Hello fellow VMS folks!

Please pardon the intrusion, but it has literally been decades since I joined a group, let alone posted so bear with me! I have been scratching my head for over 2 weeks now as to why I cannot access eisner.decuserve.org. I noticed some folks in this group have email addresses at eisner so I figured I would give posting here a shot. I have had an account there for eons and use it regularly but now it seems (from my location at least) that most daemons on it just hang up on me. The webserver just crashes out on me with an unknown protocol error and ssh refuses my connection. I've seen eisner go down in the past for various reasons, but never for this long. Anyone have any idea what could be going on or know who I could ping? I didn't see any notices about it going offline like occurred when DeathRow shutdown but perhaps I missed something somewhere. As a last resort I tried searching the site formerly known as Twitter for any clues but found nothing. Any help would be appreciated.

-bd

> [...] most daemons on it just hang up on me. [...]

As usual, showing actual actions (commands) with their actual results
(error messages, ...) can be more helpful than vague descriptions or
interpretations. For example, _which_ daemons are your "most daemons"?

> [...] The webserver just crashes out on me with an unknown protocol
> error [...]

When you did what, exactly? See "As usual, [...]", above.

> [...] ssh refuses my connection. [...]

Does that mean that you got a "connection refused" error, or what?
When you did what, exactly? See "As usual, [...]", above.

Regarding EISNER and SSH, see:

https://groups.google.com/g/comp.os.vms/c/04PYktudpmE/m/es7vZCAEAQAJ

Apologies for not cut and pasting specifics, I guess I was just initially shooting for anyone else who could say whether eisner was or wasn't having any issues. :) Here are the specifics:

Trying lynx from a machine here at my office in VA:

# lynx eisner.decuserve.org

Looking up eisner.decuserve.org first
Looking up eisner.decuserve.org
Making HTTP connection to eisner.decuserve.org
Sending HTTP request.
HTTP request sent; waiting for response.
Alert!: Unexpected network read error; connection aborted.
Can't Access `http://eisner.decuserve.org/'
Alert!: Unable to access document.

lynx: Can't access startfile

ssh from the same machine at the office:

# ssh <USERNAME>@eisner.decuserve.org
ssh: connect to host eisner.decuserve.org port 22: Connection refused

Firefox from the same machine to https://eisner.decuserve.org/:

Secure Connection Failed
An error occurred during a connection to eisner.decuserve.org. PR_END_OF_FILE_ERROR

My office is on a Shentel circuit in Virginia, so to rule that out I tried from 2 different VMs I have hosted by Kamatera which are located in New York and had the same results. I also tried using eisner.decus.org and eisner.encompasserve.org since they all lookup to 148.51.202.51 just in case it was a filter setup via FQDN and the results are the same. Standard old-school ftp connects and just won't let you in, as expected:

# ftp eisner.decuserve.org
Connected to eisner.decuserve.org.
220 eisner.decus.org MultiNet FTP Server Process V5.6(17) at Wed 20-Sep-2023 3:03AM-EDT
Name (eisner.decuserve.org:billd): dewindt
331 User name (<USERNAME>) ok. Password, please.
Password:
520 Non-anonymous FTP disallowed; use SFTP
Login failed.
421 Service not available, remote server has closed connection
ftp>

....and PMDF answers from both locations:

# telnet eisner.decuserve.org 25
Trying 148.51.202.51...
Connected to eisner.decuserve.org.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 Encompasserve.org -- Server ESMTP (PMDF V6.8#1529)
quit
221 2.3.0 Bye received. Goodbye.
Connection closed by foreign host.

.... so the machine is up, it just doesn't seem to allow me to establish a connection via ssh, http or https from either my machines locally or those living in the ether at Kamatera. The necessary ports also don't appear to be filtered off at first glance unless there is an f5 or something in the middle:

# nmap -sS eisner.decuserve.org
Starting Nmap 7.80 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2023-09-20 02:48 EDT
Nmap scan report for eisner.decuserve.org (148.51.202.51)
Host is up (0.067s latency).
rDNS record for 148.51.202.51: eisner.decus.org
Not shown: 983 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
21/tcp open ftp
25/tcp open smtp
53/tcp filtered domain
80/tcp open http
119/tcp open nntp
443/tcp open https
514/tcp open shell
515/tcp open printer
563/tcp open snews
705/tcp open agentx
993/tcp open imaps
995/tcp open pop3s
2000/tcp open cisco-sccp
3333/tcp filtered dec-notes
4443/tcp open pharos
5060/tcp open sip
6000/tcp open X11

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 2.44 seconds

Thanks for your time!
-Bill

On Wednesday, September 20, 2023 at 2:04:19 AM UTC-4, Steven Schweda wrote:
> > [...] most daemons on it just hang up on me. [...]
>
> As usual, showing actual actions (commands) with their actual results
> (error messages, ...) can be more helpful than vague descriptions or
> interpretations. For example, _which_ daemons are your "most daemons"?
>
> > [...] The webserver just crashes out on me with an unknown protocol
> > error [...]
>
> When you did what, exactly? See "As usual, [...]", above.
>
> > [...] ssh refuses my connection. [...]
>
> Does that mean that you got a "connection refused" error, or what?
> When you did what, exactly? See "As usual, [...]", above.
>
> Regarding EISNER and SSH, see:
>
> https://groups.google.com/g/comp.os.vms/c/04PYktudpmE/m/es7vZCAEAQAJ

> Trying lynx [...]

Which version of Lynx? Does it do https://, or only http://? You
might need "s". Try a modern browser?

> [...] from a machine [...]

Not much meat on that bone.

> ssh: connect to host eisner.decuserve.org port 22: Connection refused

> https://groups.google.com/g/comp.os.vms/c/04PYktudpmE/m/es7vZCAEAQAJ

https://eisner.decus.org/online/ssh

EISNER uses port 22867 (22-VMS) as of 21-AUG-2023

> Firefox from the same machine to https://eisner.decuserve.org/:

It works here (old Firefox on old Mac, current Firefox on less old
Mac).

> EISNER uses port 22867

This is what I was really looking for. Thanks a bunch!

> It works here (old Firefox on old Mac, current Firefox on less old
Mac).

Still can't get to eisner using a browser however. I tried the following via http and https:

Chrome 117.0.5938.89 64bit Windows 10 (just updated today) gives me "...this shit can't be reached ERR_CONNECTION_CLOSED"
FireFox 117.0.1 64bit Windows 10 (just updated today) gives me "An error occurred during a connection to eisner.decus.org. PR_END_OF_FILE_ERROR"
FireFox 113.0.1+build1-0ubuntu0.20.04.1 64bit Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS gives me "An error occurred during a connection to eisner.decus.org. PR_END_OF_FILE_ERROR"
Lynx 2.9.0dev.5-1 64bit Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS gives me the previously mentioned "Alert!: Unable to make secure connection to remote host."

I somewhat assumed something had changed causing me to not be able to get in as I noticed that eisner's IP changed. However, not being able to get to its webserver kinda made it hard to discover ssh had changed ports. Thanks again for the help.

Cheers,
Bill

On Wednesday, September 20, 2023 at 3:34:04 AM UTC-4, Steven Schweda wrote:
> > Trying lynx [...]
>
> Which version of Lynx? Does it do https://, or only http://? You
> might need "s". Try a modern browser?
>
> > [...] from a machine [...]
>
> Not much meat on that bone.
> > ssh: connect to host eisner.decuserve.org port 22: Connection refused
> > https://groups.google.com/g/comp.os.vms/c/04PYktudpmE/m/es7vZCAEAQAJ
>
> https://eisner.decus.org/online/ssh
>
> EISNER uses port 22867 (22-VMS) as of 21-AUG-2023
> > Firefox from the same machine to https://eisner.decuserve.org/:
> It works here (old Firefox on old Mac, current Firefox on less old
> Mac).

On 21/09/2023 04:08, Bill deWindt wrote:
>> EISNER uses port 22867
>
> This is what I was really looking for. Thanks a bunch!
>
>> It works here (old Firefox on old Mac, current Firefox on less old
> Mac).
>
> Still can't get to eisner using a browser however. I tried the following via http and https:
>
> Chrome 117.0.5938.89 64bit Windows 10 (just updated today) gives me "...this shit can't be reached ERR_CONNECTION_CLOSED"
> FireFox 117.0.1 64bit Windows 10 (just updated today) gives me "An error occurred during a connection to eisner.decus.org. PR_END_OF_FILE_ERROR"
> FireFox 113.0.1+build1-0ubuntu0.20.04.1 64bit Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS gives me "An error occurred during a connection to eisner.decus.org. PR_END_OF_FILE_ERROR"
> Lynx 2.9.0dev.5-1 64bit Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS gives me the previously mentioned "Alert!: Unable to make secure connection to remote host."
>
> I somewhat assumed something had changed causing me to not be able to get in as I noticed that eisner's IP changed. However, not being able to get to its webserver kinda made it hard to discover ssh had changed ports. Thanks again for the help.
>
Perfectly accessible from Oz on Win11 Pro, using Firefox, Edge, and
Chrome, all presumably up to date.

And from Rocky Linux using Firefox 102.15.0esr.

Cheers,
Gary B-)