tracing route to zeno.biyg.org [74.67.44.255]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 * * * Request timed out.

30 hops of that.

What do you make of this? My immediate guess would be the ISP being douchey, though I'm not at all sure why that might be the case.

[Zeno]

15 * * * Request timed out.

This is normal. I believe at that point you've hit my router and my router disallows pings/etc so it stops there.

1 * * * Request timed out.

This sounds like something when the ISP or hardware/software blocks you from even trying to get there. You say the person can bring up http://zeno.biyg.org just fine? Not sure how that would happen if the tracert fails like that. Can the person bring up http://zeno.biyg.org:15000

Also have them try this on both connections (telnet to http):

telnet to zeno.biyg.org 80

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ telnet zeno.biyg.org 80
Trying 74.67.44.255...
Connected to zeno.biyg.org.
Escape character is '^]'.

GET /index.php HTTP/1.1
host: zeno.biyg.org
<press enter again>

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:53:51 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.3 (Unix) DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.2.3 OpenSSL/0.9.8d PHP/5.1.6 mod_apreq2-20051231/2.5.7 mod_perl/2.0.2 Perl/v5.8.7
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.1.6
P3P: CP="CAO PSA OUR"
Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=a3f036350aad2bdf423c77f51f3686de; path=/
Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0
Pragma: no-cache
Set-Cookie: qsf_lastallread=1263758052; expires=Tue, 18-Jan-2011 19:54:12 GMT; path=/; domain=zeno.biyg.org; HttpOnly
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: text/html

410e
<!-- START: MAIN -->
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">

etc

[Koron]

Can the person bring up http://zeno.biyg.org:15000

No.

At this point, I suspected perhaps he had not properly loaded the site at all on his LaptopConnect card, thinking that his browser might've just displayed a cached version. Sadly, he said he hadn't tried to connect to the website at previously. An easy answer is determined to elude me.

Thanks for the super speedy response, Zeno. I'm working with him to get the telnet job done, but I have to run out for a little while in a few. I'll post an update when I've got one.

[Zeno]

Since they cannot get to http://zeno.biyg.org:15000 and if they can still bring up the normal site (no cache), then something seems to be blocking all ports except 80 to my server.

If the telnet works, that is probably the case. If the telnet doesn't work, that sounds like they are also blocking telnet to me somehow.

Since we know http://zeno.biyg.org:15000/ doesn't work, the person could call support and tell them they can't get to http://zeno.biyg.org:15000/ even though they know it is up and running. The tech should give an answer (even if it isn't a solution).

[Koron]

wouldn't connect with the evil connection.
this is as far as it would go : Connecting To zeno.biyg.org...

Worked fine and provided the expected spam-and-boot with his wifi. No-go with LC.

Since we know http://zeno.biyg.org:15000/ doesn't work, the person could call support and tell them they can't get to http://zeno.biyg.org:15000/ even though they know it is up and running. The tech should give an answer (even if it isn't a solution).

I suggested he do this. Thanks again for the help.

[Zeno]

I would say try to get to http://zeno.biyg.org on a new browser to rule out cache.

If they can, telnet is being blocked to me.

If they can't, then something is blocking everything to me. And if that case, simply call up support and say you can't get to http://zeno.biyg.org even though it is up.

I would like to know what support says, since I have heard of this rare problem too.