Re: [Pan-users] Re: Pan "timing out"

[Ron Blizzard]

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 11:36 PM, Duncan <address@hidden> wrote:
> Ron Blizzard <address@hidden> posted
> address@hidden, excerpted
> below, on  Fri, 29 May 2009 21:00:53 -0500:
>
>> On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 5:08 AM, Duncan
>> <address@hidden> wrote:
>>
>>> [The below comes across a bit strong.  Please understand it's nothing
>>> personal.]
>>>
>> No, I'm sorry about the HTML. Hopefully I've turned it off. Gmail uses
>> kind of odd terminology. I use this email exclusively for about three
>> list serves -- so it shouldn't have HTML.
>
> FWIW, it's still there, but I know you're working on it now.  I've never
> used gmail (I prefer gmane.org list2news and pan for lists, and don't
> particularly like webmail of any sort for my personal mail), but I've
> seen others say gmail is a bit strange in the regard of HTML mail
> options.  Someone claimed there was no way to set it permanently per
> address or even globally -- you had to remember to do it manually every
> time.  I'd find that extremely irritating, to the point I have trouble
> believing they'd not have at least a global option if not per-address
> (even MSOE did /that/), but as I said, I've never used it, so all I can
> do is go by what others have said.
>
>> <SNIP>

Hopefully I've turned HTML off for this response. It looks like it may
be a toggle -- turn off HTML once and it stays off until you turn it
back on. But I have no way knowing for certain, as I don't see any of
it on this side.

>>> First, how many connections do you have pan configured to use
>
>> As far as I know, I'm only using one connection at a time. I use two
>> news groups, both text only. I'll have to check the error log (didn't
>> even know to look there). Where would I look? And, it looks like I've
>> already got Pan set to four connections -- I think that was the default.
>
> The (high level) error log (pan calls it the event log) is accessible two
> ways.  It's in the file menu, under event log (and may or may not have an
> accelerator defined, I do here but I think I changed that one), and
> there's also the clickable little icon in the status bar at the bottom,
> to the far right.  If there are no error events logged, only information
> events, the icon will be a light bulb.  When it logs an error event it
> turns red, with a slash thru it.

I've got that little light bulb -- it never shows any error -- Pan
just times out. I'm beginning to get the feeling that CentOS hasn't
implemented Pan very well. Something is not right.

> For lower level stuff, start pan from a terminal window (or have it log
> STDERR and STDOUT to a file by setting a redirect in your menu entry or
> other pan launcher), and it'll spit out some information there as it
> runs.  If you want more info printed to the terminal, you can run pan
> with the (undocumented) --debug switch.

I may try the --debug switch. But I'm beginning to wonder if the fight
is worth it.

> But I was talking about the higher level one, here.  If pan knows the
> connection died, it'll put it in the log.  If it doesn't, it won't be
> there.  I suspect it won't be or pan wouldn't hang as you said it does,
> but if it does print any errors, it could be useful knowing what they are.

It doesn't appear that there are any errors in Pan -- it just loses
the connection. Once that happens, I get an error 441 -- Newsgroup
Can't be found. The headers remain and I can click on them, but I just
get a blank page. The only "fix" is to exit Pan and restart it.

Unfortunately the "L" doesn't seem to help.

>>> Second, it'll be a bit of a chore to do it manually, but you can
>>> probably use pan's offline feature to kill existing connections --
>>> PROVIDED you do it before whatever times them out.
>>
>> This sounds promising. I don't think it would be that big of a deal to
>> type "L" when I'm about to write a longer response, then type "L" when
>> I'm ready to post. I didn't even think about that. Thanks.
>
> That's what peer help from newsgroups and mailing lists is all about. =:^)

It's becoming clearer to me that it's probably not a Pan problem.
Maybe I'll look into downloading a newer version of Pan and compiling
it.

>>> Meanwhile, I have an educated guess at what the problem is.  Are you
>>> direct-connecting to your modem, or are you using a router (noting that
>>> some modems have a built-in router)?  The problem sounds to me very
>>> much like a mis-configured NAPT that has WAY too short a timeout on
>>> inactive TCP connections.  That's very typical of some cheap
>>> crap-quality routers, tho it's technically possible (but far less
>>> likely) to do it with a firewall on a direct-connected computer.
>>
>> I'm using a Linksys router, and my computer is using a D-LINK wireless
>> Ethernet adapter. This might be an issue, but it doesn't seem to give me
>> trouble with other news readers.
>
> Linksys.  Perhaps the famous WRT54G? (I see yes, below.)  If so, chances
> are you can run one of the community firmwares on it if you want.  I run
> OpenWRT as it's one of the most open ones, with more stuff to play with
> for the experts, but DD-WRT or Tomato or the like might be easier to
> configure for newbies.  I've read very good things about how easy Tomato
> is to use.  Note that there have been several versions of the WRT54G.
> Older ones and the newer GL version ran a Linux based firmware and had a
> bit more flash and memory than the newer straight G, which runs a non-
> Linux based firmware (VxWorks based) by default.  There's now community
> Linux based firmware for it as well, but it's cut down somewhat from the
> standard versions due to the flash and memory constraints.

Reflashing my Linksys router will probably be a "last resort" kind of
thing. I would rather limp along with Thunderbird than take a chance
of turning my router into a brick.

> IIRC at least one of the newer Linksys N band routers can run with
> OpenWRT and probably the others as well.
>
> Meanwhile, yes, some versions of their firmware WERE infamous for
> dropping inactive TCP connections.  If you choose not to run a community
> based version and that's entirely up to you, you may at least wish to
> check to see if Linksys has an firmware update available for it.  You
> /may/ also be able to reconfigure the timeouts manually by telnetting in
> -- I don't believe it's available from the web interface, but I'm not
> sure how locked down Linksys kept their firmware as I specifically bought
> the GL to put a community based firmware on and only ran the factory
> installed Linksys firmware a few hours.

The firmware is the latest update. I've read a bit about flashing the
Linksys, but everything else seems to work fine "as is" at this time.

> BTW, also consider this:  There's malware going around that tries to bot
> those routers, regardless the firmware.  If AT ALL possible, you DO NOT
> want to allow configuration login from the WAN side, and you should keep
> the LAN side configuration set to wired-only login, no WLAN/wireless
> config login.  Also, the malware DOES try brute-forcing the login if it
> can get to it, so you want a reasonably strong password -- preferably as
> close to random as possible (so both upper and lowercase letters,
> numbers, punctuation), and a good 10 characters minimum, with 15
> characters or more even better.  A sentence out of a book, or say the
> third letter of every word in a paragraph, is a good way to start, then
> scramble that up by substituting numbers and punctuation for letters, and
> using a transposition or substitution cypher if not both on the result.
> Or, just use a fully random one and record it somewhere safe.
>
> You should be able to google more on the malware, or I should be able to
> find you some article links if your google foo isn't working well, if you
> want more information on it.

Thanks for the tip. I'll look into this.

>> I'll look more into this. The Linksys router is running its newest
>> available firmware.  I don't see a TCP timeout setting.
>
> OK, so you're ahead of me on updating the firmware, and checked for a
> timeout setting.  =:^)  But as I said, if the factory firmware lets you
> at the timeout setting at all, I expect it to be thru the telnet/ssh
> remote console login (or by downloading the config file, editing it, then
> uploading it back, via FTP or whatever), not the web interface.  And it's
> up in the air whether they even let you at the setting.

I'll try telnetting. That was the way I used to have to program my old
router. (Kind of forgot about it.)

>>> So let us know what sort of router you have, if any
>>>
>> Okay, thanks. The router is a Linksys WRT54G. My wireless network
>> adapter is a D-Link G730AP.
>>
>> I really don't mind the offline/online option. But I'll report back if I
>> find another solution -- and whether going offline/online option works.
>
> FWIW, Linksys is /reasonably/ good quality, for the consumer level they
> sell at.  D-Link... not so much.  They're infamous for cheap quality
> hardware, as well as router firmware with various "issues".  But as long
> as it's just a wireless adapter and it's working well otherwise, I'd not
> worry too much about the D-Link adapter.  If it were dropping packets or
> something, you'd be having issues with other stuff as well.
>
> On the WRT54G, as I said, there have been a number of revisions of it.
> Here's the wikipedia entry, with the list of revisions and how to tell
> what you have:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrt54g
>
> But if the online/offline toggle works, that may be enough for you,
> particularly if you aren't the type that likes hacking their router.
> (FWIW, I'm even thinking about eventually trying Gentoo on mine, cross-
> compiled on my main computer, of course, and may add extra SDCard
> storage, etc.  Or maybe I'll just upgrade to a more powerful router with
> even more options.  Time will tell.)

Thanks. You've given me a few more directions to go. I'll try to
respond more quickly to any new messages.

--
RonB -- Using CentOS 5.3