Port 25 closing?

[Mark Haney]

On Tue, 2005-03-08 at 13:11 -0700, Ashley M. Kirchner wrote:
>     This is slightly OT, but ti's been driving me nuts, so I'm hoping
> someone here might have some suggestions as to what to look for here.  I
> have one Windows XP (SP2) machine that seems to randomly prevent
> connections to our mail server via port 25.  Our internal network
> connects to our mail server, which is outside of our firewall and only
> this one machine is having this problem.  For no apparent reason at all
> it will suddenly deny all connections made to the mail server through
> port 25 (it can still RECEIVE e-mail since that goes over secure IMAP
> port, but it can't send.)  I can log onto the firewall, and everything
> works as far as opening a connection to the mail server.  I can get onto
> a different machine on the network, and connect to the mail server just
> fine, so I know it's not a firewall issue.  It's just this ONE XP
> machine that's experiencing this problem.  And it only started happening
> after installing SP2.  Looking in Windows' firewall log, there's nothing
> that points to port 25 being blocked.  I can't telnet (to anything on
> port 25, anywhere) from that machine, can't send e-mail, nothing.  The
> solution?  Reboot the machine, and suddenly everything works again.  So,
> what gives?

I have seen this problem on several SP2 boxes recently.  In every case
killing the firewall has fixed it.  Personally, SP2 _causes_ more
problems than it allegedly fixes IMHO.  I am dreading the day it will be
a mandatory install for my clients.

> 
> -- 
> W | I haven't lost my mind; it's backed up on tape somewhere.
>   +--------------------------------------------------------------------
>   Ashley M. Kirchner <mailto:ashley at pcraft.com>   .   303.442.6410 x130
>   IT Director / SysAdmin / Websmith             .     800.441.3873 x130
>   Photo Craft Laboratories, Inc.            .     3550 Arapahoe Ave. #6
>   http://www.pcraft.com ..... .  .    .       Boulder, CO 80303, U.S.A.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

--------------------------------------
Mark Haney
markh at uptimecomputer.net
Fedora Core release 3 (Heidelberg) Kernel: 2.6.10-1.770_FC3 GNU/Linux 
15:27:21 up 4 days, 5:07, 2 users, load average: 2.35, 2.57, 2.43