Re: Cannot telnet or use POP3

[Bruce Smith <bruce@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I am new to the list and I am from Ludington MI. I sure hope someone can
> help me out with this.
> 
> I am running slackware 1.2.13 (don't laugh) and I am getting something
> perculiar. Whenever I try to telnet to the box, it says connection
> failed. When I try to use a pop3 mail client, it can't connect either.
> But I can view a web page running from apache on the machine...
> 
> It has worked for about 4 months now flawlessly, but now it I can't use
> these services...

For the services to work, you need the telnet daemon (in.telnetd), and 
the pop3 daemon (ipop3d) running on the server.  These services are 
normally started by "inetd" using the program names in it's config file: 
/etc/inetd.conf

On Redhat systems (don't know about slackware), the above services are 
actually started by the TCP Wrapper daemon (tcpd) in /etc/inetd.conf.  
If both telnet and pop3 died at once, it might be a problem with tcpd.

I can't tell you exactly where your problem is without getting my hands 
on the system (feel free to bring it to a meeting :)  but I would start 
checking /etc/inetd.conf and the programs it runs, make sure "inetd" 
itself is running, and check for errors in your log files:  /var/log/*

You could also experiment by starting one or both of the daemons 
manually (as root) and see if the services start working again.

Good Luck!  Let us know the outcome, or if you have any more questions.

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Bruce Smith                bruce@armintl.com
System Administrator / Network Administrator
Armstrong International, Inc.
Three Rivers, Michigan  49093  USA
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