Roadrunner Internet issue
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I've been having this problem, and I think it's finally time to turn to this community for help.
I run an http (and https and ssh) server in my apartment using Road Runner Turbo. I've been using it pretty regularly to host small webapps and just random stuff that I didn't want to get a hosting package for.
3-4 weeks ago, this stopped. My apartment's connection to the outside was not affected, but I could no longer make connections to my server. The connection would just time out.
My setup:
Cable modem plugged directly into Netgear router. Three machines hardwired into the router (Windows desktop, Debian server, and xbox 360). Two Windows laptops wirelessly connected when they're on, which is pretty much only in the evening.
The Windows desktop is pretty much running BitTorrent all day. At first, I could shut down BT for a day and be able to use my apps the next day, but recently, not even that will allow me to connect.
My investigation:
I am able to get to my webapps using the private IP from inside my apartment. I checked the router's settings to make sure it was still port forwarding. It is. Then I setup IIS on my windows machine and plugged that machine straight into the modem. Still nothing.
I called Road Runner Technical support and made it to level 2. The guy at level two understood my issue perfectly, and he could have pushed it to level 3, but he said (after consulting with his supervisor) that the issue was outside even level 3's responsibilities.
Two major questions here: Is there anything I can try in order to restore my service? Is there any decent reason that this happened NOW, as opposed to any other time since I started doing it (over a year and a half ago.
Thanks for all your suggestions.
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1) Some companies don't like you running servers on "home" products - I guess they made a change that intentionally, or accidentally, stopped you doing this and they are not keen to fix it
2) This is not a sidebar issue
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Try other ports then 443, 80 and 22. Maybe they block those intentionally.
Also, what firmware is on the modem? I have shitloads of problems with an broadcom DSL modem which simply refuses to do any port forwarding.
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@GettinSadda said:
1) Some companies don't like you running servers on "home" products - I guess they made a change that intentionally, or accidentally, stopped you doing this and they are not keen to fix it
This is what I figured. Maybe that's what they meant when they said it was out of their responsibility.@GettinSadda said:
2) This is not a sidebar issue
Sorry about that. I already reported my own OP as abuse.
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@Daid said:
what firmware is on the modem?
I have no idea how I would check that, but if you tell me how, I'll do it when I get home.
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@belgariontheking said:
I called Road Runner Technical support and made it to level 2.
That boss is hard.
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thread moved to "coding related help & questions"
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Hmm, so I'm not the only one... Strangely enough, mine sometimes works and sometimes it doesn't... my site is here, in case you're interested: http://kolis.dyndns.org (flame away, I know it sucks :P)
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@belgariontheking said:
@GettinSadda said:
1) Some companies don't like you running servers on "home" products - I guess they made a change that intentionally, or accidentally, stopped you doing this and they are not keen to fix it
This is what I figured. Maybe that's what they meant when they said it was out of their responsibility.That's my first guess too. You could try to set the server to use a non-standard port, or even 8080 (your users won't even notice that). I'd try a really non-standard port (2623 or something) first. Forward it and try if it works again. Next try again with 8080, next again with 80 (which is what you're using now right?). If it works at port 1 but doesn't work at either 8080 or 80 you know what the problem is.
My second guess would be it's upload-cap related, your provider doesn't like you using all that upload. That would also explain why you could access it after you disabled bittorrent for a day. Still strange bittorrent still works though.
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For all who care:
I've gotten the issue "resolved" in a way. I had an old linksys non-wireless router sitting around, so I replaced the netgear wireless router with that. Everything worked beautifully, but I need wireless.
Fearing the netgear was the issue, I went out and purchased a replacement. When I hooked up the new one, it didn't resolve the issue, so I will return it.
My "final" solution is to have two routers: the linksys is hooked directly to the cable modem, and the netgear is hooked to the "uplink" port on the linksys. Sadly, this won't allow me to share files via Windows Active Directory to the laptops, but I have a couple workarounds in mind.
Thanks for your suggestions, and since you probably know more about networking than me, I'm open to more suggestions.
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You don't happen to use Digsby, do you? It seems that my problem occurs only when I'm connected to Digsby. Of course, I have a Digsby chat widget on my website, which might be part of the problem too... :P
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@ekolis said:
You don't happen to use Digsby, do you? It seems that my problem occurs only when I'm connected to Digsby. Of course, I have a Digsby chat widget on my website, which might be part of the problem too... :P
Nope. Never heard of it until you mentioned it just there.
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Oh, BTW, I finally figured out my problem - this might help you in case you need to switch your routers back:
Roadrunner was assigning me a subnet mask of 255.255.248.0. I don't know much about subnet masks, but I thought it was kinda fishy that my router's (and my PC's) subnet mask was *different* (255.255.255.0).So finally I set the subnet mask of my router and my PC to 255.255.248.0, and presto! :D
Had nothing to do with Digsby at all - though here's a little WTF related to Digsby - I found out that Digsby runs an HTTP server which is accessible only locally - just for the purpose of making sure that only one instance of the program is running! :P Surely it would be easier to tap into the Windows task list somehow???
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Ugh, the problem's back... :(
I did notice however that if I run "tracert 24.27.191.121" (that being my public IP address), I get this hostname back:
cpe-24-27-191-121.cinci.res.rr.com
And when I enter that into my browser, I get the same "page cannot be loaded" error after a few seconds that I get with my dyndns URL.
I wonder if roadrunner is doing some sort of DNS trickery to block dyndns? Is there such a thing as a "DNS proxy"?
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@ekolis said:
cpe-24-27-191-121.cinci.res.rr.com
Hmm didn't realize you were in Cincinnati as well. *waves* Maybe we can meet up for a drink sometime.Anyway, I switched routers and that solved my problem. When I called help desk and got to level 2, they told me that they were "getting a good signal from my modem" and they suggested I contact my router manufacturer (Netgear). I never did call netgear, though.
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@belgariontheking said:
Hmm didn't realize you were in Cincinnati as well. *waves* Maybe we can meet up for a drink sometime.
How many date rape incidents have started with BTK uttering those same words?
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Hrm. Sounds like it could just be the Netgear. My experience with two Linksys(Cisco) routers and one Netgear router is that Netgear, while significantly less expensive, is probably so because it doesn't work as well. My Netgear router consistently lost connection with my modem and had to be rebooted to reconnect. Then one day it decided to stop working entirely - with a working wall wart it just refused to power on. I replaced it with another Linksys. (Conveniently out of warranty on the Netgear - and it was only about 16 months old when it died.)
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@too_many_usernames said:
Hrm. Sounds like it could just be the Netgear. My experience with two Linksys(Cisco) routers and one Netgear router is that Netgear, while significantly less expensive, is probably so because it doesn't work as well
My experience, up til now, was the exact opposite, if we're talking about wireless routers. I had a linksys that would shut down and require reset if I used bittorrent too much. So I moved it into a setup like I have now, (wireless connected to a port on the wired) except with the linksys wireless. Eventually the wireless one shut down completely and I bought the netgear, which for a year and a half didn't require a weird two-router setup.That old linksys wired router is just massively stable for some reason, and most wireless routers shit out after a couple years.
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@belgariontheking said:
I had a linksys that would shut down and require reset if I used bittorrent too much. So I moved it into a setup like I have now, (wireless connected to a port on the wired) except with the linksys wireless. Eventually the wireless one shut down completely and I bought the netgear, which for a year and a half didn't require a weird two-router setup.
That old linksys wired router is just massively stable for some reason, and most wireless routers shit out after a couple years.
You were killing the NAT pool on your Linksys router. It didn't have enough memory to store information in the NAT table for each connection (BT clients tend to specify 200+ connections for a default setup depending what you specify your speed as).Adding a static NAT rule to direct all traffic on these ports directly to your downloading pc should fix that issue but those ports would no longer be usable for any incoming connection for any other pc on your network.
From what i've seen in cheap routers the reason why most cheap ass ones 'shit out' is mainly this reason, or a similar problem, not enough memory to handle the load that we users need as time goes on.
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@Hitsuji said:
Adding a static NAT rule to direct all traffic on these ports directly to your downloading pc should fix that issue but those ports would no longer be usable for any incoming connection for any other pc on your network.
I actually did that. Azureus told me to specify something 7000 and above, so I specified 7000 and added the port forward. I am thankful to Azureus for having such helpful documentation (and the wiki) so I knew WTF to do.]From what i've seen in cheap routers the reason why most cheap ass ones 'shit out' is mainly this reason, or a similar problem, not enough memory to handle the load that we users need as time goes on.
Do you have any other ideas? I would appreciate them.
As far as not being able to use that for any other service, I can't think of another service that would be screwed if 7000 was suddenly no longer available.
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Does your router by chance have a "SPI firewall"? That was apparently blocking a lot of ports on me without my knowledge, which I found out by running a web-based port scanner (probably not the safest thing to do lol but what else could I do? Turning off the SPI firewall seems to have fixed my site for now, though I guess it does leave me open to DoS attacks, or something... :P
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@ekolis said:
Does your router by chance have a "SPI firewall"?
I couldn't tell you, but I'll check when I get home @ekolis said:That was apparently blocking a lot of ports on me without my knowledge, which I found out by running a web-based port scanner (probably not the safest thing to do lol but what else could I do? Turning off the SPI firewall seems to have fixed my site for now, though I guess it does leave me open to DoS attacks, or something... :P
If you have your ports forwarded correctly, HTTP should go right through it.
