[Watford] BT Openwoes issue

[Alain Williams]

You might find this tale interesting if you have any customers using BT as an ISP.

I received a call on Weds PM (about 17.15) from a customer who often works at
home connecting to the office PC using 'go to my PC'. He had lost connectivity,
wanted to know 'if the Internet was down'.

I could login to the Linux server (ssh) and ping his PC at the office.
I was told that a couple of other home working co-workers were also similarly
affected, at least one used a different service from 'go to my PC'.

Next morning - the phone calls started at 7.45, so I went in. My ssh connection
had stayed up all night - until they rebooted the router & firewall.

Internally no problems. Servers OK[**]. They were receiving/sending email.

I noticed that all external web site access timed out.  Both from the Windows
PCs and the Linux box ...  unless you visited google; that worked, but search
for something (worked) but clicking on any link timed out.

No point in calling BT support - they would just blame internal infrastructure I thought.

They have a smoothwall firewall/router. Find the passwords. Find that smoothwall
has a packet trace facility.

Telnet to google port 80. I see the SYN go out the SYN ACK come back ... great!

Telnet to my web host port 80. I see several SYN go out, nothing back. Ssh to my
web host, run tcpdump, no packets come from my customer. Try again on another
web server - same result.

I phone BT support - thinking that I would have an argument, how the hell do I
explain this to a clueless support driod ?

Long story short: the bill had been paid by cheque which BT had received but
''not allocated''. The bill was due the day before.

So: with a BT ''accounting issue'' they allow all services through except web
(port 80)[&&], but allow web to google. There had been no email, no phone call.
I think of pubs/coffee_shops/... where when you connect you are forced to a sign
in page that asks you some details -- surely BT could have done something like
that ?

After speaking to someone in the Philippines (or somewhere) service was switched
back on in 10 seconds.

Summary my customer lost 3/4 day work for several staff who could not do things;
will have to pay for a chunk of my time ... the MD was not a happy bunny. He has
asked for recommendation of another ISP.

You have been warned.





[**] A Linux & a MS SBS 2011 server. Their MS windows support company recently
withdrew their services blaming a Linux server making their work too hard. I do
wonder about them, a year ago on a server upgrade they could not get MS Exchange
to send email out of the building - so asked me to handle outgoing email on the
Linux box -- which I did easily.

[&&] I did not check if https (port 443) was still working.

-- 
Alain Williams
Linux/GNU Consultant - Mail systems, Web sites, Networking, Programmer, IT Lecturer.
+44 (0) 787 668 0256  http://www.phcomp.co.uk/
Parliament Hill Computers Ltd. Registration Information: http://www.phcomp.co.uk/contact.php
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