Well, was talking to a Silicon Valley internet wizard, who helped develop the TCP/IP thingy (along with a DoD team on a NSA project), and he mentioned that if the "net" goes partially down, which he thinks is likely, that the routers [later term correction--DNS domain name servers--Sysop] will not be able to convert the octet location URL number into it's dot com/net/org equivalent.

What you'll need is to "ping" your favorite site's number code to be able to get to them.

We each need to develop a list of the "pings" for your favorite places to go. Such as what is the "ping" for Phil Greenspuns site, etc. (I need help from the Mac wizards in figuring out how to "ping" from my Mac).

Got ping suggestions?

(For another kind of Y2K prep list).

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 08, 1999

Answers

Question?

What are the "ping's" for some of the Y2K sites we should all have a back-up list for?

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 08, 1999.

Hi Diane :-)

if the "net" goes partially down, which he thinks is likely

That gave me warm, fuzzy feelings...not.

Is this "ping" as in searching for viable servers? I have no clue but it sounds cool.

Mike

====================================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), December 08, 1999.

Go to the following URL and see if you can locate the ping devise you need. http://www.eskimo.com/~pristine

-- jhock34981@erols.com (jhock34981@erols.com), December 08, 1999.

All ping does is send a few groups of packets to a given IP address and wait for the packets to return...thus giving you a response...it is also used to calculate average packet loss and latency.

As far as its usefullness to you, it has none other than allowing you to see if the IP address responds. If you ping a valid IP address (of a server you frequent), then you can tell if it is responding or not, and make your own deduction about its current state.

Ping is not a way to browse the web or use email or anything else.

You can try ping..its easy. Go to the "DOS" window and type:

ping (and the ip address you want to ping)

ie:

ping 18.24.3.72

this is the IP adress for greenspun.com

you can also ping domains...

ie:

ping greenspun.com

try it yourself!

I think what the person was trying to say was that if you suspect the net is down, you can try to ping some servers to see if you get a response back. However, just because you get no response back, does not mean the net is down...it could be the specific server, the servers link to the net, your link to the net, or even a small section of the net that is down, preventing you from getting a response.

hope that helps clear up "PING"

-- C. Hill (pinionsmachine@hotmail.com), December 08, 1999.

As an alternative you can put
http://18.24.3.72
in your location window to reach
www.greenspun.com if the router
won't accept .com URLs. But you
would still have trouble with the
links on that page as they would
all use .com in their links.

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), December 08, 1999.

C. Hill,

The way I understood him to mean it, if you couldn't get to...

http://www.greenspun.com

Because the routers kept giving you an error, you could, for example, find it by entering...

http://18.24.3.72

I'll get more details later.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 08, 1999.

Try it... (assuming the site really IS up)...

Using the internet octet gets you to the top of www.greenspun.com and THEN you can tree down to the TBY2K forum, located under LUSENET, database-backed threaded discussions and Q&A forums.

http://18.24.3.72/

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 08, 1999.

I suspect that his concern lies with DNS services.

Most Internet users never have to think about DNS because it is by and large, transparent to them. In a nutshell DNS is the system of computers (all across the net) that translates human readable names (such "www.yourdon.com") in to IP addresses that are needed to contact a specific server.

When you type "http://www.yourdon.com" into your browser, the very first thing that you browser does is translate "www.yourdon.com" into an IP address using (typically) a DNS server provided by your ISP.

In this case, the host name "www.yourdon.com" translates to "209.233.242.223" Now if you substitute the IP address for the host name, i.e.

http://209.233.242.223

it should take you to exactly the same server as

http://www.yourdon.com

The only difference is, you browser does not have to do the DNS translation, thus it reduces the number of computers that must cooperate in order to get to a given website. In the event that some DNS services were down but the Yourdon web site was up, it is possible that the former URL would work but the format would not.

So, what this person is say is essentially this "If you know the IP address of the site you want to connect to, then you can sometimes manually work around problems with DNS". Not bad advice and, for network system administrators, knowing how to do this is a basic required skill.

There are some caveats to this however and the bottom line is that just knowing the IP address may not get you to the web site in all cases. Still, compiling and distributing a list of IP address seems a quick and risk-free contingency for DNS problems.

By using PING at the DOS prompt, you can discover the IP address of a site. For example,

C:\>ping www.yourdon.com



Pinging www.yourdon.com [209.233.242.223] with 32 bytes of data:



Reply from 209.233.242.223: bytes=32 time=121ms TTL=116
Reply from 209.233.242.223: bytes=32 time=90ms TTL=116
Reply from 209.233.242.223: bytes=32 time=91ms TTL=116
Reply from 209.233.242.223: bytes=32 time=90ms TTL=116
C:\>

Even if the ping fails because you are behind a firewall or blocked by an intermediate router, PING will still resolve the host name to an IP address for you:

C:\>ping www.yourdon.com



Pinging www.yourdon.com [209.233.242.223] with 32 bytes of data:



Reply from 209.233.242.223: Destination net unreachable.
Request timed out.
Reply from 209.233.242.223: Destination net unreachable.
Reply from 209.233.242.223: Destination net unreachable.
C:\>

Hope this helps.

-- Arnie Rimmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), December 08, 1999.

Sorry to butt in but....

Routers dont convert the IP to dns, domain name servers do.

If routers go down nothing will get you to the location, even if you have the IP address.

We are more likely to see domain name servers go down rather than routers. If anything is Y2k compliant its routers.

-- hamster (hamster@mycage.com), December 08, 1999.

Sorry.

I may have mixed up the "router" term.

Arnie what you described, for the DNS translation, was, I believe, his concern. Thanks.

Diane
Internet Navigator/Researcher, who can wield a mean delete key, and clearly is NOT a "network admistrator..." and doesn't care to be, thanks

;-D

@}'-->---

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 08, 1999.

yes, you can get to a website by using the domain name...but "ping" isn't the appropriate term for that. You can USE ping to make your IP address list if you want...because when you tell it to ping a web address (ping greenspun.com) the responses will come in with the IP address for that domain. :)

Normally the event that would cause you to have to use IP addresses would be lack of response from your (or your ISP's) DNS server(s). If this is the problem, then IP addresses will do fine.

If the net starts losing hardware though, the problems are likely to be much greater than simply loss of DNS. Not only that, but the nature of the internet will make it so that there will be problem "areas", not a total down of the internet. You may be able to get to one server, and not another.

-- C. Hill (pinionsmachine@hotmail.com), December 08, 1999.

Hi, Arnie!

Hope things go well at the Arnold facility come Jan. 1. It would also be nice if this great weather continues through the rollover, but Iowa weather has a way of biting you when you least expect it. Oh, well. I suppose we're about do for the cool down. Take care.

hamster,

Me thinks you should reread Arnie's post.

Keep the faith!

-- Bob Walton (waltonb@kdsi.net), December 08, 1999.

On Gary North's main category page, just above his "Click here to see Newest Links" is a link for a freeware program to locate the IP number for any domain name. Says "click here", download the program, it works great.

Michael

-- Michael (mgarry@gled.com), December 08, 1999.

So, if I type:

ping www.yourdon.com

and send it through my firewall, but it comes back as:

Bad IP address www.yourdon.com

that would mean what, exactly??

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), December 08, 1999.

gorgeous flower!

-- d----- (dciinc@aol.com), December 08, 1999.

Brooks....many firewalls don't allow pings. Depends on how tight security is.

-- C. Hill (pinionsmachine@hotmail.com), December 08, 1999.

If my power goes off, does anyone know a way I can ping my favorite site. Staying Alive WTSHTF.usc? (u)p(s)hit(c)reek Thanks

-- ~***~ (~***~@earth.ebe), December 08, 1999.

Brooks:

C. Hill is correct in that firewalls do vary considerably.

Here is a work-around that will function through almost any firewall:

Go to:

http://samspade.org

Scroll to the bottom of the main page and in the bottom text box enter "www.yourdon.com" (or whatever). Next, in the drop down select list immediate to the right of the text you just entered and change the default selection from "mx (Mail Routing Information)" to "a (Host Address)". Then click on the button immediately to the right labeled "Query DNS"

The response will look something like this:

;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 35430
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 
0
;;	www.yourdon.com, type = A, class = IN
www.yourdon.com.	1H IN A		209.233.242.223

The last line of the output reveals the IP address (209.233.242.223)

Hint: You should only enter the host name portion of the URL. DO NOT enter either "http://" or anything that follows the host name (such as "/data/mydir/default.asp")

-- Arnie RImmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), December 08, 1999.

Here's a Link to a download site for a very cool ping/tracer/IP info shareware application.

The above link is for the Mac version. What's that? You don't have a Mac? Now you know how we feel.

There is a Winblows version on North's site, as stated above. But the Mac version he links to is not what you want for doing the ping thing and getting IP address #'s.

P.S. Many times my ISP has been "down" ...allowing me to dial in but not load a page. On a whim, I once tried the IP Address # instead of the url, and got through just perfectly. This app lets me know what these IP #'s are, and I am building a library.

It's a good thing.

-- semper paratus (martha@stewart.not), December 08, 1999.

Alright.......I felt sorry for the other 95% of you who use PeeCee's. Here's the LINK for a Win version.

I have no way of knowing if it's a good thing or not.

-- semper paratus (martha@stewart.not), December 08, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

The mIRC program also will get the IP for you. To do so, use the /dns command. For example: /dns www.greenspun.com

Let's say we can get to the Top Page of TBY2K using the IP. Can we then get to subsequent pages on the site by merely clicking on the links or would they need to have been generated with the IP? If not, we can click on the links and then when the error message comes, paste the IP in for the domain name, in the URL.

I'm working right now on converting all the links on my pages to the IP format. For anybody else thinking of doing the same, caution... some sites (such as mine) aren't capable of dealing with being called by IP. I'm going to have to work with my provider to find out how I can fix that. What I'm saying is, the IP for www.lacarte.org is 204.174.223.24, yet if you try to go to http://204.174.223.24 you will get an error message (or at least I do).

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), December 08, 1999.

Thanks for the Mac assist semper paratus.

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 09, 1999.

Diane,

Here is my short list:

greenspun.com 18.24.3.67

www.Year2000.com 63.73.56.9

www.wbn.com 209.238.38.138

www.yardeni.com 209.10.30.60

www.cnn.com 207.25.71.28

www.cnnfn.com 207.25.71.63

www.kitcomm.com 207.96.251.137

www.garynorth.com 206.67.48.127

-- Uhhmm... (JFCP81A@aol.com), December 09, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

I've translated all possible the URLs on my Y2K links list to the IP format. There were a couple of them that couldn't resolve. Like my own, they're probably virtual host names. If you want to use this list in case of a DNS emergency, you'll want to save the page to your hard drive in advance (like, now). Other pages, forthcoming.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), December 10, 1999.

Sorry, that links should have been to My Y2K Links List.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), December 10, 1999.

power company 209.35.219.142

-- ping (jmb@bargainsolar.com), December 18, 1999.

Dancr in order to get to those sites if DNS servers are having problems, the typical hotlink won't work.

We have to know the octet number code for each of those.

The TimeBomb Forum =

http://18.24.3.72/bboard/q-and-a.tcl?topic= TimeBomb%202000%20%28Y2000%29

Because greenspun.com = http://18.24.3.72/

Get it?

;-D

Diane, having the "problem" right now

See thread...

Interesting: I Just Got To Test The Greenspun Ping

http://18.24.3.72/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0022a8

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 18, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

Dianne: huh?

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), December 19, 1999.

Dancr,

Your dot com/net/org hotlinks won't even work IF the DNS servers are flaky.

You need to have the internet octet number code for a site, for each of your listed hotlinks, to "actually" get there. (Or the ability to do a DOS ping for them). Find out the "ping" for your own web-site, and try it.

For example...

Instead of: http://www.greenspun.com

You'd have to use: http://18.24.3.72/

Or get a recurring error message.

You'll think the site is down, when it could be up... on it's local server. You can get there using the internet backbone, rather than the "translation" service (i.e. DNS).

It took over 24 hours, but now I'm able to use the "normal" URL to get here again.

This:

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a.tcl?topic= TimeBomb%202000%20%28Y2000%29

Versus this:

http://18.24.3.72/bboard/q-and-a.tcl?topic= TimeBomb%202000%20%28Y2000%29

Understand?

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 19, 1999.

Thanks for the tips all of you. This helps a lot.

-- carolyn (carolynnicks@msn.com), December 19, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

Diane: You'd have to use: http://18.24.3.72/

Yes, I understand. I just don't understand why you're singling me out for this instruction.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), December 19, 1999.

you might all want to send a constant *PING* to greenspan at the same time, it will make the server really happy

-- Cherri (nottelling@I.know), December 21, 1999.

Of course the powers that be on this board know where this started, but the routing always seems to go through Sanfransisco....

Starting lookup on 18.24.3.67 - Dec 21, 1999 17:27:12

Official Name: xolas8-9.lcs.mit.edu

IP address: 18.24.3.67

209.244.2.17 163 core1.SanFrancisco1.Level3.net

209.244.2.21 164 core1.SanJose1.Level3.net

209.0.227.6 174 4.0.5.93 172 p2-2.sanjose1-nbr2.bbnplanet.net

4.24.7.57 228 p3-0.nycmny1-br2.bbnplanet.net

4.24.6.225 228 p4-0.nycmny1-br1.bbnplanet.net

4.0.5.98 229 p4-0.nyc4-nbr2.bbnplanet.net

4.0.5.26 224 p1-0.nyc4-nbr3.bbnplanet.net

4.0.2.173 235 p2-3.cambridge1-nbr2.bbnplanet.net

4.0.1.46 242 p2-0-0.cambridge1-br1.bbnplanet.net

4.0.1.202 235 h3-0.cambridge2-br2.bbnplanet.net

192.233.33.3 262 ihtfp.mit.edu

18.168.0.14 235 B24-RTR-FDDI.MIT.EDU

18.201.1.3 235 RADOLE.LCS.MIT.EDU

18.24.10.1 253 anacreon.lcs.mit.edu

18.24.3.67 252 xolas8-9.lcs.mit.edu

Host reached Starting lookup on 18.24.3.67 - Dec 21, 1999 17:27:12 Official Name: xolas8-9.lcs.mit.edu IP address: 18.24.3.67

-- Cherri (nottelling@ll.I.know), December 21, 1999.

Now you all have had a small taste of what it was like in the DARPANET/Usenet days, when men were men, but you were never sure, because on the 'Net, no one knows you're a Labrador (or something like that.)

Hate to say it, folks, but if we're having to resort to IP addresses instead of URLs for Webpages, most of the WWW will be in very deep yogurt indeed.

Reminds me of a little ditty from the early days of the 'Net (when a route always seemed to ricochet to Boston, then to Atlanta, then through Gene Spafford's machine at Purdue, and finally arrive [twenty "hops" later] at the desired "host"):

(To the tune of "Mister Ed")

"Oh, a host is a host

from coast to coast

and no one will talk to a host that's close

unless the host that isn't close

is busy, hung, or dead..."

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.com), December 21, 1999.

Top.

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 27, 1999.