resubmitting original enquiry

[Sanjeev Johal]

Ive been trying to access Microsoft's Newsgroup
@ "msnews.microsoft.com" and get the following error
message: Unable to connect to server Configuration:
Account: msnews.microsoft.com Server: msnews.microsoft.com
Protocol: NNTP Port: 119 Secure(SSL): 0 Code: 800ccc0e.
I've tried substituting the server name with the IP
address and putting in my .NET passport login details but
still failing.

People have suggested the following but still no success:
1. Pinging msnews.microsoft.com - using the IP address
still does not work
2. Someone suggested I check if port 119 is blocked, how
do I do this?

NB. My original request was posted on 11/07 @ 7:36am

I would be most grateful if anyone can suggest anything
else. Thank you.

PS. When searching for responses to my request, I always
have to trawl through the emails to get to mine. Does the
search facility not work?

 

[Roady]

search doesn't really work on the site. It's better to
use a newsreader program like Outlook Express to search
in the NG (sorry, just kidding, cheap shot I know).

How are you connected to the Internet? Directly or via a
LAN. Are you using a firewall? Are you able to ping your
proxy server and are you able to ping e.g.
www.microsoft.com?

 

[Vanguard]

Ive been trying to access Microsoft's Newsgroup
@ "msnews.microsoft.com" and get the following error
message: Unable to connect to server Configuration:
Account: msnews.microsoft.com Server: msnews.microsoft.com
Protocol: NNTP Port: 119 Secure(SSL): 0 Code: 800ccc0e.
I've tried substituting the server name with the IP
address and putting in my .NET passport login details but
still failing.

People have suggested the following but still no success:
1. Pinging msnews.microsoft.com - using the IP address
still does not work
2. Someone suggested I check if port 119 is blocked, how
do I do this?

NB. My original request was posted on 11/07 @ 7:36am

I would be most grateful if anyone can suggest anything
else. Thank you.

PS. When searching for responses to my request, I always
have to trawl through the emails to get to mine. Does the
search facility not work?

Pinging won't work because Microsoft probably has it disabled. To many
abusers will constantly ping a host in a concerted attack by many users
(or usurped victim hosts running zombies) to use up its bandwidth and
CPU cycles, so often the ping request is ignored.

Instead, try to telnet to the news server using:

telnet news.microsoft.com 119

I got in this way. I don't know what commands to enter but that wasn't
the point. The point was to see if I could reach the news server. If
you cannot telnet into the server, it's probably because you cannot
reach it. If you have an NT-based version of Windows, or download a
utility like SamSpade, run a traceroute to see if you can "get there
from here":

tracert news.microsoft.com

You might not be able to get all the way to the server, especially if it
is inside and behind a firewall, but you should get to a boundary for
their domain. When I did a traceroute, I got to 207.46.155.10 and then
just got timeouts since the trace wouldn't go any further into their
network. There is no reverse DNS lookup for this IP address, but a
prior hop showed an msn.net host so I know I did get to somewhere on one
of Microsoft's networks.

NNTP (network news transfer protocol) defaults to using port 119 for its
communications. If this port is blocked at a firewall, you'll have to
contact your firewall administrator or IT department to get them to open
it or give you a different port to go through, providing they haven't
deliberately blocked news traffic (because their employees are abusing
the privilege and wasting bandwidth and their time getting porn, jokes,
gardening tips, vacationing tips, or chatting with their Disney
friends).

 

[Sanjeev Johal]

Thank you for the information

* I get the following message when
telnetting, "connecting To
news.microsoft.com...Could not open a connection to host
on port 119 :
Connect failed"
* When pinging I get

"Pinging msnews.microsoft.com [207.46.248.16] with
32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 207.46.248.16:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4
(100% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms"

* When I run the traceroute I get as far as
207.46.155.13 before it
too times out
* I've checked with my IT department who say that
port 119 is blocked in which case to use another port
#........in which case how can I find this out?

Your help will be greatly appreciated.

PS. Am I going mad or does that search facility on thus
not work

 

[Sanjeev Johal]

i get as far as gig3-0.core1.ash1.us.msn.net [207.46.34.9]
which I presume is on Microsoft domain.

my firewall admin have deliberately blocked off port 119
and I think the policy is that we should not receive
newsgroups, however the fact that I can at least get onto
MS's domain, is their a sneaky way around this policy.

-----Original Message-----

Thank you for the information

* I get the following message when
telnetting, "connecting To
news.microsoft.com...Could not open a connection to host
on port 119 :
Connect failed"
* When pinging I get

"Pinging msnews.microsoft.com [207.46.248.16] with
32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 207.46.248.16:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4
(100% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms"

* When I run the traceroute I get as far as
207.46.155.13 before it
too times out
* I've checked with my IT department who say that
port 119 is blocked in which case to use another port
#........in which case how can I find this out?

Your help will be greatly appreciated.

PS. Am I going mad or does that search facility on thus
not work

Pinging probably won't work. Many servers have that disabled as it
wastes bandwidth and CPU cycles, not for a single user even if they
continually ping, but for a concerted effort amongst LOTS of users
wanting to retaliate for some infantile purpose.

Did the traceroute get you to a Microsoft domain?

The telnet to news.microsoft.com on port 119 which worked for me but
fails for you indicates that you have a firewall that is blocking either
NNTP traffic (network news transport protocol) or is blocking port 119.
Contact your firewall admin. They have to open port 119 or provide you
with another port number for you to use (that maps back to port 119
externally), or they don't have to do anything if they have an
established policy that dictates "there shalt be no news traffic".


.

 

[Vanguard]

i get as far as gig3-0.core1.ash1.us.msn.net [207.46.34.9]
which I presume is on Microsoft domain.

my firewall admin have deliberately blocked off port 119
and I think the policy is that we should not receive
newsgroups, however the fact that I can at least get onto
MS's domain, is their a sneaky way around this policy.

Traceroute is not using port 119 so that is why you can use it to get to
the Microsoft news server's host (or to a boundary host on Microsoft's
domain).

I would first try to prove to your manager, supervisor, or whomever is
in charge of your department that access to newsgroups is critical to
your job performance. This gets them on your side in a concerted effort
to then prove to your IT department that you really do need access to a
news server. Also check if your company's ISP might provide a cleaned
up news server. Access to newsgroups is often crucial to my job since I
often have questions or problems that the programmers, IT department,
help desk, and other alpha testers cannot answer and so I have to seek
help from a larger community of users. However, the news server
provided by our company's ISP did not carry all newsgroups. Many were
excluded that would in no way be related to our business, like binaries
for music, sex, games, pro-life/-choice, and other unrelated "garbage"
newsgroups. We were not restricted from the news server because the
"bad" newsgroups were not carried on this news server. If, however, the
ISP didn't happen to provide this cleaned up news server, another choice
would be for the company to run their own news server with whatever
newsgroups it felt were related to its business or could aid its
employees in getting their jobs done faster or getting done at all.

You could use HTTP to access newsgroups via your web browser. HTTP
(port 80) traffic is not likely to be restricted since that would also
mean that you are not allowed to surf the web. Go to
http://groups.google.com to find your newsgroup(s). Your company
probably won't mine you getting to newsgroups this way because there are
no attachments to the messages shown or posted in Google Groups which
eliminates much of the objection to using newsgroups from within your
corporate network.