Ascend Archive
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Re: (ASCEND) NAT, Pipe75, stops routing.

Kevin A. Smith wrote:
> 
> At 09:02 PM 4/5/98 -0500, Robert Fournerat wrote:
> >
> >Other problems you will encounter with Ascend's many-to-one
> >NAT include not being able to connect (from the WAN side into
> >the NAT environment) to several ports (like the POP3 port 110).
> 
> I believe some people had found a way around this with static
> mapping....is this still the case?

We (Ascend and I) tried static mappings of individual ports,
and mapping everything to a single default server.  Both had 
the same problem.  Is this still the case?  Well, not for me, 
I've moved my customers to Farallon equip.  The Farallon 655's 
work as advertised (no NAT, Quake, ping, traceroute, telnet, 
POP3, etc. problems).

> 
> >Ascend has known about this since at least 11/97.
> 
> Which part in particular?

When I called on 11/19/97, Ascend already knew about
the ICMP packet problems, and the problem with the 
translation table filling.  

The simple fix to the translation table problem was to 
not use "single address NAT" with dedicated connections,
and hope that dynamic connections don't last too long.
I seem to have not recorded the TR#, but the original
trouble ticket was 163473 if that helps.  I talked with
Bibek (sp?), who struck me as a hard worker.

The "cannot connect to port 110" problem seemed new to
Ascend.  We also noticed that there were problems connecting
to other ports as well (one was in the 20's - it may have
been ftp {21}).  Anyway, my customer's immediate concern
was being able to POP his mail (from the internet side,
connect to port 110 inside the NAT side).

By 12/28/97, I had still not heard from Ascend.  I called
Bibek, who said that the problem had gone to engineering on 
11/24/97, but it had gotten lost.  Meanwhile, we tested 5.1Ap8
- same problem.

So I called on 1/6/98.  It had again gotten lost.  Bibek 
opened a new TR (my notes are sketchy, but I believe this
is TR# 3011)

I called again on the 12th, but there was no status.  I was
told that since I opened the TR, that I would be contacted
when it was fixed.  By the 16th I had 3 Farallon installed,
and was thanking my customers for their patience.  To this
day, Ascend has never called me about this TR.

> 
> >I don't
> >think they want to fix the problem because they keep loosing
> 
> Now that's silly. Why would we not want to fix a problem that
> exists on our equipment? As far as I know none of us own stock
> in competitor vendors!

Well, I was just trying to not use the "I" word (incompetence).
Maybe you would offer an insiders view as to why Ascend has
known about this for at least 5 months, but has offered no fix.

> 
> >the TR's (yes, that is plural) that they have opened for me
> 
> Did you keep any record of the TR numbers?

My apologies, I did not take good notes - the only one I found
was TR# 3011.

> 
> >about this issue (which is something that wasn't supposed to
> >be able to be done - but whatever).  I even built the scenerio
> >on my test LAN, with my own equipment, giving Ascend techs
> >accounts, and let Ascend recreate the problem.  I did this 3
> >times for them.  All three times they confirmed that they had
> >a serious problem.  Ascend knows of this problem.
> 
> Is this the stops-routing problem, or port 110 problem you also
> referred to?

Ascend verified both...


Kevin, Matt, and others at Ascend, 

Please note that I do not care about this issue anymore.  The 
only reason I'm taking the time to write this now is because 
I hate watching Ascend throw away their lead in this market.
In other words, I'm trying to help.  One way I can try to
help is by giving you honest experiences and answers.  We
consumers will see what Ascend chooses to do with the info.


Good luck,
Robert
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