Out of the loop... Connectivity problems.

[Alan]

I am becoming sceptical that Simple Nature, wsbob and K'Tesh actually had 'bot infections, and wondering instead whether BikePortland's filters got cranked up a wee bit too tight. If the filters are IP-based, then it wouldn't matter what machine was behind your router, they'd all be on the same public-facing IP.

I've updated my post upthread with some ideas on Windows tools, fwiw.

[Simple Nature]

Alan, that IP address is what shows up and when I ping it from home, it fails all 4 attempts from a DOS prompt.

74.55.247.66

When you do a WhoIs on that IP, it is "theplanet.com"

From work, the ping comes back 100% okay; as does getting to the forum.

Would the host file addition help if the ping fails? Seems it would just continue to ignore.

[wsbob]

Originally Posted by Alan

I am becoming sceptical that Simple Nature, wsbob and K'Tesh actually had 'bot infections, and wondering instead whether BikePortland's filters got cranked up a wee bit too tight. If the filters are IP-based, then it wouldn't matter what machine was behind your router, they'd all be on the same public-facing IP.

I've updated my post upthread with some ideas on Windows tools, fwiw.

Alan...thanks for all the suggestions in the upthread, though, not being any kind of a tekkie, the idea of downloading and running those things makes me uneasy. Norton anti-virus is installed, and hopefully...it's doing well. Mainly, it's been maus's site that wouldn't open. Others, like bikeforums are frequently slow...but in that instance, I'm guessing the reason is that the number of visitors and members opening the site and posting comments is much greater than bikeportland's.

As Jonathan (maus) said, the main issue probably has been the limitations and/or vulnerabilities of his servers. Spoken from someone that's admittedly not technically well familiar with all the intricacies that make up the internet. It all works so well when it's working, I think people have a tendency to overlook, or just not even a reason to learn how complex the system is, and how many parts are involved, people involved in keeping it working well.

[Alan]

Originally Posted by Simple Nature

Alan, that IP address is what shows up and when I ping it from home, it fails all 4 attempts from a DOS prompt.

74.55.247.66

When you do a WhoIs on that IP, it is "theplanet.com"

From work, the ping comes back 100% okay; as does getting to the forum.

Would the host file addition help if the ping fails? Seems it would just continue to ignore.

Yes, it's ThePlanet, also called SoftLayer, actually a reseller called Website Welcome in turn in turn hosting someone (nrep.co.uk?) who actually hosts BikePortland. Large hosting ISP, good reputation.

If you do 'C:\ping bikeportland.org' and your system finds 74.55.247.66, then your DNS is fine and there's no reason to hack your 'hosts' file, even if the ping fails.

It is possible for a website (or other service) to work even if the address won't answer pings (e.g. filtering ICMP), however I also checked and since we can both ping bikeportland.org, it seems it is not responding to your browser's HTTP request.

I am guessing that an admin has config'd a filter on the server to look for some fingerprint that he thinks only bots make on the HTTP connection, but that his rule may be hitting a few non-bot cases. When the rule is tripped, it ACL's the connecting IP. He may need to tweak the rule, but it will help them to have more data, so I suggest sending your IP, and also your OS version(s) and browser brand(s) and version(s), to Jonathon.

[Alan]

Originally Posted by wsbob

Alan...thanks for all the suggestions in the upthread, though, not being any kind of a tekkie, the idea of downloading and running those things makes me uneasy. Norton anti-virus is installed, and hopefully...it's doing well. Mainly, it's been maus's site that wouldn't open. Others, like bikeforums are frequently slow...but in that instance, I'm guessing the reason is that the number of visitors and members opening the site and posting comments is much greater than bikeportland's.

wsbob, you are right not to try to run all of those! They are just suggestions for particular tools, if needed. Especially if you're on a slow connection, it would be silly to try to suck down all those files! I do suggest that any and everyone run that MyNetWatchman "SecChek" occasionally, though. It hurts nothing and is excellent "just in case" medicine. It is quite small so download time is not bad. It is made especially for non-tekkies to run, although it does offer some tech info if you are interested. Run it when you're not trying to surf because it does open up an MSDOS window that can be distracting, and it does eat some cycles on your local machine so other tasks will be a bit slower while it runs. It takes 5-10 minutes to run, for me, and it will just sit and wait for you after it's done.

How fast a website responds depends on your end, their end, and what's in between. BikeForums is reasonably quick for me. BikePortland was getting "boggy" before Christmas; the browser icon would just spin but it could take over a minute to "catch" and sometimes it would time out. When it did load, it was fast enough. Seemed worse late at night; I thought it might be backups on a cron job. Whatever Maus and the server admin did in early January has helped quite a bit and I'm not seeing those lags, now.

[Simple Nature]

I'llhave to try the ping on bikeportland.org but I suspect it will fail.

How do I find the IP address Jonathan needs to troubleshoot the issue?

I haven't heard back from him yet. I'm hoping this isn't just being ignored.

[Jonathan Maus]

hey folks,

big apologies for this. We're working on it. My server guy is brilliant and, in order to stop the 100s of thousands of spambot users that are crippling our server, we've installed some anti-bot stuff to keep them out. Yes, the tool has also kept out real users. We are continuing to tweak the tool. I am forwarding IP addresses to the server person as I can. Thanks for your patience.

[Alan]

Originally Posted by Simple Nature

I'll have to try the ping on bikeportland.org but I suspect it will fail.

The ping might fail (no response) but as long as your system can find the IP then we know it's not a DNS problem on your end, so that's a good test.

If it can't find it, the ping command will respond with:

Ping request could not find host <$foo>...

If that happens, then we'll deal with DNS, otherwise we'll proceed with the problem being on BikePortland's end.

How do I find the IP address Jonathan needs to troubleshoot the issue?

http://whatismyipaddress.com/ (or many similar sites)

And that reminds me, another test is to connect via a proxy. I just tried http://freeproxyserver.net/ and I cannot reach bikeportland.org through it (it hits websites from 67.159.44.96, fwiw). But http://www.freeproxyserver.ca/ let me reach BikePortland, no problem. Most browsers have an option buried in their menus to use a proxy directly.

I haven't heard back from him yet. I'm hoping this isn't just being ignored.

I know K'Tesh spoke with him this past weekend about connection problems, so he's aware of it. That's all I know.

PS: Oh, hi Jonathon! I didn't see your post until after I posted mine. I think your server guy is on the right track to deal with attack 'bots. It often takes awhile to dial in filters like that. Good luck!

[Simple Nature]

WhooHoo!!! we're back online! Seems Jonathan's Guru fixed it.

Thanks Jonathan!