SSH to Sonic shell account via AT&T cellular disconnects ??

[tbessie]

Hey folks...

As of today, SSH connections to my Sonic shell account keep disconnecting if I connect via my AT&T cell phone. Both ConnectBot (on the Android phone), and putty from my laptop when using the phone as a WiFi access point, disconnect after 5 to 20 seconds of use, consistently.

This only started today. Before that, I never had a problem with it. It has happened in different parts of the city so it's not connected to a given cell tower.

Does anyone know if:

1. AT&T changed something that could be causing these disconnects?

2. Sonic's network infrastructure is seeing AT&T cellular data connections in some strange way?

3. Sonic's SSH server configuration has been modified lately?

- Tim

[kgc]

I can confirm that 3 is not applicable here.

[tbessie]

Very odd. If you hear of others having this problem, please let me know if you discover anything. Thanks!

- Tim

[toast0]

Tim,

I think it's likely an AT&T problem, I'm seeing the same thing to other destinations. On the handset, I'm seeing connection resets after a short time in a tcp connection; on the server side, the connection isn't reset, but it just stops working.

[tbessie]

Tim,

I think it's likely an AT&T problem, I'm seeing the same thing to other destinations. On the handset, I'm seeing connection resets after a short time in a tcp connection; on the server side, the connection isn't reset, but it just stops working.

toast0 - how do you think we should proceed as far as talking to AT&T?
This isn't a normal support problem, and I'm sure AT&T doesn't consider SSH connectivity a priority (tho' they should).

- Tim

[tbessie]

Incidentally, I just called AT&T, and talked to a very nice support person who did their best, from what I can tell, to get an answer. Their upper level tech support told her to tell me that they had no information, and that I should remove and reinstall the problem app (i.e. ConnectBot in this case).

I think either they don't know anything, or they don't want to admit they changed something.

- Tim

[toast0]

It's not only SSH; we're seeing it at my work on our proprietary TCP connections, and I was able to reproduce with netcat -l.

[tbessie]

toast0 - so it's basically anything that's not in AT&T "Approved" list, whatever that may've been changed to, sounds like?

Are you folks talking to AT&T about it?

- Tim

[toast0]

We haven't contacted support; we just have a couple accounts and our customers connect via various wireless carriers.

[tbessie]

I posted on the AT&T forums - someone else checked into the problem, with an interesting result:

http://forums.att.com/t5/Data-Messaging ... -p/3231261

- Tim