Popgate not working, Possible DNS issue Options

[StevenUnderwood]

This morning, when I was missing my morning spam <can't start the day without it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) > I found a possible issue with the popgate DNS entriy. It is being broadcast to the internet on a private address space (192.168.1.201). I have sent a message off to Jeff, but would also like confirmation here.

What IP is popcate.cesmail.net resolving to for your connection?

[Wazoo]

02/12/06 09:45:57 dns pop.cesmail.net
Canonical name: mail.cesmail.net
Aliases:
pop.cesmail.net
Addresses:
216.154.195.50

Are you really supposed to be looking at popgate.cesmail.net for anything?
But yes, some confirmation, some confusion ....

02/12/06 09:29:27 Slow traceroute popgate.cesmail.net
Trace popgate.cesmail.net (192.168.1.201) ...
192.168.1.201 RTT: 1ms TTL: 1 (popgate.cesmail.net ok)

02/12/06 09:29:48 dns popgate.cesmail.net
Canonical name: popgate.cesmail.net
Addresses:
192.168.1.201

message left on his answering service.

called and talked to the Data Center, but .... this is showing up in the DNS tables assignment blocks, and they aren't JT's "authoritative DNS" folks

hmmmmmm .....
02/12/06 09:52:42 dig popgate.cesmail.net @ 199.5.157.128
Dig popgate.cesmail.net[at]199.5.157.128 ...
failed, couldn't connect to nameserver

reached over to the iBook and used tools in it ..
nothing seen that clears things up for me ....
off to do other reseach ...

Here we go ....
Dig popgate.cesmail.net[at]216.147.43.193 ...
Non-authoritative answer
Recursive queries supported by this server
Query for popgate.cesmail.net type=255 class=1
popgate.cesmail.net A (Address) 192.168.1.201
cesmail.net NS (Nameserver) ns6.zoneedit.co.uk
cesmail.net NS (Nameserver) ns16.zoneedit.com
cesmail.net NS (Nameserver) ns13.zoneedit.com
cesmail.net NS (Nameserver) ns17.zoneedit.com
ns6.zoneedit.co.uk A (Address) 217.160.131.209
ns16.zoneedit.com A (Address) 216.110.187.226
ns13.zoneedit.com A (Address) 216.122.4.160
ns17.zoneedit.com A (Address) 209.126.159.118

CODE

02/12/06 09:55:05 IP block 199.5.157.128
OrgName:    The American Global Network, Inc.
OrgID:      AGN
Address:    P.O. Box 763
City:       Portage
StateProv:  IN
PostalCode: 46368-0763
Country:    US

NetRange:   199.5.156.0 - 199.5.157.255
CIDR:       199.5.156.0/23
NetName:    NETBLK-RABBIT2
NetHandle:  NET-199-5-156-0-1
Parent:     NET-199-0-0-0-0
NetType:    Direct Assignment
NameServer: NS1.ADNS.NET
NameServer: NS2.ADNS.NET
Comment:    
RegDate:    1993-12-14
Updated:    2000-01-10

RTechHandle: JP4736-ARIN
RTechName:   Palmer, John
RTechPhone:  +1-312-560-3934
RTechEmail:  jp[at]adns.net

OrgAbuseHandle: JP4736-ARIN
OrgAbuseName:   Palmer, John
OrgAbusePhone:  +1-312-560-3934
OrgAbuseEmail:  jp[at]adns.net

OrgNOCHandle: JP4736-ARIN
OrgNOCName:   Palmer, John
OrgNOCPhone:  +1-312-560-3934
OrgNOCEmail:  jp[at]adns.net

OrgTechHandle: JP4736-ARIN
OrgTechName:   Palmer, John
OrgTechPhone:  +1-312-560-3934
OrgTechEmail:  jp[at]adns.net

02/12/06 09:56:34 Slow traceroute 199.5.157.128
Trace 199.5.157.128 ...
192.205.32.126  RTT:  28ms TTL: 32 (att-gw.chi.gblx.net bogus rDNS: host not found [authoritative])
64.208.7.206    RTT:  27ms TTL: 32 (Big-Net-Holdings.t3-1-0-0.ar2.cle1.gblx.net ok)
64.79.69.99     RTT:  32ms TTL: 32 (No rDNS)
* * * failed
* * * failed
* * * failed
* * * failed
* * * failed
* * * failed
* * * failed

(above actually has nothing to do with cesmail)

This post has been edited by Wazoo: Feb 12 2006, 11:42 AM

[Wazoo]

Why I'm asking .. this address has never come up before as far as "where is it?"
Being an internal address may not be a big evil thing, if it only makes the outgoing runs to make the collections ... i.e., it was never intended to be contacted by anyone else ...????

One of those things that I'm not sure about, but can't see why anyone would have recently made a DNS change to something odd. What's got me most interested is that there is exactly one person in the spamcop.mail newsgroup this morning that's complaining about not receiving any e-mail for the last three days (configuration: SpamCop POPing from his ISP account, which answers his e-mail client POP, ISP says nothing wrong) .. when I came here to see the corresponding traffic, all I see is this unusual Topic .... no massive complaints about the lack of e-mail, just this one Topic ....??? I'm not sure if these two dots connect or not.

[StevenUnderwood]

Why I'm asking .. this address has never come up before as far as "where is it?"
Being an internal address may not be a big evil thing, if it only makes the outgoing runs to make the collections ... i.e., it was never intended to be contacted by anyone else ...???? 

You are correct in both responses that normally there is no reason to connect to popgate.cesmail.net directly. What lead me there is that I got no Yahoo email since last night (3:00 PM EST is that last expected email from them) which lead me to the POP config where I see "Cannot contact server" in the Last Error column (I am currently up to 74 error messages), which leads me to try and contact that server, which lead to seeing the strange IP address I was trying to connect to which lead to my question here.

In my email to JT, I explained the problem I was seeing and my DNS findings (much the same as your results) but was rushed while making my post here and did not provide all the gory details.

[Jeff G.]

All of my POP Configuration Entries which attempt to use popgate.cesmail.net (six MSN Hotmail and one Yahoo!) are currently showing "Error Count: 61" and "Last Error: Cannot contact server" (corresponding to over 15 hours of downtime). I have contacted JT.

This post has been edited by Jeff G.: Feb 12 2006, 01:02 PM

[Wazoo]

The e-mail I got back, asking if it was me calling, shows him as being in MI, and the brevity of the text suggests that he typed it in on a hand-held device .. just my interpretation .... so between the contacts you guys have said you've made, I think I've sent three or four e-mails as I developed more data .... he's going to be wading through a lot of stuff <g>

[Wazoo]

reply;

Yes internal address is fine and normal. It is not responding though which is not ok. ETR on this is less than one hour.

Jeff

[Jeff G.]

His reply to me was more concise, as I didn't complain about the A Record.

[DavidT]

I have addresses at Hotmail, AOL, and Yahoo that the popgate collects for me, and I just sent test messages to all three. The Hotmail and AOL copies came through OK, but the message sent to my Yahoo account didn't get picked up yet and there's still an error message in my SpamCop popgate setup screen....although the error count is 0, so maybe it was a timing issue and the Yahoo message will get grabbed on the next attempt.

DT

[StevenUnderwood]

This has begun working:

Received: from popgate.cesmail.net [192.168.1.201]
by mailgate.cesmail.net with POP3 (fetchmail-6.2.1)
for x[at]spamcop.net (single-drop); Sun, 12 Feb 2006 14:20:34 -0500 (EST)

[Jeff G.]

I've still got at least two email messages that have been waiting around for 14+ hours for popgate to pick them up, and POP Configuration is now showing "Error Count: 0" and "Last Error: Cannot contact server" for all my popgate Entries.

[Jeff G.]

Some progress:

Received: from popgate.cesmail.net [192.168.1.201]
by mailgate.cesmail.net with POP3 (fetchmail-6.2.1)
for x[at]spamcop.net (single-drop); Sun, 12 Feb 2006 15:27:51 -0500 (EST)
Received: from user-142guoh.cable.mindspring.com ([72.40.123.17]) by bay0-mc11-f5.bay0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.211);
  Sat, 11 Feb 2006 21:18:26 -0800

Only 15 hours 9 minutes 25 seconds later.

[dra007]

my hotmail hasn't popped in many moons, after several inquiries and dozens of unanswered help requests I have simply given up..

This post has been edited by dra007: Feb 14 2006, 08:41 AM

[Wazoo]

my hotmail hasn't popped in many moons, after several inquiries and dozens of unanswered help requests I have simply given up..

I don't recall you answering a question about some kind of "human intervention" thing .. something I recall from seeing a bunch of complaints about in the Microsoft OE6 support newsgroup back when I was looking for help for the idiotic cancelling of my 10 year-old account "for spamming" ... can you POP it yourself?

[dra007]

/snip ... can you POP it yourself?

No, I could cut and paste them one by one in hotmail..that however would simply take too much of my time.. I get the loggin error with popgate no matter how many time I reset it...

401  Invalid password 

..the password is good, I log into that account all the time...so I have no idea where the error is or whether hotmail.com is simply blocking popping that account!

This post has been edited by dra007: Feb 14 2006, 11:36 AM

[Jeff G.]

I log into that account all the time...so I have no idea where the error is or whether hotmail.com is simply blocking popping that account!

Per my instructions on Email System "POP Configuration" Setup, that Entry should be as follows:
POP Server "popgate.cesmail.net" without quotes
Username full email address such as "x[at]hotmail.com" without quotes
Password password for that "x[at]hotmail.com" account
Leave on Server (a checkbox, default unchecked - check it if you want mail to pile up for that account at MSN Hotmail)
Use SSL (a checkbox, default unchecked, leave unchecked for all Entries which reference "popgate.cesmail.net")

This post has been edited by Jeff G.: Feb 14 2006, 02:06 PM

[Wazoo]

..the password is good, I log into that account all the time...so I have no idea where the error is or whether hotmail.com is simply blocking popping that account!

That isn't close to what I was asking actually. "Logging in" is exactly what Microsoft wants everyone to do, so they can charge more for all that pushed advertising. Being able to POP the account is now only an option for those wishing to pay for that access. There were the old (and active) accounts that were grandfathered over the transition, but ...... that's why I asked ... can "you" POP the account? Maybe I need to go searching for the last time you brought this up, but I feel like I'm repeating myself on this specific issue. "Logging in" is not the same as "POPing" the account.

[Jeff G.]

AIUI, there is no true POP3 access to free MSN Hotmail accounts, and the access that was grandfathered was some weird proprietary IMAP-looking hybrid beta access over HTTP from Microsoft's Outlook and Outlook Express that popgate might emulate. So, dra007, can you successfully access that account from Outlook or Outlook Express? Thanks!

[dra007]

Per my instructions on Email System "POP Configuration" Setup, that Entry should be as follows:
POP Server "popgate.cesmail.net" without quotes
Username full email address such as "x[at]hotmail.com" without quotes
Password password for that "x[at]hotmail.com" account
Leave on Server (a checkbox, default unchecked - check it if you want mail to pile up for that account at MSN Hotmail)
Use SSL (a checkbox, default unchecked, leave unchecked for all Entries which reference "popgate.cesmail.net")

Thank you Jeff, I have had that account pop fine for a year or longer, so the setup was not a problem, I have placed several threads here on the problem already, it started a few month ago, I eventually gave up any hopes of figuring out what has all of a sudden changed...

[dra007]

That isn't close to what I was asking actually.  "Logging in" is exactly what Microsoft wants everyone to do, so they can charge more for all that pushed advertising.  Being able to POP the account is now only an option for those wishing to pay for that access.  There were the old (and active) accounts that were grandfathered over the transition, but ...... that's why I asked ... can "you" POP the account?  Maybe I need to go searching for the last time you brought this up, but I feel like I'm repeating myself on this specific issue.  "Logging in" is not the same as "POPing" the account.

That explains it then, I have no desire to pay for a service that fails to filter humonguous amounts of junk I get there daily..