Why does VCFED become invisible for some countries?

[vol.litwr]

Hi there
This fine site became invisible to ip from Russia for about a month ago. People have to be using proxy servers, vpn, etc. Can anybody help?
Thank you very much.

 

[mbbrutman]

If/when you are having trouble reaching our IP address or loading the web page then get a TCPDUMP style trace, run traceroute, record the error messages, etc. We can't help you without seeing a real problem report.

We don't do anything on our side to block access, except to ban spammers. We can't control what ISPs or national governments might do.

 

[vol.litwr]

If/when you are having trouble reaching our IP address or loading the web page then get a TCPDUMP style trace, run traceroute, record the error messages, etc. We can't help you without seeing a real problem report.

We don't do anything on our side to block access, except to ban spammers. We can't control what ISPs or national governments might do.

Thank you very much for your response. Sorry, I am not very skilled with networking. Please could you provide some details about what should I do that can help reveal the real problem? I tried ping vcfed.org - it works with 104.192.220.12 quite well. I tried also traceroute vcfed.org and got

traceroute to vcfed.org (104.192.220.12), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
 1  my0 (192.168.1.1)  0.431 ms  0.657 ms  0.875 ms
 2  gw (172.19.69.1)  5.058 ms  5.192 ms  5.252 ms
 3  172.25.1.4 (172.25.1.4)  4.575 ms  4.598 ms  4.655 ms
 4  62.33.199.1 (62.33.199.1)  4.763 ms  4.827 ms  5.078 ms
 5  mskn15ra.transtelecom.net (217.150.37.34)  7.664 ms  7.585 ms  7.704 ms
 6  * * *
 7  * * *
 8  * * *
 9  kbn-bb3-link.telia.net (62.115.139.169)  46.891 ms  48.983 ms  48.908 ms
10  kbn-b3-link.telia.net (62.115.121.13)  37.330 ms kbn-b3-link.telia.net (62.115.119.138)  38.974 ms kbn-b3-link.telia.net (62.115.142.209)  44.060 ms
11  ae5.cr0-cph1.ip4.gtt.net (213.254.226.209)  31.562 ms  30.509 ms  31.571 ms
12  ae16.cr5-lax2.ip4.gtt.net (89.149.182.174)  178.479 ms  179.808 ms  180.277 ms
13  fe0-pronethosting.cust.lax02.packetexchange.net (216.193.192.162)  196.823 ms  196.717 ms  197.043 ms
14  * * *
15  * * *
16  * * *
17  * * *
18  * * *
19  * * *
20  * * *
21  * * *
22  * * *
23  * * *
24  * * *
25  * * *
26  * * *
27  * * *
28  * * *
29  * * *
30  * * *

My google-chrome browser reports This site can’t be reached vcfed.org took too long to respond. A similar message give other browsers.
Russian authorities have blocked many sites but vcfed.org is not among them.
So I need help with the situation.
Thanks

 

[vol.litwr]

I also have run nmap vcfed.org -Pn

20/tcp   closed ftp-data
21/tcp   open   ftp
22/tcp   closed ssh
25/tcp   open   smtp
53/tcp   open   domain
110/tcp  open   pop3
143/tcp  open   imap
465/tcp  open   smtps
587/tcp  open   submission
993/tcp  open   imaps
995/tcp  open   pop3s
8443/tcp closed https-alt

There is no http/https ports. How can it be possible?

 

[bladamson]

Your probes are probably being redirected to somewhere else by the morality police.

I mean, you *know* how subversive old computer stuff is. I mean, a Tandy 1000 may seem harmless, but next thing you know it's molotovs in the street, right?

( just kidding......, mostly. :3 )

It's also possible that your IP or IP range has been blacklisted on the VCF side (or somewhere along the way). If someone once used your IP address for DOS attacks or somesuch, I mean.

 

[eeguru]

Not sure about the morality police. From the traceroute and ping above, it looks like he's getting all the way to the VCF server and hitting a firewall there.

We don't do anything on our side to block access, except to ban spammers.

It appears this is his problem. What do you use for a firewall and what visibility do you have?

 

[mbbrutman]

Not sure about the morality police. From the traceroute and ping above, it looks like he's getting all the way to the VCF server and hitting a firewall there.



It appears this is his problem. What do you use for a firewall and what visibility do you have?

There are thousands of spammers who have been blocked over the years. Usually that is by name but it might be by IP address too. Our ISP or web host might be implementing something too that we are not aware of.

We know the nature of the problem, which is a good start. Original Poster - please send me your normal IP address (not a VPN'ed one) so I can see if it is on a blacklist somewhere. (Send it in a private message.)

 

[vol.litwr]

Thanks for some help.

We know the nature of the problem, which is a good start. Original Poster - please send me your normal IP address (not a VPN'ed one) so I can see if it is on a blacklist somewhere. (Send it in a private message.)

Thank you very much but I can repeat that it is not only my problem: vcfed.org is invisible for probably all ip from Russia and maybe some other countries. My home computer is behind a provider router, it doesn't have a global ip. Most computers in Russia are connected to the net this way. You can check a provider ip from the trace route, e.g., 62.33.199.1, but virtually any ip from Russia can be checked. Thank you

 

[mbbrutman]

Digging in some more ... here is my nmap output:

brutman@brutman:~$ nmap vcfed.org
Starting Nmap 7.80 ( [url]https://nmap.org[/url] ) at 2020-05-24 08:48 PDT
Nmap scan report for vcfed.org (104.192.220.12)
Host is up (0.043s latency).
rDNS record for 104.192.220.12: vintage-computer.com
Not shown: 987 filtered ports
PORT     STATE  SERVICE
20/tcp   closed ftp-data
21/tcp   open   ftp
22/tcp   closed ssh
53/tcp   open   domain
80/tcp   open   http
110/tcp  open   pop3
143/tcp  open   imap
443/tcp  open   https
465/tcp  open   smtps
587/tcp  open   submission
993/tcp  open   imaps
995/tcp  open   pop3s
8443/tcp closed https-alt

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 5.97 seconds

Port 80 is there. Port 443 is open but redirects via a 301 to port 80.

If you are running nmap and you are not seeing port 80 or 443, then something is blocking it and it's not us. We don't have the capability to block specific countries and our spam blocking allows us to ban by user ID, not IP address. (We use IP addresses to detect the same user using multiple userIDs, but the forum doesn't block IP addresses and we don't modify firewall rules to do it.)

You'll need something who knows the network tools better there to debug it. I can't debug/diagnose a problem that I can't see here.