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

[Allen Shaw]

Just a thought: If this is at work, then perhaps your machine is behind 
a firewall you yourself don't control.  Could that firewall have been 
tightened by the admin(s) while you were logged off, thus blocking your 
access?

- Allen

James Keenan wrote:
> 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
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