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Access port 25 and trying to get old routers working with Plusnet for testing

infobleep
Grafter
Posts: 27
Registered: ‎24-07-2013

Access port 25 and trying to get old routers working with Plusnet for testing

Hi there
I have a business account and a static IP address but I am still having problems connecting to port 25 for my e-mail server, despite getting up a port forward rule on my tg582n router. A line test claims not to have shown that port 25 is not being blocked on my account by Plusnet. Does anyone have any ideas as to what might be causing it?
I am trying to test the Belkin N1 wireless Router and a Thompson wired SpeedTouch 545 router. However I cannot get either them to connect to Plusnet, despite putting in the correct password and username. I am using PPPoA. Whenever I try to connect it just keeps retrying. I am using a Mac running Mountain Lion 10.8.4 and I've tried this using Chrome and Safari on 2 different Mac laptops.
However in the case of the Belkin at least, the MTU only goes up to 1492 and the default is set to 1432, where as my tn582n router is set to 1500. Well that is the figure I get when I telnetted in from my Mac. I am not certain if that is the problem however.
I don't want to spend another £100 on a wireless router to find out it's another problem but I do need to resolve the issues.
I would be grateful  for any help or advice on the matter. Thanks
12 REPLIES 12
ReedRichards
Seasoned Pro
Posts: 4,927
Thanks: 145
Fixes: 25
Registered: ‎14-07-2009

Re: Access port 25 and trying to get old routers working with Plusnet for testing

Quote from: infobleep
I am trying to test the Belkin N1 wireless Router and a Thompson wired SpeedTouch 545 router. However I cannot get either them to connect to Plusnet, despite putting in the correct password and username.

I don't wish to cause offence but it seems very unlikely you are using the correct password and username.  Go to the main Plusnet web page and log in to the Member Centre.  If you can get that to work you have the your username and password correct.  The settings for your router are then:
login: username@plusdsl.net
password: password
I'd bet you got the @plusdsl.net bit wrong.
If you have been fiddling with the routers I suggest you reset them to factory settings first.  Thereafter you want a standard UK (PPPoA) connection.  Most routers will choose the correct defaults if they know your locale.  VPI=0, VCI=38.
As for MTU, 1500 is the same as 1492 and that is what you should unless you run into problems.   
infobleep
Grafter
Posts: 27
Registered: ‎24-07-2013

Re: Access port 25 and trying to get old routers working with Plusnet for testing

Thank you for your reply.
I checked several times and I am certain I entered the end part in correctly. However for now I've given up testing those as I've attacked my problem from another angle and came across something rather bizarre.
I did some tests using netcat, which someone else suggested using on the Mac Rumours forums [http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=17717301#post17717301]
This showed that:
1. internally between two macs and my mac I could access port 25
2. internally between one mac and my disk station server I could access port 25
3. If I turned off my port forwarding rule I could not access 25 when using the static IP address supplied by plusnet
4. When I turned on the port forwarding rule I could access port 25 using the static IP address supplied by plusnet.
Given that worked I then went to the Web Site www.canyouseeme.org and that now showed that port 25 was indeed accessible. However it now showed that port 80; 5001 and no doubt all the other ports previously accessible when port 25 wasn't, where no longer accessible. This does not make sense because all the ports are contained in the same port forwarding rule, so if one port is open, they all should be open.
Does anyone have any ideas? I would be grateful if someone from plusnet could please comment. I mean I am using the officially supported router. I am aware I had problems previously with my O2 Wirelessbox IV router which was another Thompson router. I couldn't test that because it's locked down.
Is the problem with the router plusnet supply to their business customers, in fact all their customers? Or is it likely to be something else. I've tried multiple times in the past to get port 25 accessible and never been able to, until today but that is no good if the other ports are not accessible.
That was short lived. Now it can't access any port at all internally or externally, despite the port forwarding rule being set up. I am beginning to think, as if I didn't think it already, that the Thompson router is rubbish. Would someone else like to confirm this?
npr
Pro
Posts: 1,898
Thanks: 119
Fixes: 9
Registered: ‎21-01-2013

Re: Access port 25 and trying to get old routers working with Plusnet for testing

Quote from: infobleep

Given that worked I then went to the Web Site www.canyouseeme.org and that now showed that port 25 was indeed accessible. However it now showed that port 80; 5001 and no doubt all the other ports previously accessible when port 25 wasn't, where no longer accessible. This does not make sense because all the ports are contained in the same port forwarding rule, so if one port is open, they all should be open.

Is there a server running on those ports and on the IP address specified in the port forward rule?
If there's no server running then the port checker will see the ports as closed.
infobleep
Grafter
Posts: 27
Registered: ‎24-07-2013

Re: Access port 25 and trying to get old routers working with Plusnet for testing

There is a server running on the ip address and there has been from day 1.
I've reset my router and no it can't even see my server which is on the network via a gigabit ethernet switch.
So it's like this:
diskstation server -> gigabit ethernet switch -> router.
It was seeing it before I restarted the router so why suddenly not see it after resetting my router? I then restarted the router but alas nothing. Now restarting the diskstation server in the hope that will make it visible once again.
This is just as bizarre if you ask me.
ejs
Aspiring Hero
Posts: 5,442
Thanks: 631
Fixes: 25
Registered: ‎10-06-2010

Re: Access port 25 and trying to get old routers working with Plusnet for testing

Reading your thread on the macrumours forum, your netcat command to connect to port 25 looks horribly wrong.
Quote
sudo nc -l 25

This part was correct. The "nc -l" makes nc listen on a port.
Quote
Mac connecting to it:
sudo nc -l 192.168.1.71

This is of no use, that's just going to make nc listen on another port. "If port is omitted, it defaults to 31337" according to the man page. So you'll just have two netcat programs, both acting as servers, both listening on their port.
To try to connect to port 25, the command would be:
nc 192.168.1.71 25

sudo not necessary.
infobleep
Grafter
Posts: 27
Registered: ‎24-07-2013

Re: Access port 25 and trying to get old routers working with Plusnet for testing

Hi ejs. Your quite right. It was a typing mistake as I was typing it form memory [the command being typed on another computer]. I will correct my original post.
Now having further problems. I have turned off my router firewall, yet www.canyouseeme.org cannot see any port at my IP address, some of which it could see earlier today when I did have the firewall on with port forwarding rules activated.
Is anyone else having problems with their technicolor route or is it just me?
infobleep
Grafter
Posts: 27
Registered: ‎24-07-2013

Re: Access port 25 and trying to get old routers working with Plusnet for testing

I've narrowed down the problem and although I do seriously believe that I have problems with my router from time to time, especially after assigning and unassigning port forwarding rules several times.
The problem appears to be with my diskstation. Firstly I forgot to enable port 25 in the firewall of my diskstation but even after doing that I am having problems accessing port 25.
In the DMZ section of my router setup, I added the io address of my server, 192.168.1.71. That gave me access to some ports but not port 25.
I then set the DMZ to be my Mac ip address, which is 192.168.1.67, in order to check if port 25 was working I went into BASH using the terminal application and entered the following:
sudo nc -l 25

Then I went to www.canyouseeme.org and entered 25. I got a success result and my netcat command terminated. Without the netcat command running I'd get an error message. I then did the same again but for port 80. That to produced a success result proving netcat command was running. This suggests the problem lies somewhere with my diskstation. I find fault locating on my diskstation not an easy task.
Actually locating the fault was rather easy. I didn't hit save. On some windows they use apply but on this one it's save and it's amongst various other buttons. I guess I need to look harder. Would help if they used the same terminology across dialogue boxes though. You can even navigate away without saving and you get no warning messages.
Thank you for all your help.
infobleep
Grafter
Posts: 27
Registered: ‎24-07-2013

Re: Access port 25 and trying to get old routers working with Plusnet for testing

Unfortunately my successful rather short lived. Whilst out of my house this week I tried to access my server and found I could not. Today I am looking into this and finding that canyouseeme.org cannot access port 25 or in fact any port what soever.
Now I have not touched anything since it was working. I just logged onto my server with inside my network and all the firewalls are set up as previously so that has not changed..
I've logged onto my tg582n router and that isn't showing anything different.
Interestingly my disk station server was assigned to ip address 192.168.1.71. It also has the port forwarding rules assigned to it.
My Slingbox is currently also assigned to the same ip address and port forwarding rules. I'm not sure how that can be possible. I gave my disk station a static ip address and my Slingbox has a dynamic IP address. This suggests that my tg582n router or the Slingbox assigned the Slingbox an IP address that is already in use.
Does anyone know how I can test whether my TG582n router is working or not? I can reset ti and start again but typing in all the port numbers for my diskstation gets rather tedious.
ejs
Aspiring Hero
Posts: 5,442
Thanks: 631
Fixes: 25
Registered: ‎10-06-2010

Re: Access port 25 and trying to get old routers working with Plusnet for testing

How did you give the disk station a static IP? What you should do is set the 582n to assign it (via DHCP as usual) the same IP address each time. You shouldn't set the IP address on the disk station itself to an IP address within the 582n DHCP range.
infobleep
Grafter
Posts: 27
Registered: ‎24-07-2013

Re: Access port 25 and trying to get old routers working with Plusnet for testing

Quote from: ejs
How did you give the disk station a static IP? What you should do is set the 582n to assign it (via DHCP as usual) the same IP address each time. You shouldn't set the IP address on the disk station itself to an IP address within the 582n DHCP range.

I possibly set it on the disk station itself. I need it to have the same ip address all the time so that the port forwarding works. I am not certain if I have a power cut, whether my tg582n router will still give it the same ip address on rebooting and whether the port forwarding would continue to work. Perhaps it would. Besides surely the router should be able to handle static IP addresses?
What I don't understand is why my Slingbox was assign that ip number. When I rebooted my router it made no difference but when I switched off and on my Slingbox, it then caused the port forwarding rule to the disk station to disappear and for the Slingbox to then get assigned the IP address it had previously been given, 192.168.1.66. That wasn't a static ip address. I was then able to assign the port forwarding again to my disk station.
Of course the Slingbox lost it's non standard port, 9999. I now have to reset this up using my old Toshiba laptop running Windows XP. In theory I am suppose to be able to use the browser on the Mac to set it up but I can't. Everything I run them they cause the browsers to stop working. Suddenly you can't access any web pages from any Web Site. That is until you restart the browser in question. I even tried to set it up using my Virtual windows 7 installation, running in VMWare Fusion but that doesn't work. I don't think the browser crashes in the same way, from memory. but it simply doesn't work. Only an old toshiba computer running Windows XP works.
That bug has existed for well over 2 years. I guess not enough people need to use a non standard port on their Mac so Slingbox can't be bothered to fix this rather major bug. I get the impression that is a common theme with many software developers or may be it's just that I keep using software by such developers.
It is possible that when I set up the Slingbox, via Windows XP, I inadvertently caused it to be assigned to ip address 192.168.1.71. I guess the router couldn't stop it from being assigned if the device so choose. However that may not have been the cause. I will know when I reset up the port number for my Slingbox.
ejs
Aspiring Hero
Posts: 5,442
Thanks: 631
Fixes: 25
Registered: ‎10-06-2010

Re: Access port 25 and trying to get old routers working with Plusnet for testing

I think when configuring a Technicolor router, you should forget anything you know about port forwarding for other routers. For a start, it's called "Game & Application sharing", and I don't think it even requires the target device to have a constant IP address, because it gets configured to the device rather than the IP address. But yes the router could also assign a device the same IP address every time if you tick that box, it would save the setting the same way as it stores any other setting when switched off.
Clearly, if a web page causes a web browser to stop working - that's a problem with the web browser, not the page that manages to do that.
infobleep
Grafter
Posts: 27
Registered: ‎24-07-2013

Re: Access port 25 and trying to get old routers working with Plusnet for testing

What about if it occurs with Safari; Firefox and Chrome. Are they all at fault? Personally I think the browser manufactures have some responsibility but so do Slingbox. Bowser manufactures can only fix problems if they are made aware of the problems. I'd be surprised with Slingbox has done that.
They certainly have been made aware of the problem on their forum. However they charge a technical support fee if you wish to ring them. May be they would wavier if it I told them I was ringing to report a bug. To be honest I haven't bothered to find out.
This evening my attempt to set up my Slingbox via my Windows XP hasn't got beyond a screen saying initialising when going to the watch part of the Slingbox Web Site. Unfortunately I need to go beyond that to get to the update section. To be fair my Windows XP is old so I can't expect it to work that well.
However my Slingbox is much newer and so if my Mac and if they worked together I wouldn't even be resorting to such old technology. The same technology I was forced to use in order to upgrade my Technicolor router. Eventually Windows Xp will no longer receive updates and I will no doubt run in to problems where by I can't update things because they only work correctly on a Windows computer that isn't virtualised and running on a Mac.
I have a reasonable amount of Windows software which works. It's just a few things which are stubborn and requires Windows XP. Only one of those is old software.