On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 11:36 PM, Duncan <1i5t5.dun...@cox.net> wrote: > Ron Blizzard <rb4cen...@gmail.com> posted > f9d82c810905291900x7a819a8bm847bfffbb304...@mail.gmail.com, excerpted > below, on Fri, 29 May 2009 21:00:53 -0500: > >> On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 5:08 AM, Duncan >> <1i5t5.dun...@cox.net> wrote: >> >>> [The below comes across a bit strong. Please understand it's nothing >>> personal.] >>> >> No, I'm sorry about the HTML. Hopefully I've turned it off. Gmail uses >> kind of odd terminology. I use this email exclusively for about three >> list serves -- so it shouldn't have HTML. > > FWIW, it's still there, but I know you're working on it now. I've never > used gmail (I prefer gmane.org list2news and pan for lists, and don't > particularly like webmail of any sort for my personal mail), but I've > seen others say gmail is a bit strange in the regard of HTML mail > options. Someone claimed there was no way to set it permanently per > address or even globally -- you had to remember to do it manually every > time. I'd find that extremely irritating, to the point I have trouble > believing they'd not have at least a global option if not per-address > (even MSOE did /that/), but as I said, I've never used it, so all I can > do is go by what others have said. > >> <SNIP>
Hopefully I've turned HTML off for this response. It looks like it may be a toggle -- turn off HTML once and it stays off until you turn it back on. But I have no way knowing for certain, as I don't see any of it on this side. >>> First, how many connections do you have pan configured to use > >> As far as I know, I'm only using one connection at a time. I use two >> news groups, both text only. I'll have to check the error log (didn't >> even know to look there). Where would I look? And, it looks like I've >> already got Pan set to four connections -- I think that was the default. > > The (high level) error log (pan calls it the event log) is accessible two > ways. It's in the file menu, under event log (and may or may not have an > accelerator defined, I do here but I think I changed that one), and > there's also the clickable little icon in the status bar at the bottom, > to the far right. If there are no error events logged, only information > events, the icon will be a light bulb. When it logs an error event it > turns red, with a slash thru it. I've got that little light bulb -- it never shows any error -- Pan just times out. I'm beginning to get the feeling that CentOS hasn't implemented Pan very well. Something is not right. > For lower level stuff, start pan from a terminal window (or have it log > STDERR and STDOUT to a file by setting a redirect in your menu entry or > other pan launcher), and it'll spit out some information there as it > runs. If you want more info printed to the terminal, you can run pan > with the (undocumented) --debug switch. I may try the --debug switch. But I'm beginning to wonder if the fight is worth it. > But I was talking about the higher level one, here. If pan knows the > connection died, it'll put it in the log. If it doesn't, it won't be > there. I suspect it won't be or pan wouldn't hang as you said it does, > but if it does print any errors, it could be useful knowing what they are. It doesn't appear that there are any errors in Pan -- it just loses the connection. Once that happens, I get an error 441 -- Newsgroup Can't be found. The headers remain and I can click on them, but I just get a blank page. The only "fix" is to exit Pan and restart it. Unfortunately the "L" doesn't seem to help. >>> Second, it'll be a bit of a chore to do it manually, but you can >>> probably use pan's offline feature to kill existing connections -- >>> PROVIDED you do it before whatever times them out. >> >> This sounds promising. I don't think it would be that big of a deal to >> type "L" when I'm about to write a longer response, then type "L" when >> I'm ready to post. I didn't even think about that. Thanks. > > That's what peer help from newsgroups and mailing lists is all about. =:^) It's becoming clearer to me that it's probably not a Pan problem. Maybe I'll look into downloading a newer version of Pan and compiling it. >>> Meanwhile, I have an educated guess at what the problem is. Are you >>> direct-connecting to your modem, or are you using a router (noting that >>> some modems have a built-in router)? The problem sounds to me very >>> much like a mis-configured NAPT that has WAY too short a timeout on >>> inactive TCP connections. That's very typical of some cheap >>> crap-quality routers, tho it's technically possible (but far less >>> likely) to do it with a firewall on a direct-connected computer. >> >> I'm using a Linksys router, and my computer is using a D-LINK wireless >> Ethernet adapter. This might be an issue, but it doesn't seem to give me >> trouble with other news readers. > > Linksys. Perhaps the famous WRT54G? (I see yes, below.) If so, chances > are you can run one of the community firmwares on it if you want. I run > OpenWRT as it's one of the most open ones, with more stuff to play with > for the experts, but DD-WRT or Tomato or the like might be easier to > configure for newbies. I've read very good things about how easy Tomato > is to use. Note that there have been several versions of the WRT54G. > Older ones and the newer GL version ran a Linux based firmware and had a > bit more flash and memory than the newer straight G, which runs a non- > Linux based firmware (VxWorks based) by default. There's now community > Linux based firmware for it as well, but it's cut down somewhat from the > standard versions due to the flash and memory constraints. Reflashing my Linksys router will probably be a "last resort" kind of thing. I would rather limp along with Thunderbird than take a chance of turning my router into a brick. > IIRC at least one of the newer Linksys N band routers can run with > OpenWRT and probably the others as well. > > Meanwhile, yes, some versions of their firmware WERE infamous for > dropping inactive TCP connections. If you choose not to run a community > based version and that's entirely up to you, you may at least wish to > check to see if Linksys has an firmware update available for it. You > /may/ also be able to reconfigure the timeouts manually by telnetting in > -- I don't believe it's available from the web interface, but I'm not > sure how locked down Linksys kept their firmware as I specifically bought > the GL to put a community based firmware on and only ran the factory > installed Linksys firmware a few hours. The firmware is the latest update. I've read a bit about flashing the Linksys, but everything else seems to work fine "as is" at this time. > BTW, also consider this: There's malware going around that tries to bot > those routers, regardless the firmware. If AT ALL possible, you DO NOT > want to allow configuration login from the WAN side, and you should keep > the LAN side configuration set to wired-only login, no WLAN/wireless > config login. Also, the malware DOES try brute-forcing the login if it > can get to it, so you want a reasonably strong password -- preferably as > close to random as possible (so both upper and lowercase letters, > numbers, punctuation), and a good 10 characters minimum, with 15 > characters or more even better. A sentence out of a book, or say the > third letter of every word in a paragraph, is a good way to start, then > scramble that up by substituting numbers and punctuation for letters, and > using a transposition or substitution cypher if not both on the result. > Or, just use a fully random one and record it somewhere safe. > > You should be able to google more on the malware, or I should be able to > find you some article links if your google foo isn't working well, if you > want more information on it. Thanks for the tip. I'll look into this. >> I'll look more into this. The Linksys router is running its newest >> available firmware. I don't see a TCP timeout setting. > > OK, so you're ahead of me on updating the firmware, and checked for a > timeout setting. =:^) But as I said, if the factory firmware lets you > at the timeout setting at all, I expect it to be thru the telnet/ssh > remote console login (or by downloading the config file, editing it, then > uploading it back, via FTP or whatever), not the web interface. And it's > up in the air whether they even let you at the setting. I'll try telnetting. That was the way I used to have to program my old router. (Kind of forgot about it.) >>> So let us know what sort of router you have, if any >>> >> Okay, thanks. The router is a Linksys WRT54G. My wireless network >> adapter is a D-Link G730AP. >> >> I really don't mind the offline/online option. But I'll report back if I >> find another solution -- and whether going offline/online option works. > > FWIW, Linksys is /reasonably/ good quality, for the consumer level they > sell at. D-Link... not so much. They're infamous for cheap quality > hardware, as well as router firmware with various "issues". But as long > as it's just a wireless adapter and it's working well otherwise, I'd not > worry too much about the D-Link adapter. If it were dropping packets or > something, you'd be having issues with other stuff as well. > > On the WRT54G, as I said, there have been a number of revisions of it. > Here's the wikipedia entry, with the list of revisions and how to tell > what you have: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrt54g > > But if the online/offline toggle works, that may be enough for you, > particularly if you aren't the type that likes hacking their router. > (FWIW, I'm even thinking about eventually trying Gentoo on mine, cross- > compiled on my main computer, of course, and may add extra SDCard > storage, etc. Or maybe I'll just upgrade to a more powerful router with > even more options. Time will tell.) Thanks. You've given me a few more directions to go. I'll try to respond more quickly to any new messages. -- RonB -- Using CentOS 5.3 _______________________________________________ Pan-users mailing list Pan-users@nongnu.org http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/pan-users
