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[Mat]

Hi,

Lately, some of my users are having problems connecting to our main server.  When they double-click on the shortcut on their desktop, the Telnetpro window appears and a message box “Unknown : 38094064” pops-up. Clicking on Ok dismisses the message box dialog but nothing else happens, the telnet window stays white.

The number after Unknown varies : 38076488, 39304840, 39402424, 39273712, 18079560, 33873560 and 32693912.

I know the system is up (otherwise my phone would have melted   ). From the affected pc, I can telnet to my main server (using the telnet.exe from windows 2000/XP), I can even telnet, using TelnetPro, to other systems (my switches, my router, etc.) but I cannot telnet to my main server. I tried changing port TELNET to 23, same result.

And now for the scary part : the problem usually resolves itself with time !  I reinstall the old ICETCP 4.3.1 on the affected PC and tell the user to use that version until I find a solution.  After 3 or 4 hours, the user clicks (out of curiosity or he just forgot, I don’t know) on telnetpro and tada, a login prompt.

The affected users are all using laptops, TCP-PRO 5.1.25 and windows XP or windows 2000.

Thanks,


Mat

[Bob]

Sounds like you have stuck socket connections on your server. Try doing a:

netstat -an | grep 23

and see if there are connections to machines that aren't working. The local port will be different when you connect with another telnet program so that would explain why you can connect with another program when you get a hang with PRO. Also, working again after some time indicates that there is a hung socket/port pair that gets flushed eventually.

[Mat]

Hi,

On the server side, netstat gives me TIME_WAIT for the connection to the affected machine. According to my co-worker in charge of the server (an HP-UX rp5430 B.11.11, by the way), the TIME_WAIT reset itself after 60 seconds, but PRO still give me unknown : xxxxx after that timeout.

Does the number after unknown have any meaning ?

Any other ideas ?


Thanks,

Mat

[Bob]

Hi,

On the server side, netstat gives me TIME_WAIT for the connection to the affected machine. According to my co-worker in charge of the server (an HP-UX rp5430 B.11.11, by the way), the TIME_WAIT reset itself after 60 seconds, but PRO still give me unknown : xxxxx after that timeout.

Does the number after unknown have any meaning ?

Interesting. I don't know if the number has any particular meaning. I will check it out with a developer on Monday.

Any other ideas ?

Thanks,

Mat

If it's XP SP2  unblock the application?
Try turning the XPSP2 firewall offf and try again??

[Mat]

Hi,
Any word on the meaning of the number next to Unknown ?

The winxp firewall is off and this error also occured on a windows 2000 machine.


thanks for the help

Mat

[Bob]

I haven't been able to connect with him yet, it turns out he is on vacation this week and I didn't know about it.

I'm wondering if you have any routers between you and the server (like a wan connection)?
Also, you could try ssh instead of telnet to see if that produces the same results.

[Mat]

Hi,

All of the affected laptops are on a wan connection and separated by a router.

However, that does not seem to affect telnet.exe (dos) ability to connect to our main server or telnetpro ability to connect to systems on the same "side" of our main server.

SSH is not installed on our main server and unfortunately, installing SSH is not an option.

I've not been able to reproduce the problem and it did not reoccurred on the affected laptops or on any other pc or laptop.

I still need to know why and how I can stop this problem from reoccurring.

Thanks for the help


Mat

[Bob]

Are the affected laptops using NAT on the router to access the server?
What kind and model router?

[Mat]

Hi,

No, the router simply routes the data, no NAT there. I don't really know the router model, our connection provider is hosting our router for this site but I know it is a Cisco.

Also, the laptop has the Cisco VPN Client installed, the software is loaded but not in use (our VPN access is only when the user is out of the office)

Thanks,

Mat

[Bob]

Without NAT, then I really don't know what is going on.

I can only check on the error number and let you know about that on Monday May 2nd

[Mat]

Hi,

Do you have any info on those error numbers ?


Thanks


Mat

[Bob]

He said that they are untrapped failure codes and have no meaning unfortunately.

[Mat]

Hi,

Is there a way to record a log of the communications between telnet pro and the unix server (and eventually, send that file to you ?)

Thanks

Mat

[Bob]

Well, you could try tcpdump on the unix side.