problem w/ SSH, ping+traceroute to certain sites!

[buriedUnderGround]

This problem started 2 weeks ago when I tried to connect to or remotely hosted server via SSH. The connection timed out.

I cannot ping or do a traceroute to one of our sites hosted with our hosting provider, but can do this to other sites that are hosted with the same company. I have the same problem when trying to ping/tracert the hosting company's domain name aswell.

After contacting the hosting provider they suggested that I speak to Telkom. Telkom recommended speaking to my hosting provider... No-one knows what's going on. ...and in the meantime, I can do no maintenance on the remote server due to lack of connection.

Some-one said something about Telkom blocking certain protocols/ports,... Does any-one know anything about this???

 

[Karnaugh]

You can not use Windows (ICMP) traceroute on Telkoms network, this is because it uses an ICMP packet over 96Bytes.

The connection would have timed out because the server probably wasnt running an SSH deamon, or the hosting company messed things up.

I cant see Telkom as being to blame here.

Sounds like your hosting company is <b>Hetzner</b>

&lt;rant&gt;I had the same problem continuously with a few sites I had hosted at Hetzner. I reported this a few times to them (traceroute showed it failing at their gateway router). Their response knocked me and a few people off our feet.

Guess what! This company is SO clever, they will firewall an IP that attempts to connect to certain ports on one of their servers.

This means, dynamic Telkom IP's are constantly getting randomly firewalled of Hetzner because of kiddies/virus infected clients etc.

ISNT THAT SO CLEVER! I WISH I THOUGHT OF THAT GOOD IDEA
&lt;/rant&gt;

- Colin Alston
colin at alston dot za dot org

"Getting traffic shaping right is easy and can be summed up in one word: Dont." -- George Barnett

 

[buriedUnderGround]

Thanks for the reply.

Firstly, I need to mention that my hosting provider is NOT Hetzner.

Then...

So what you're saying is that even though everything <i>used to work</i>, the reason for the sudden problems with SSH, ping and traceroute <u>most likely lies with my hosting provider</u> (who unwittingly may have put me on the outside of a firewall because of my dynamic telkom ip address)?

If this is correct, what questions should I ask them with regards to re-enabling SSH access (..etc) for me?

 

[DFantom]

It does sound like a firewall issue somewhere, most likely your host but it could be anywhere.

The fact you can get to some machines on your host and not others makes me think of a routing problem (was faced with the exact same thing 2 days back), not a firewall problem.
In my case the issue was on the hosts side when their routing table got corrupted.

But speaking to them they told me that it happened in the past an ISP they connect to got it's tables wrong and blocked access to there network (that was the whole network though not one machine/ip)

 

[dikbek]

Hmm. I've got something similar - I can't get to www.labour.gov.za or its UIF derivative. I can get to any other site I've ever tried. Guess it must be a government onspiracy against me[]

 

[buriedUnderGround]

Ok... my original reply to this seems to have disappeared, so i'll just add a quick note again.

To make a long story short, everything suddenly works fine again and neither my hosting provider nor telkom claim to have broken or fixed anything. It's like the problem created and fixed itself, all by itself...

Who knows????

I think i should give up expecting solutions and start believing in miracles...

 

[antowan]

Sometimes you need a little bit of both. []

He who does not understand the value of war at the right time, cannot comprehend the value of life at any time - Anonymous