[lug] question about webmail

[David L. Anselmi]

Paul E Condon wrote:
[...]
> I ask ISP support people and they suggest that
> servers at her place of work have blocked port 2095 which they say
> is used for web access to the email files.  I wonder. Why is a special
> port needed just to have web access to files on the server. I know
> port 25 is used for SMTP, but to access your own email ...

I'd guess the web mail is just http, not some special protocol.  If the 
URL you're using doesn't specify port 2095 you can look at the page 
source that comes up and see if any links reference that port.

It's possible they have some applet type thing to display the mail that 
uses port 2095.

When you're connected to the site you can see what ip/port numbers 
you're using with "netstat -n --ip" (run that right after the web mail 
page comes up).  If you don't see 2095 it seem unlikely to be the problem.

If you find the IP and port the web mail uses you can compare results of 
telnetting and tracerouting there for both of you and see if that sheds 
any light.  Probably it is a firewall though.

If there is a firewall you have some options.  Your daughter can ask her 
IT people to open that port for her.  If there's no policy against using 
web mail and/or she can show a business reason to use it they should 
open it up.  Likely they won't want to and will complain but that's 
their own fault--outbound filtering like this is a pain to maintain and 
doesn't add much security (that can't be had otherwise).

Another option is to tunnel through an allowed port on the firewall--ssh 
is pretty convenient for that but any VPN type tunnel would work.  That 
assumes that ssh/VPN is allowed out.  If this violates company policy 
regarding network or web mail use it might be worth thinking twice.

In the end, a box of donuts for the network admins might be the most 
effective approach ;-)

Dave