Maurice posted on Thu, 21 May 2015 12:51:17 +0000 as excerpted: > Last week I was in a French (Aix-en-Provence) hotel whose WiFi access > was blocking Port 119, so could not use Pan to access newsgroups. > > Is there an alternative port I could have used, or any other workaround?
It depends on your news servers, which you didn't mention. Pan connects to news servers like a web browser connects to web servers, and while there's a default http/web port (80) and a default nntp/news port (119), as well as their secure protocol alternative defaults (443 https, 563 nntps), servers can listen on non-default ports if they are configured by their admins to do so, and in fact, in an effort to better serve their customers, many news providers specifically configure their servers to listen on non-default ports precisely /because/ the default ports are often blocked. These news providers will normally provide information about what ports can be used to reach them, on their web site. Since from your headers you appear to have posted via gmane, I can at least tell you that gmane supports nntps on its default port 563, as well as nntp on its default port 119. Pan itself supports secure connections as well, tho I run pan built from live-git (with my current build's commit ID being visible in my user- agent headers with every post... and I tend to update every 1-10 days so it won't get /too/ far outdated) and 0.139's release was far enough back I don't remember if any nntps specific bugs have been fixed since then or not. So for gmane at least, had you switched pan's gmane server config to secure, it would have automatically switched the default port to 563, the default nntps port, and you could have tried that. Tho being a well known port that corresponds to the secure version of a protocol it was already blocking the plain-text default port for, it may well have blocked that as well. Whether gmane news is available on other ports in either secure or plain- text form, I don't know, tho in general two other popular ports to try, in both secure and unsecure form, would be the default http port 80, and default https port 443. Since those are the default plain-text and secure http ports, they are less frequently blocked than others, and as such, many news providers choose to serve on those ports too, for their users who are unable to connect in other ways. Whether gmane serves news on those ports or not, tho, I don't know... Finally, if worse comes to worse and you can't connect to gmane via news, secure or plain-text, on any port you try, you can of course break out the web browser and try gmane's web interface. While for those used to news it's not as convenient as the news interface, it's usable in a pinch, and when someone on my ISP and apparently in the same IP netblock was apparently spamming or otherwise abusing gmane some years ago, so it blocked news access for me too, I was able to at least keep up with current posts in my groups via the gmane web interface, tho as I said it's inconvenient enough (not tracking read articles, etc), I'd definitely not choose it as a routine basis solution. But for an emergency connect for just a few days, it does work. For other news providers... well, check their web page. But as I said, most providers, particularly commercial providers you pay for the privilege, have a variety of alternative ports you can connect to, because since you're playing, it's in their interest to make it as easy for you to connect and use the service, and thus /keep/ paying, as possible. =:^) > (Hoping for an early solution I tried to post problem last week on Pan > mailing-list, but was told: > > "You are not allowed to post to this mailing list, and your message has > been automatically rejected. If you think that your messages are being > rejected in error, contact the mailing list owner at > pan-users-ow...@nongnu.org." > Tried emailing list owner but no reply!) Well, you reached the pan mailing list this time. =:^) Given your headers (including the user-agent header, which indicates pan, along with the version), it appears you posted to the pan "newsgroup" on gmane, which of course is a newsgroup<>mailinglist gateway, taking messages from a mailinglist and publishing them as a newsgroup (as well as as a web forum, via the gmane web interface), and relaying messages posted to the newsgroup back to the mailing list for further processing and possible publishing via the mailinglist, which would of course result in gmane getting a copy since it subscribes to the mailinglist, which it would then publish as it does other messages it receives from the mailinglist. But thru gmane or independently, it went thru this time, while it didn't when you tried previously. Why I can't say, without seeing the rejection in full, and possibly not even then. It could be because you tried posting from a different email address previously, or because your mail client defaults to HTML and otherwise posts spammy looking messages while pan of course posts in plain text only, or if you're not a subscriber to the mailing list itself (FWIW I am, but in "vacation mode", so it doesn't mail me directly, since I read and reply to posts via gmane) perhaps the listserv /might/ /be/ configured with an exception that's more liberal with non-member posts to the list if posted thru gmane, than it is when not (lest there be any doubt, I've no idea whether such an exception is configured or not, it's just one more possible reason among many...), or... -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman _______________________________________________ Pan-users mailing list Pan-users@nongnu.org https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/pan-users
