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> I noticed today that I haven't been fetching listings from ananova (UK
> listings through XMLTV). I just tried viewing the ananova website on mt
> Myth box but get a timeout. Then I tried to ping ananova.com and again,
> nothing. I can get all other websites normally. SO I figured ananova was
> down for a while.
>
> Then I tried my Windows box and I don't have a problem at all pinging or
> viewing the website. Has anyone else had this problem?
>
> Thanks,
> Andy

Mine is still fine (touch wood)
Do you thrash it or anything? like 500 channels every ten minutes?
I only get 20 channels every hour, tho I could drop it to 1/2 daily I
expect.

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net] On Behalf Of Mark Edwards
> Sent: 21 July 2003 9:32 PM
> To: Discussion about mythtv
> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Ananova blocking IPs?
>
>
> > I noticed today that I haven't been fetching listings from
> ananova (UK
> > listings through XMLTV). I just tried viewing the ananova
> website on mt
> > Myth box but get a timeout. Then I tried to ping
> ananova.com and again,
> > nothing. I can get all other websites normally. SO I
> figured ananova was
> > down for a while.
> >
> > Then I tried my Windows box and I don't have a problem at
> all pinging or
> > viewing the website. Has anyone else had this problem?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Andy
>
> Mine is still fine (touch wood)
> Do you thrash it or anything? like 500 channels every ten minutes?
> I only get 20 channels every hour, tho I could drop it to 1/2 daily I
> expect.

No, I only fetch once a day, just 5 channels. Very strange, just
timeouts under my Linux box whilst the rest of the internet is fine.
I've rebooted a few times, run with my old kernel, tried everything I
can think of :( My listings run out tonight, HELP!

Andy

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Well, delete your DHCP lease, grab a new IP and try again.

On Mon, 2003-07-21 at 15:38, Andrew Ingram wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
> > [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net] On Behalf Of Mark Edwards
> > Sent: 21 July 2003 9:32 PM
> > To: Discussion about mythtv
> > Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Ananova blocking IPs?
> >
> >
> > > I noticed today that I haven't been fetching listings from
> > ananova (UK
> > > listings through XMLTV). I just tried viewing the ananova
> > website on mt
> > > Myth box but get a timeout. Then I tried to ping
> > ananova.com and again,
> > > nothing. I can get all other websites normally. SO I
> > figured ananova was
> > > down for a while.
> > >
> > > Then I tried my Windows box and I don't have a problem at
> > all pinging or
> > > viewing the website. Has anyone else had this problem?
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Andy
> >
> > Mine is still fine (touch wood)
> > Do you thrash it or anything? like 500 channels every ten minutes?
> > I only get 20 channels every hour, tho I could drop it to 1/2 daily I
> > expect.
>
> No, I only fetch once a day, just 5 channels. Very strange, just
> timeouts under my Linux box whilst the rest of the internet is fine.
> I've rebooted a few times, run with my old kernel, tried everything I
> can think of :( My listings run out tonight, HELP!
>
> Andy
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
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> > > I noticed today that I haven't been fetching listings from
> > ananova (UK
> > > listings through XMLTV). I just tried viewing the ananova
> > website on mt
> > > Myth box but get a timeout. Then I tried to ping
> > ananova.com and again,
> > > nothing. I can get all other websites normally. SO I
> > figured ananova was
> > > down for a while.
> > >
> > > Then I tried my Windows box and I don't have a problem at
> > all pinging or
> > > viewing the website. Has anyone else had this problem?
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Andy
> >
> > Mine is still fine (touch wood)
> > Do you thrash it or anything? like 500 channels every ten minutes?
> > I only get 20 channels every hour, tho I could drop it to 1/2 daily I
> > expect.
>
> No, I only fetch once a day, just 5 channels. Very strange, just
> timeouts under my Linux box whilst the rest of the internet is fine.
> I've rebooted a few times, run with my old kernel, tried everything I
> can think of :( My listings run out tonight, HELP!
>
> Andy

u can have my tv.xml, I'll stick it somewhere for you.
assuming they don't block me anytime soon, I guess u just need the usual
terrestrial stuff

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It's a static IP, but I assigned it another static IP and I still had
the same problem so I went back :( I wonder if there is something else
that can be detected about my machine.

I don't know what other conclusion to come to. How the rest of the
internet could be fine, how 3 different kernels all don't work, reboots,
etc ,etc.

Andy

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net] On Behalf Of Shawn
> Sent: 21 July 2003 9:48 PM
> To: Discussion about mythtv
> Subject: RE: [mythtv-users] Ananova blocking IPs?
>
>
> Well, delete your DHCP lease, grab a new IP and try again.
>
> On Mon, 2003-07-21 at 15:38, Andrew Ingram wrote:
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
> > > [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net] On Behalf Of
> Mark Edwards
> > > Sent: 21 July 2003 9:32 PM
> > > To: Discussion about mythtv
> > > Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Ananova blocking IPs?
> > >
> > >
> > > > I noticed today that I haven't been fetching listings from
> > > ananova (UK
> > > > listings through XMLTV). I just tried viewing the ananova
> > > website on mt
> > > > Myth box but get a timeout. Then I tried to ping
> > > ananova.com and again,
> > > > nothing. I can get all other websites normally. SO I
> > > figured ananova was
> > > > down for a while.
> > > >
> > > > Then I tried my Windows box and I don't have a problem at
> > > all pinging or
> > > > viewing the website. Has anyone else had this problem?
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > Andy
> > >
> > > Mine is still fine (touch wood)
> > > Do you thrash it or anything? like 500 channels every ten minutes?
> > > I only get 20 channels every hour, tho I could drop it to
> 1/2 daily I
> > > expect.
> >
> > No, I only fetch once a day, just 5 channels. Very strange, just
> > timeouts under my Linux box whilst the rest of the internet is fine.
> > I've rebooted a few times, run with my old kernel, tried
> everything I
> > can think of :( My listings run out tonight, HELP!
> >
> > Andy
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > mythtv-users mailing list
> > mythtv-users@snowman.net
> > http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@snowman.net
> http://lists.snowman.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
>

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Andrew Ingram wrote:

>No, I only fetch once a day, just 5 channels. Very strange, just
>timeouts under my Linux box whilst the rest of the internet is fine.
>I've rebooted a few times, run with my old kernel, tried everything I
>can think of :( My listings run out tonight, HELP!
>
>Andy
>
I bet you have ECN enabled in your kernel. Look here for more info:
http://www.cctec.com/maillists/nanog/historical/0104/msg00714.html

Try catting /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_ecn if the value is 1, that is
probably the culprit. Try setting it to zero to see if the problem is
resolved.

I tested connectivity to ananova using trptraceroute which allows you to
trace with and without ECN packets. When I enabled ECN, the trace did
not complete, leading me to suspect that is the problem.

-Tupshin

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On Mon, Jul 21, 2003 at 09:38:30PM +0100, Andrew Ingram wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> >
> > > I noticed today that I haven't been fetching listings from
> > ananova (UK
> > > listings through XMLTV). I just tried viewing the ananova
> > website on mt
> > > Myth box but get a timeout. Then I tried to ping
> > ananova.com and again,
> > > nothing. I can get all other websites normally. SO I
> > figured ananova was
> > > down for a while.
> > >
> > > Then I tried my Windows box and I don't have a problem at
> > all pinging or
> > > viewing the website. Has anyone else had this problem?

FWIW, I can view the site with Mozilla 1.3b from Arizona, USA (uses
Level3.net to cross the Atlantic). Have you done a traceroute to confirm
you're getting all the way to ananova? My pings stop (100% loss) past
v1.hnr-1.grl.as5388.net, so you may not be able ping them at all.

Be sure you've not created a strange firewall rule.

Out of ideas,

Russ
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net] On Behalf Of Mark Edwards
> Sent: 21 July 2003 9:50 PM
> To: 'Discussion about mythtv'
> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Ananova blocking IPs?
>
>
> > > > I noticed today that I haven't been fetching listings from
> > > ananova (UK
> > > > listings through XMLTV). I just tried viewing the ananova
> > > website on mt
> > > > Myth box but get a timeout. Then I tried to ping
> > > ananova.com and again,
> > > > nothing. I can get all other websites normally. SO I
> > > figured ananova was
> > > > down for a while.
> > > >
> > > > Then I tried my Windows box and I don't have a problem at
> > > all pinging or
> > > > viewing the website. Has anyone else had this problem?
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > Andy
> > >
> > > Mine is still fine (touch wood)
> > > Do you thrash it or anything? like 500 channels every ten minutes?
> > > I only get 20 channels every hour, tho I could drop it to
> 1/2 daily I
> > > expect.
> >
> > No, I only fetch once a day, just 5 channels. Very strange, just
> > timeouts under my Linux box whilst the rest of the internet is fine.
> > I've rebooted a few times, run with my old kernel, tried
> everything I
> > can think of :( My listings run out tonight, HELP!
> >
> > Andy
>
> u can have my tv.xml, I'll stick it somewhere for you.
> assuming they don't block me anytime soon, I guess u just
> need the usual
> terrestrial stuff

Yeah, that would be great, thanks :)

BTW, does anyone know how much reconfiguration I would have to do to use
the alternative UK TV listings? The UK has 2 listed and I just chose the
first in the list. Would I have to re-do my channel configuration all
over again if I swapped over? Or could I just change to the uk
alternative listings in MythTV setup and that's it?

Thanks,
Andrew

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Have you checked whether [en|dis]abling ECN helps? Someone suggested
using tcptraceroute to test.

On Mon, 2003-07-21 at 16:01, Andrew Ingram wrote:
> It's a static IP, but I assigned it another static IP and I still had
> the same problem so I went back :( I wonder if there is something else
> that can be detected about my machine.
>
> I don't know what other conclusion to come to. How the rest of the
> internet could be fine, how 3 different kernels all don't work, reboots,
> etc ,etc.

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> FWIW, I can view the site with Mozilla 1.3b from Arizona, USA (uses
> Level3.net to cross the Atlantic). Have you done a
> traceroute to confirm
> you're getting all the way to ananova? My pings stop (100% loss) past
> v1.hnr-1.grl.as5388.net, so you may not be able ping them at all.

I have the same problem, I get to v1.hnr-1.grl.as5388.net. I cannot
browse with any browser though, including Mozilla.

> Be sure you've not created a strange firewall rule.

It's not that, I checked already ;)

Thanks,
Andy

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> I bet you have ECN enabled in your kernel. Look here for more info:
> http://www.cctec.com/maillists/nanog/historical/0104/msg00714.html
>
> Try catting /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_ecn if the value is 1, that is
> probably the culprit. Try setting it to zero to see if the problem is
> resolved.
>
> I tested connectivity to ananova using trptraceroute which
> allows you to
> trace with and without ECN packets. When I enabled ECN, the trace did
> not complete, leading me to suspect that is the problem.
>
> -Tupshin

Tupshin (and Shawn),

you guys are briliant!!! How on earth you sussed that one out!!! Just as
well I kept my boot floppy kernel that came with Debian. I did switch to
2.4.21 last Friday which explains this. I changed the value in /proc to
0 and it works :) Could view the website, and mythfilldatabase worked.
When I was trying other kernels beforehand, I was using ping to test
them, which doesn't seem to work for anyone, hence me thinking it wasn't
kernel related.

Anyway, it's working again and I'm very happy. Thank you so much to
everyone who emailed about this (both on and off list). I really
appreciate all your help.

Now all I need to do is find out where ECN lives in the kernel
menuconfig and switch the damn thing off for good!

Thanks,
Andrew

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Andrew Ingram wrote:

>Tupshin (and Shawn),
>
>you guys are briliant!!! How on earth you sussed that one out!!! Just as
>well I kept my boot floppy kernel that came with Debian. I did switch to
>2.4.21 last Friday which explains this. I changed the value in /proc to
>0 and it works :) Could view the website, and mythfilldatabase worked.
>When I was trying other kernels beforehand, I was using ping to test
>them, which doesn't seem to work for anyone, hence me thinking it wasn't
>kernel related.
>
>Anyway, it's working again and I'm very happy. Thank you so much to
>everyone who emailed about this (both on and off list). I really
>appreciate all your help.
>
>Now all I need to do is find out where ECN lives in the kernel
>menuconfig and switch the damn thing off for good!
>
>Thanks,
>Andrew
>
>
>
You're welcome. It's the kind of thing where you have to have been
bitten by it yourself in order to readily identify the problem. About a
year ago, I was bouncing mail to a couple sites, and eventually I
learned about ECN. Actually, ECN is a good thing, though disabling it is
justifiable if you never want to diagnose this problem again.

In the kernel config, look in Networking Options->IP: TCP Explicit
Congestion Notfication. It's also "CONFIG_INET_ECN=y" in your .config,
so disabling it in either place will help. You could also wrap the
script that contacts ananova in call to disable and re-enable ecn if you
wanted to leave it in the kernel.

-Tupshin

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At 10:01 PM 7/21/2003 +0100, Andrew Ingram wrote:
>It's a static IP, but I assigned it another static IP and I still had
>the same problem so I went back :( I wonder if there is something else
>that can be detected about my machine.
>
>I don't know what other conclusion to come to. How the rest of the
>internet could be fine, how 3 different kernels all don't work, reboots,
>etc ,etc.

Sorry to jump into this late, but I tried a couple of tests from here just
to see if I could see anything helpful. I assume we are talking about the
site www.ananova.com as the top-level site, and the ability go get to its
TV listings data that are about 2 or 3 clicks from there.

1. The FQN does not respond to pings, from either a Linux -OR- a Win2K
host. It may just not answer pings, period; some sites are like that, after
all (I've seen it justified on security grounds, but this seems to just be
from the sort of bubbleheads who think they can justify any idiocy by
waving the security flag). So don't infer anything just yet from your
inability to ping the FQN from the Myth host.

2. Using Netscape on Win2K, I can view the site just fine. This matches
your Windows experience.

3. Using lynx on a Debian-Sid Linux host, I can view the site just fine and
get TV listings (subject only to the limitations of lynx in displaying
complex Web pages).

I'm working from a NAT'd LAN, so everything is using the same (apparent) IP
Address.

There might be something about the XMLTV scraping process that they detect
and block (dunno, since I'm not in the UK), but they do not seem somehow to
detect and block Linux-based queries. Probably the best way to test the
IP-blocking hypothesis is to assign a "failing" IP address temporarily to
your Windows host and see if it can then reach Ananova.




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On Monday July 21 2003 6:18 pm, Tupshin Harper wrote:
> Andrew Ingram wrote:
> >Tupshin (and Shawn),
> >
> >you guys are briliant!!! How on earth you sussed that one out!!! Just as
> >well I kept my boot floppy kernel that came with Debian. I did switch to
> >2.4.21 last Friday which explains this. I changed the value in /proc to
> >0 and it works :) Could view the website, and mythfilldatabase worked.
> >When I was trying other kernels beforehand, I was using ping to test
> >them, which doesn't seem to work for anyone, hence me thinking it wasn't
> >kernel related.
> >
> >Anyway, it's working again and I'm very happy. Thank you so much to
> >everyone who emailed about this (both on and off list). I really
> >appreciate all your help.
> >
> >Now all I need to do is find out where ECN lives in the kernel
> >menuconfig and switch the damn thing off for good!
> >
> >Thanks,
> >Andrew
>
> You're welcome. It's the kind of thing where you have to have been
> bitten by it yourself in order to readily identify the problem. About a
> year ago, I was bouncing mail to a couple sites, and eventually I
> learned about ECN. Actually, ECN is a good thing, though disabling it is
> justifiable if you never want to diagnose this problem again.
>
> In the kernel config, look in Networking Options->IP: TCP Explicit
> Congestion Notfication. It's also "CONFIG_INET_ECN=y" in your .config,
> so disabling it in either place will help. You could also wrap the
> script that contacts ananova in call to disable and re-enable ecn if you
> wanted to leave it in the kernel.

Couldn't he also "echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_ecn" somewhere in his
network scripts? Granted, recompiling it out of the kernel would make sure it
stayed off, but I've gotten used to looking for solutions that don't require
rebooting, and particularly not recompiling the kernel.

Tom
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Tom Panning wrote:

>
>Couldn't he also "echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_ecn" somewhere in his
>network scripts? Granted, recompiling it out of the kernel would make sure it
>stayed off, but I've gotten used to looking for solutions that don't require
>rebooting, and particularly not recompiling the kernel.
>
>Tom
>
Of course...I think I got tired of typing around the point where I
contemplated including that suggestion. ;-)

-Tupshin

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There are two variants on the "Ping of Death" denial of service attack that
rely upon ICMP (Ping and TraceRoute) being available on a given host. If
you are have an Internet-facing corporate presence you are well advised to
disable ICMP on critical infrastructure components to prevent them from
having all of their available sessions co-opted and thus making the server
(or device) unavailable.

My primary work is in the Load and Performance testing field, working
primarily with tools from Mercury Interactive (LoadRunner) and NetIQ/Ixia
(Chariot). It is very common to run up against servers running mission
critical apps that have ICMP disabled and thus no "Ping" or traceroute
responses.

Me and the rest of the "...bubblehead..." guild thank you for your kind
support ;)

James Pulley, iTest Solutions
-----Original Message-----
From: mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net
[mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@snowman.net]On Behalf Of Ray Olszewski
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 6:32 PM
To: 'Discussion about mythtv'
Subject: RE: [mythtv-users] Ananova blocking IPs?

...

1. The FQN does not respond to pings, from either a Linux -OR- a Win2K
host. It may just not answer pings, period; some sites are like that, after
all (I've seen it justified on security grounds, but this seems to just be
from the sort of bubbleheads who think they can justify any idiocy by
waving the security flag). So don't infer anything just yet from your
inability to ping the FQN from the Myth host.
...

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> You're welcome. It's the kind of thing where you have to have been
> bitten by it yourself in order to readily identify the
> problem. About a
> year ago, I was bouncing mail to a couple sites, and eventually I
> learned about ECN. Actually, ECN is a good thing, though
> disabling it is
> justifiable if you never want to diagnose this problem again.
>
> In the kernel config, look in Networking Options->IP: TCP Explicit
> Congestion Notfication. It's also "CONFIG_INET_ECN=y" in your
> .config,
> so disabling it in either place will help. You could also wrap the
> script that contacts ananova in call to disable and re-enable
> ecn if you
> wanted to leave it in the kernel.

OK, thanks for the advice :) I don't need ECN (didn't even know what it
did until you told me) so I'll probably compile it out of the kernel. It
probably got selected by me trying to make sure that I had all the
iptables stuff in there ;) I don't mind doing a recompile since it's a
new kernel for me anyway and there are a couple of other things I would
add/remove given this chance now. Of course, there is the "cat" method
that Tom suggested, which would have been my solution if I had this
kernel up and running for longer than 4 days and didn't have a couple of
other issues to sort out.

Thanks again everyone :)

Andrew

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