[nylug-talk] Ubuntu Problem: No Longer Able to Make Certain Connections

[James Keenan]

A little over a week ago I ran into a problem at work where I use  
Ubuntu Linux (5.10, I believe) on my local drive.  There appeared to  
be something wrong with my connection to the network.  I logged off  
and logged back on.  At the moment I logged off I had been used  
Firefox as my browser, Thunderbird as my email and news client and  
GAIM for instant messaging.

When I logged back on, two things no longer worked:

1.  I could no longer use GAIM to access my AOL Instant Messenger  
account from my own box.  I can use a Web client (meebo) to access  
AIM.  And I can use a co-worker's GAIM on Ubuntu program to access  
AIM, including setting up a new AIM account.  But no matter what I  
do, my GAIM on my own box is thoroughly dysfunctional:  a window  
(never seen during previous operation) opens up saying it's trying to  
make a connection, but that connection inevitably times out.  I have  
tried doing both a simple reinstall of GAIM as well as removing GAIM  
and reinstalling it from the Ubuntu repository -- to no avail.

2.  I can no longer reach the one news server I constantly seek --  
nntp.perl.org -- via Thunderbird.  It too times out.  Yet I have no  
problem reaching this same server from home (where I use Mozilla on a  
Mac iBook).

Since both of these services worked fine before and now both fail, I  
hypothesize that the two problems are related.  Co-workers have  
speculated that there's a "firewall problem," but I haven't changed  
firewall settings recently.  iptables -L shows I'm at default settings.

Can anyone provide some leads in diagnosing this problem?  Thanks in  
advance.

Jim Keenan