Can't Ping. Stumped

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Tim MIller - 20 Apr 2005 15:40 GMT

Good morning,

I suppose this is a newbie question, even though I'm not really a newbie.
Just a moron, I suspect. Be merciful! Please, oh wise ones, indulge my
ignorance and toss me a clue.

I have dialup at home and DSL at the office. I use Timbuktu for data exchange
and remote controle between one machine and the other. I can do it by direct
dial connection or TCP/IP. TCP/IP is quite a bit faster.

To make things easier, I subscribe to a domain name server, so my IP address
at the office is always the same. Otherwise it changes occasionally.

Awhile back, I lost the ability to connect to the office machine by TCP/IP.
Timbuktu's help desk could connect, no problem. So I investigated more, from
my machine at home.

I realized I can't get a ping back from *any* server from my dialup machine.
I can't get a ping back from my domain name, or the current IP of my DSL
machine or google.com. I can't even get a ping back from my own ISP. Yet I
can connect to the internet just fine. Others can ping my domain name or my
current DSL IP address. I can send and receive email just fine. Tech support
for my ISP could ping my temporary dialup IP just fine.

I'm using InterArchy for the pings. I've got Norton Firewall, but I disable
it for test purposes. I'm not connected to a router.

I must be doing something wrong. What is it?

Thanks in advance,

Tim Miller

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Tom Stiller - 20 Apr 2005 16:46 GMT

> Good morning,
>
[quoted text clipped - 24 lines]
>
> I must be doing something wrong. What is it?

What machine and version of the OS?

Signature

Tom Stiller

PGP fingerprint = 5108 DDB2 9761 EDE5 E7E3
7BDA 71ED 6496 99C0 C7CF

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D. Kirkpatrick - 20 Apr 2005 20:25 GMT

> I'm using InterArchy for the pings. I've got Norton Firewall, but I disable
> it for test purposes. I'm not connected to a router.
>
> I must be doing something wrong. What is it?
>
> Thanks in advance,

---

Is your ISP or one of the connecting services blocking the port that
you are running your connection software on?

Some ISP services are detecting virtual network connections between
office and home and are deeming them a commercial activitity. In such
a case they may force you to purchase a commercial connection package
from them, rather than a residential, personal use package.

Do you have another program that will allow you to trace or ping such
as WhatRoute? Any chance at specifying another port?

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gandalf@doctorTimothyMiller.com - 20 Apr 2005 20:53 GMT

Thanks Tom and D.K. This is me, Tim Miller, the OP, replying from
Google Groups.

Silly me. I should have mentioned, my machine on the dialup account, at
home, is a "legacy" (i.e., old, crappy) Macintosh, running OS 9.2. It's
upgraded to a G3.

I'm using Interarchy to ping. I think it's working okay. Traceroute
comes up empty, also. As far as I know, a non-returned ping will also
produce an empty traceroute. But, I don't hardly know nothing.

I'm often sort of overwhelmed by Interarchy's many features. I can't
figure out if it's possible to ping from another port. If it is, I
can't find the setting. Anyone know?

My dialup ISP says they do not block pings.

My DSL ISP (SBC) started blocking email on port 25, without notifying
anyone, a few months ago. Imagine the turmoil! That's fixed, I'm using
SBC's new SMTP server, and I'm now exempt from port 25 blocking anyway.

In any case, several people have told me they can ping the domain name
from my domain name server, or the actual DSL IP address of my machine
at the office without any problem. In addition, I can ping *from* the
DSL machine at the office. So, I don't think SBC is blocking pings,
either.

Any other ideas? Maybe a trouble-shooting strategy?

If you want to reply privately, reply to (I'm going to write this in
pig latin)

millertay atay odinetlay otday omcay

(Do you think spammers can havest email addresses disguised with pig
latin? Hope not. Pig latin is *so* much easier than SSH tunneling <g>)

Thanks so very much.

Tim

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Tom Stiller - 20 Apr 2005 22:58 GMT

> Thanks Tom and D.K. This is me, Tim Miller, the OP, replying from
> Google Groups.
[quoted text clipped - 24 lines]
>
> Any other ideas? Maybe a trouble-shooting strategy?

I've never used Interarchy so I can't be certain of your situation but.
My old PPC4400 running Mac OS 9.1 and using TraceRoute can ping its own
address as well as 127.0.0.1 (loopback) and others within my LAN while
ethernet connected. It's difficult for me to configure a PPP connection
at the present time, so I can't test that configuration just now.

> If you want to reply privately, reply to (I'm going to write this in
> pig latin)
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
>
> Tim

Signature

Tom Stiller

PGP fingerprint = 5108 DDB2 9761 EDE5 E7E3
7BDA 71ED 6496 99C0 C7CF

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David C. Stone - 21 Apr 2005 14:10 GMT

> > Thanks Tom and D.K. This is me, Tim Miller, the OP, replying from
> > Google Groups.
> >
> > Silly me. I should have mentioned, my machine on the dialup account, at
> > home, is a "legacy" (i.e., old, crappy) Macintosh, running OS 9.2. It's
> > upgraded to a G3.

You could try using WhatRoute (http://www.whatroute.net/ according to
the About.. box) - that works fine on my PowerBook G3/OS 9.2, and it
is very easy to use.

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Tim MIller - 21 Apr 2005 16:21 GMT

> You could try using WhatRoute (http://www.whatroute.net/ according to
> the About.. box) - that works fine on my PowerBook G3/OS 9.2, and it
> is very easy to use.

Thanks David, Tom and D.K.

whatRoute will trace the loopback IP successfully. whatRoute can't find the
route to anything else.

Interarchy can't even ping the loopback IP. Neither app could ping or trace
the temporary dialup IP.

Both apps will recognize a bad IP. They both report "name lookup failed" or
words to that effect. I assume that means the pings are getting outside the
machine, but traceroute won't show me any route.

For example, traceroutes and pings to google.com come up completely empty. If
I try google.gov, I get "name lookup failed."

I tried pinging with another Macintosh, on the same dialup connection. Same
results.

It's not just a ping or traceroute issue. The main concern is that Timbuktu
cannot connect to a remote machine by TCP/IP. I used to be able to do that,
and I haven't changed either configuration, or either Timbuktu install.

I assume the reason I can't do a TCP/IP connect with Timbuktu is the same
reason I can't get a ping or traceroute on my dialup machine.

Is there a technical Sherlock Holmes among us? What can one deduce?

Thanks again,

Tim

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David C. Stone - 22 Apr 2005 14:14 GMT

> > You could try using WhatRoute (http://www.whatroute.net/ according to
> > the About.. box) - that works fine on my PowerBook G3/OS 9.2, and it
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> whatRoute will trace the loopback IP successfully. whatRoute can't find the
> route to anything else.

Check your internet settings, and specifically your DNS settings (the
"Name Server" entries) and the router address in your TCP/IP control
panel. Your machine IP address should also "make sense"; if the OS
for whatever reason cannot figure out the TCP/IP settings, it stuffs
a default non-routing IP address in there. I forget which range Apple
uses for this, but it should start with something like 169. or 167.,
IIRC.

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gandalf@doctorTimothyMiller.com - 24 Apr 2005 02:24 GMT

Thanks, David,

All seems in order. I can get on the www, send and receive email, etc.,
FTP un and down, whenever connected by dialup. Seems like my temporary
dialup IP would have to "make sense" in that case, wouldn't it? I'm not
too technical...

I tried starting my laptop on OS 10.3.7, connecting it to my dialup IP.
Once again, I could get on the www, send and receive email, and FTP up
and down. Does that tell us anything?

Are some ISPs blocking pings and traceroutes sent by their subscribers,
to prevent their subscribers from doing malicious things with them? My
ISP tech support says they don't, buy maybe I asked the new guy.

On another list, someone said it isn't enough to disable Norton
Internet Security. It still blocks some stuff even when disabled. You
have to removed the extension and restart. I tried that. No help.

Thanks again,

Tim

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Wayne C. Morris - 24 Apr 2005 04:31 GMT

> Thanks, David,
>
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> Once again, I could get on the www, send and receive email, and FTP up
> and down. Does that tell us anything?

Yeah, it tells us that there's no problem.

> Are some ISPs blocking pings and traceroutes sent by their subscribers,
> to prevent their subscribers from doing malicious things with them? My
> ISP tech support says they don't, buy maybe I asked the new guy.

I suppose it's possible.

But it's more likely that the computers you're trying to ping simply don't
respond to pings; they're configured to ignore them.

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Bob Wilson - 24 Apr 2005 12:47 GMT

> All seems in order. I can get on the www, send and receive email, etc.,
> FTP un and down, whenever connected by dialup. Seems like my temporary
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
>
> Thanks again,

Is this correct:

OFFICE NODE - has a static IP address, an accurate DNS pointer to it and
is up 24x7.

HOME DIALUP - ordinarily an OS 9.x system but there is a Powerbook with
OS 10.3.x.

PROBLEM: unable to use Timbuktu to connect to office machine from
dial-up.

Symptoms: Unable to 'ping' office machine from home machine.

Does you ISP support telnet or ssh login to a shell account? If so, use
the ISP telnet/ssh session as the 'man in the middle.'

If you can't, you might try one of the web pages that supports ping and
traceroute back to your systems. For example, one that I wrote:

http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/cgi-bin/pingme.html

BTW, traceroute works by triggering an ICMP (a type of ping packet) that
reports the 'hop count' has been decremented to 0. If you are not
getting traceroute results, it strongly suggests ICMP is being blocked.

You might also check some of the free web pages that support security
scans (port scanning.) These can give you insight to the degree your
systems are visable. In particular, the machine running Timbuktu.

Good luck!

Bob Wilson

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Clark Martin - 26 Apr 2005 03:01 GMT

> Thanks, David,
>
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
> to prevent their subscribers from doing malicious things with them? My
> ISP tech support says they don't, buy maybe I asked the new guy.

Yes. Years ago my daughters' school got hit with a Smurf attack which
involved incoming pings with a forged return address. The real target
of the attack was someone else, we were just an intermediate step. We
likely got picked because we had a moderately fast connection (ISDN at
the time) and many computers.

I looked at the packets and found that the originator was pretty close,
hop wise. Unfortunately our ISP chose to block pings instead of
tracking down the culprit.

So yes, some ISPs will block ICMP packets or some of them for various
reasons.

Also things like ping can be used to nail up a temporary connection
(PPP, PPPoE, etc). I don't know if ICMP is blocked for this reason, it
wouldn't work anyways but ISPs can be funny.

How far do Traceroutes get. If you are using a router they should at
least get to your router. If you have a direct connection (dialup, DSL,
Cable but with no router) then what you get back is strictly dependent
on the ISP's settings.

Signature

Clark Martin
Redwood City, CA, USA Macintosh / Internet Consulting

"I'm a designated driver on the Information Super Highway"

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Mac Forum / General / Networking / April 2005

Can't Ping. Stumped