[ale] Please help: BellSouth ADSL hangs with sendmail and up2date

[Chuck Mattern]

Hi James,

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my plea.
 
> 1. Has your free up2date access run out? It's only for 3 months and
> RedHat is enforcing it. They have to. It's there livelihood.

Hmmm... works fine when I set my default route through the AT&T pipe so while 
it may bight me in the future it's not the issue yet.

> 2. Turn off the firewall and try again. up2date uses http ports 8080,
> and https 8081 by default.

I'll try this but doubt it as I have an identically configured firewall passing
the traffic quite happily via the AT&T pipe.

> 3. Is the RedHat up2date server refusing connection due to overload? Run
> up2date from a command line with the -nox flag to disable the gui. Man
> up2date is concise (as always) but complete.

I've tried the cli mode to no avail, both cli and gui go like a scalded cat 
if I just switch my default route from the BellSouth side to the AT&T side.

> 4. BellSouth ADSL will be slower than the max rated AT&T cable. There is
> some overhead in software from the pppoe client. It's not much, though.=20

Yup, but overall I'm quite happy with the through put.  Ran a few more tests 
last night and, even though sendmail and up2date hang, DSL Reports gives the 
link a rating of 1.6kbps.

> 5. Doublecheck the smtp smarthost line in /etc/sendmail.cf. You can't
> send mail directly from your machine. Bellsouth finally figured out that
> spam is started that way. Make sure you are using the correct host name
> to act as your official mail forwarder.

I change smarthost each time I change default route, otherwise I'd get a 
direct refusal rather than a hang and an occasional message that does get out.

> 6. Bellsouth has a NASTY habit of caching web pages. Since up2date uses
> a web port, Bellsouth may be caching the stuff and thus, you get
> garbage.

Makes sense for the up2date as it goes via https but not for sendmail.

A co-worker has suggested running ethereal or tcpdump against a good and bad 
connection to see if I can spot the problem.  It may take a bit, my young son 
is coming home tonight and his time takes priority over anything techy.

Regards,
Chuck
-- 
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|Chuck Mattern	        | "People often find it easier to be a result |
|camattern at acm.org      | of the past than a cause of the future."    |
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