Okay, I was going to write this note on the joys of MP3, but I had a support nightmare that I just had to share.

This site is hosted by Concentric Networks. Of course, they do not do it out of the goodness of their own hearts, I pay them $25.00 a month for the priviledge. It’s cheap, and fairly reliable, so I don’t complain.

As you know, we are trying to sell our lot in Eagles Ridge. We have an ad in the local paper, but it isn’t generating much interest. Since the RTP area has a pretty active set of triangle.* newsgroups, I thought I would put a note in triangle.forsale.

All I needed to do this was access to a news reader. I dutifully brought up Outlook Express, configured news.sortova.com to be my newsreader, and … nothing happened.

I thought that Qwest, where I am working, may have blocked the NNTP port 119, so I used telnet to see if I could connect to the port.

I could.

So, it must be a configuration issue. I sent the following letter off to tech support:

Howdy.

I am trying, for the first time, to connect to the news server associated with my domain - news.sortova.com.

If I do a “telnet news.sortova.com 119” to try to connect to the news server, I get “You do not have permission to talk”.

I have checked the support files, and I believe I have everything set right. I am running NT 4.0 and Outlook Express as the news client, but I cannot see any newsgroups. I do not have a username or password defined, but I did try that and it did not help.

Clues?

-T

P.S. I am connecting from a network other than Concentric.

I got the following reply:

Hosting accounts do not have the ability to Telnet. You should have access if you set up your Outlook Express to connect to the news server using news.sortova.com as the news server.

Are you connected to the internet when you try to connect to the news server? You must have a valid connection and have your Outlook Express set up to receive news information.

Thank you,

Doraine Concentric Host Support

What! You have to be connected to the Internet in order to access Internet Services? (grin) Perhaps she doesn’t understand that I was using telnet outside of Concentric. I thought the P.S. clearly stated that, but I’ll try again:

I don’t think you understand. I used telnet from my machine to port 119 on the news server to insure that it was not a firewall issue. Since I was able to connect to the news server, it means that it is something on the Concentric side of the fence.

When I try to connect to news.sortova.com, it gives me the error:

502 You have no permission to talk.

Things are much better when I try to go to sortova.com. Then I get the error:

Server Response: 502 This account has no access

when I use tarus@sortova.com as the username.

As for your other question, of course I am connected to the Internet. I am not, however, connecting from a dial-up on the Concentric network.

I have had sortova.com hosted by you since October of last year, but this is the first time I have tried to access news.

-T

Civil, I thought. Cleared up the telnet thing and gave a lot of useful information. Not so:

I do understand what you are trying to do.. There is no way for you to TELNET to our news server using your concentric host account. You do not have access. You will need to set up an email client that has access to news, in your case this would be Outlook Express. You do not have access to the server through the shell.

Thank you,

Doraine Concentric Host Support Representative

Okay, by now I am pissed. All I want to do is post one lousy message to a newsgroup, and I get all this static. I reply:

NO! You do NOT understand what I am trying to do.

Look - I am currently working at an ISP in Washington, DC that has an OC-12 (very fast) connection to a peer point (place where lots of other ISP’s get together to chat) on the Internet. Problem: I cannot connect the news service that is supposed to be included in my Concentric web hosting.

But, since some bad people like to block port 119 so that news cannot get through, I used telnet FROM MY MACHINE CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET AS 150.159.170.142 to try to connect to both news.sortova.com and sortova.com on port 119. I WAS SUCCESSFUL. This means that the firewall is not blocking news.

Once I determined that I could connect, I tried a variety of things. I READ THE FAQ. I DID A SEARCH ON CNCHOST SUPPORT FOR “NEWSGROUPS” AND READ EVERYTHING ABOUT IT. From this I determined that I had set up Outlook Express properly SO IT MUST BE SOME OTHER PROBLEM. YES I AM SHOUTING.

I found that to connect to news.sortova.com, it did not matter whether or not I had a username or password, I got the same error 502. When I tried to connect to sortova.com WHICH IS EQUIVALENT TO NEWS.CONCENTRIC.NET, I found that without the username I got the same error 502, but with the username I got a different, much more friendly error that my account had no access.

So - FORGET ABOUT TELNET. DO NOT FOCUS ON TELNET.

One of two things is going on here.

1. I am not allowed to access news.
2. I am not allowed to access news UNLESS I AM ON CONCENTRIC’S NETWORK.

Nowhere in the FAQ did it say that I needed to enter in my username and password, so I am assuming that #2 is correct. However, I do not have a dial-in account to access the Concentric network, so I need you to find out who can grant me access to the news server.

In the unlikely event that #1 is correct, I still need you to find out who can grant me access to the news server.

Let’s review:

1. Outlook Express on my machine is configured EXACTLY AS THE INSTRUCTIONS IN THE FAQ SAY.
2. I am connected to the Internet. Very important point.
3. I can connect to the news server.

Amazingly, I still cannot access news. I am not authorized. If you can not help, please forward this message up the chain. I will eagerly await a response, and if I do not get one, I’ll call.

-T

Well, I waited awhile, and then called the 1-800 number. I talked with Patrick, who, in about 30 seconds, told me that access to the news server was based on IP address, and the only addresses allowed correspond to Concentric dial-up accounts.

When I said that I did not have a Concentric dial-up account, he pointed out, quite accurrately, that almost all ISP’s provide is as a service, and all I needed to do was to use whatever ISP I was connected to. He also read my mind and mentioned that Deja News could be used to post an e-mail message via a web browser.

I wrote back:

I called Patrick. You have to be on the Concentric.net network to access news. Authentication is based on dial-up IP address. Number 2 was correct. Please close this ticket.

I thought this was the end of it, but there was one last reply:

Sir,

When you are connected to anyone other than Concentric you are unable to reach the news server. The server will not authenticate your user name or password. You need to be connected to Concentric to be able to get news from Concentric.

When you are connected to anyone other than Concentric you are unable to reach the news server. The server will not authenticate your user name or password. You need to be connected to Concentric to be able to get news from Concentric.

If you were connected to Concentric you would still unable to connect using TELNET. This option is not available to Hosting customers.

Thank you,

Doraine Concentric Host Support Representative

Again with the telnet! Sheesh.

Must … control … fist … of death …

I did post my message and I did get a bunch of hits, tho’.