topic Re: Where/how to report general routing problem? in Everything else

Where/how to report general routing problem?

Greg60 — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 12:16:34 GMT

Hi Folks, for several days I have been unable to reach the website of major ferry operator ColorLine, www.colorline.com (also exists in multiple national domain versions, .co.uk, .de, .no, .dk, maybe others). Everything is fine from my place of work, but not from home using PlusNet. A traceroute is fine up to a point, so it looks like the destination can't route back to PlusNet; this is an issue PlusNet/BT need to resolve with their peering partners.

Work:
t_perb@dr8:~$ telnet www.colorline.com 80
Trying 195.225.31.64...
Connected to www.colorline.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
GET /
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
<html><head>
[...]

Home:
greg@shadowII:~$ telnet www.colorline.com 80
Trying 195.225.31.64...
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection timed out
greg@shadowII:~$ traceroute www.colorline.com
traceroute to www.colorline.com (195.225.31.64), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 dsldevice.lan (192.168.1.254) 1.143 ms * *
2 * * *
3 * * *
4 136.hiper04.sheff.dial.plus.net.uk (195.166.143.136) 19.000 ms 19.281 ms 19.266 ms
5 peer7-et-0-0-2.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net (62.172.103.160) 26.344 ms core5-hu0-7-0-26.faraday.ukcore.bt.net (195.99.127.32) 19.240 ms 19.230 ms
6 166-49-214-194.gia.bt.net (166.49.214.194) 21.726 ms 23.884 ms 19.635 ms
7 ldn-b13-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.148.100) 19.544 ms * ldn-b3-link.ip.twelve99.net (213.248.71.146) 12.199 ms
8 ldn-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.120.74) 12.416 ms 12.283 ms ldn-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.127.100) 12.271 ms
9 * hbg-bb3-link.ip.twelve99.net (80.91.249.11) 18.986 ms *
10 oso-b1-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.112.85) 33.504 ms 34.066 ms 31.559 ms
11 basefarm-ic-306597.ip.twelve99-cust.net (62.115.45.130) 32.993 ms 33.032 ms 35.483 ms
12 * * *

Thanks.

Re: Where/how to report general routing problem?

pjmarsh — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 12:25:57 GMT

Odd. It's working fine for me on a Plusnet connection, with the traceroute looking the same (from step 7 onwards).

Re: Where/how to report general routing problem?

Greg60 — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 12:48:26 GMT

Very strange .... ? I'm experiencing no other problems. In that case I wonder if my (ie PlusNet's) subnet might be blocked on the destination side; I have from time to time seen complaints about spamming and other unpleasantries originating from the subnet my connection is in. Do you know where I might take this?

Re: Where/how to report general routing problem?

Anonymous — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 12:58:37 GMT

Browsing to www.colorline.com works for me using my Plusnet connection -

My traceroute is slightly different, but closer to the destination is the same -

$ mtr -r -w -c 10 www.colorline.com HOST: Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev 1.|-- My_Home_Router 0.0% 10 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.3 0.0 2.|-- 250.core.plus.net 0.0% 10 7.7 6.4 5.8 7.7 0.6 3.|-- 84.93.253.83 0.0% 10 6.7 6.5 6.2 6.7 0.2 4.|-- core1-BE1.colindale.ukcore.bt.net 0.0% 10 6.4 6.4 6.0 6.7 0.2 5.|-- peer7-et-4-1-1.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net 0.0% 10 6.3 8.4 6.3 22.7 5.0 6.|-- 166-49-214-194.gia.bt.net 0.0% 10 6.5 6.9 6.5 7.4 0.3 7.|-- ldn-b3-link.ip.twelve99.net 0.0% 10 7.1 7.1 6.8 7.5 0.2 8.|-- ldn-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net 0.0% 10 7.1 7.1 6.9 7.5 0.2 9.|-- hbg-bb3-link.ip.twelve99.net 50.0% 10 19.5 19.7 19.5 20.0 0.2 10.|-- oso-b1-link.ip.twelve99.net 0.0% 10 31.8 31.9 31.7 32.3 0.2 11.|-- basefarm-ic-306597.ip.twelve99-cust.net 0.0% 10 32.0 32.0 31.6 32.3 0.2 12.|-- ? ? ? 100.0% 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Re: Where/how to report general routing problem?

pjmarsh — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 12:56:13 GMT

A couple of possible “fixes” if that’s the case. 1) would be to turn your hub off for a while to try and get a different IP address and see if that helps. 2) would be to get a static IP address, though that has a one-off £5 charge. You should be able to do that in the members centre but there has been some talk about it being broken and if so a member of staff would need to do it.

Re: Where/how to report general routing problem?

Greg60 — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:14:33 GMT

Thanks, yes, but turning off isn't an option during the day (working remotely). I can maybe try that over the weekend; or maybe use a trial VPN ... but this is obviously not a problem of my making, or anything I can solve except by luck or extra expenditure. I should be able to report this to PlusNet.

Re: Where/how to report general routing problem?

Greg60 — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:20:37 GMT

@Anonymous thanks, yes, I've just tried with my mobile; no connection if using WiFi, fine if using mobile data.

Re: Where/how to report general routing problem?

jab1 — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:22:58 GMT

Just a thought - if you are using a VPN, is that specific site picking that up and deciding it doesn't like it?

Re: Where/how to report general routing problem?

Greg60 — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:25:14 GMT

@jab1 I'm not using a VPN, but doing so would probably be a workaround.

Re: Where/how to report general routing problem?

jab1 — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:30:18 GMT

OK - I just thought if you were remote working, you would be possibly be using one to connect to your office/place of work.

Re: Where/how to report general routing problem?

Greg60 — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:36:56 GMT

Ahh, I see; I'm using an ssh tunnel to reach my work site, so that's a separate affair, I have normal connectivity from my home network. Everything was fine last week, this is something that has happened since then.

Re: Where/how to report general routing problem?

jab1 — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:43:17 GMT

No problem - it was just a thought .

Re: Where/how to report general routing problem?

Dan_the_Van — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 15:01:48 GMT

@Greg60

It is worth noting that host 195.225.31.64 does not respond to pings so trace route will not really a good test for routing in this case.

Pinging 195.225.31.64 with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.

telnet has failed due to a 'Connection time out'

last hop from trace route is

basefarm-ic-306597.ip.twelve99-cust.net (62.115.45.130) 32.993 ms 33.032 ms 35.483 ms

I pinged 62.115.45.130 with this reply from 62.115.45.130: bytes=32 time=36ms TTL=54

So the attempt to connect is happening, it's just timing out.

You can test what ports are open using this site https://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/open-ports/

Have you tried telnet on port 443 (https)

Dan

Edit: when you attempt to telnet run netstat so see what the connection state is look for something line this

TCP <your device ip> 195.225.31.64:443 ESTABLISHED

Re: Where/how to report general routing problem?

Greg60 — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 15:29:13 GMT

Hi Dan, the traceroute is just to see there's connectivity at least some part of the way; the server will be behind a firewall somewhere on the other side of the last visible router. There's connection from other places, but not my home broadband; I have observed no other problems from my home broadband, and traceroute shows generally god outward connectivity towards the target, so the reasonable conclusion is there's a problem routing back from the server or data centre. TCP state is SYN_SENT, as I would expect.

tcp 0 1 shadowII.lan:33826 web.colorline.ba:telnet SYN_SENT

Re: Where/how to report general routing problem?

Dan_the_Van — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 15:43:33 GMT

It always best gather facts. I agree the SYN_SENT does not look good.

As previously mentioned, either drop your connection for a while or hopefully a static IP might help

Dan.

Re: Where/how to report general routing problem?

Dan_the_Van — Sun, 03 Sep 2023 07:55:27 GMT

Hi @Greg60

did you get anywhere with this? This command might help

sudo traceroute -T www.colorline.com

traceroute to www.colorline.com (195.225.31.64), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 _gateway (192.168.10.1) 4.242 ms 4.112 ms 4.065 ms
2 195.166.130.249 (195.166.130.249) 12.774 ms 12.715 ms 12.557 ms
3 gi2-1-444.ptn-gw01.plus.net (84.93.253.79) 12.493 ms 12.321 ms gi2-23-442.ptn-gw02.plus.net (84.93.253.75) 12.191 ms
4 195.99.125.144 (195.99.125.144) 11.752 ms 13.232 ms core1-BE1.colindale.ukcore.bt.net (195.99.125.132) 13.121 ms
5 core5-hu0-7-0-15.faraday.ukcore.bt.net (195.99.127.36) 14.898 ms peer7-et-4-1-4.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net (194.72.16.140) 39.940 ms peer7-et-3-1-7.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.252.172) 12.663 ms
6 166-49-214-194.gia.bt.net (166.49.214.194) 12.621 ms 11.837 ms 166-49-209-132.gia.bt.net (166.49.209.132) 11.720 ms
7 ldn-b3-link.ip.twelve99.net (213.248.71.146) 13.114 ms 16.962 ms 16.910 ms
8 ldn-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.120.74) 28.382 ms 28.687 ms 28.654 ms
9 hbg-bb3-link.ip.twelve99.net (80.91.249.11) 43.268 ms 48.148 ms 47.653 ms
10 oso-b1-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.112.85) 59.612 ms 59.463 ms 59.336 ms
11 basefarm-ic-306597.ip.twelve99-cust.net (62.115.45.130) 59.299 ms 54.248 ms 54.084 ms
12 * web.colorline.basefarm.net (195.225.31.64) 53.968 ms *

Re: Where/how to report general routing problem?

Greg60 — Sun, 03 Sep 2023 13:02:58 GMT

Thanks for your concern, but no, the problem remains.

root@shadowII:~# traceroute -T www.colorline.com
traceroute to www.colorline.com (195.225.31.64), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 dsldevice.lan (192.168.1.254) 1.069 ms * *
2 * * *
3 * * *
4 136.hiper04.sheff.dial.plus.net.uk (195.166.143.136) 18.855 ms 18.820 ms 18.777 ms
5 core5-hu0-7-0-26.faraday.ukcore.bt.net (195.99.127.32) 18.823 ms peer7-et-7-0-2.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.252.88) 18.788 ms core5-hu0-4-0-26.faraday.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.252.144) 18.942 ms
6 166-49-214-194.gia.bt.net (166.49.214.194) 19.281 ms 24.668 ms 166-49-209-132.gia.bt.net (166.49.209.132) 20.265 ms
7 ldn-b3-link.ip.twelve99.net (213.248.71.146) 20.276 ms 8.101 ms 8.115 ms
8 ldn-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.127.100) 8.294 ms ldn-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.120.74) 14.899 ms 14.940 ms
9 hbg-bb3-link.ip.twelve99.net (80.91.249.11) 23.880 ms * *
10 oso-b1-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.112.85) 33.460 ms 33.870 ms 36.501 ms
11 basefarm-ic-306597.ip.twelve99-cust.net (62.115.45.130) 36.444 ms 36.459 ms 33.791 ms
12 * * *
13 * * *
14 * * *
15 * * *
16 * * *
17 * * *
18 * * *
19 * * *
20 * * *
21 * * *
22 * * *
23 * * *
24 * * *
25 * * *
26 * * *
27 * * *
28 * * *
29 * * *
30 * * *
root@shadowII:~#

My mobile phone can act as a WiFi hotspot, so I can rig a backup connection from my main machine via mobile data; as expected, this works.

root@shadowII:~# traceroute -T www.colorline.com
traceroute to www.colorline.com (195.225.31.64), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 192.168.136.158 (192.168.136.158) 2.440 ms 7.958 ms 8.042 ms
2 10.247.176.102 (10.247.176.102) 27.050 ms 27.191 ms 27.247 ms
3 * * *
4 * * *
5 * * *
6 109.249.132.36 (109.249.132.36) 36.931 ms 26.644 ms 24.391 ms
7 62.6.204.147 (62.6.204.147) 24.736 ms 62.6.204.77 (62.6.204.77) 32.100 ms 62.6.204.23 (62.6.204.23) 32.098 ms
8 166-49-214-194.gia.bt.net (166.49.214.194) 46.890 ms 46.835 ms 46.232 ms
9 ldn-b3-link.ip.twelve99.net (213.248.71.146) 24.199 ms 23.815 ms 24.304 ms
10 ldn-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.120.74) 24.458 ms 36.806 ms 36.708 ms
11 hbg-bb3-link.ip.twelve99.net (80.91.249.11) 43.123 ms 48.535 ms *
12 oso-b1-link.ip.twelve99.net (62.115.112.85) 55.662 ms 55.656 ms 51.849 ms
13 basefarm-ic-306597.ip.twelve99-cust.net (62.115.45.130) 51.535 ms 57.158 ms 58.229 ms
14 web.colorline.basefarm.net (195.225.31.64) 59.427 ms * *
root@shadowII:~#

My mobile service is also PlusNet, and in both cases the first hop after bt.net is ldn-b3-link.ip.twelve99.net (213.248.71.146); ie, apart from details strictly inside PlusNet/BT, everything is the same, so the only logical conclusion is that the target can't (for whatever reason) route back to my public broadband address. Since I don't have any kind of relationship with twelve99.net, this is something I need PlusNet to pick up and resolve. Hence my question, how/where do I report something like this?

Re: Where/how to report general routing problem?

bobpullen — Sun, 03 Sep 2023 13:43:24 GMT

Is that the only logical explanation? I'd say it's far more likely that something is happening at the destination that's preventing you access.

Re: Where/how to report general routing problem?

Greg60 — Sun, 03 Sep 2023 16:09:32 GMT

The only other option would be packet filtering; it's possible, but probably very unlikely. Either way, this is something that I can't resolve, and I'm looking for answers to how to report this to PlusNet. I reckon there's no chance of getting past the first line of customer support.

Re: Where/how to report general routing problem?

jab1 — Sun, 03 Sep 2023 16:34:37 GMT

@Greg60 On a completely different network - Zen - who have their own connections and do not route via any BT centres, I too cannot get any further than your step 11, so I tend to agree with @bobpullen - it is colorline themselves who are blocking this.