[Fedora-i18n-list] libwrap and "Can't communicate with IIIM server" error

[Chong Kai Xiong]

Hi everyone.

It seems that I'm not the only one getting the 'Can't communicate with
IIIM server' error. It turns out that in my case, the /etc/hosts.allow
and /etc/hosts.deny configuration was overly restrictive. 

From /var/log/messages:

Mar  1 15:34:02 dreamerbox htt_server[3563]: started.
Mar  1 15:34:04 dreamerbox htt_server[3563]: Denied the access from
localhost.localdomain.
Mar  1 15:34:16 dreamerbox htt_server[3563]: Denied the access from
localhost.localdomain.

According to the comments in /usr/lib/im/htt.conf, htt_server uses
libwrap (tcp_wrappers) for access control. I took a look at /etc/hosts.
allow and /etc/hosts.deny, and this revealed the cause:

/etc/hosts.deny:
ALL:ALL

/etc/hosts.allow:
(empty)

To get it to work, I simply added this line to /etc/hosts.allow:

htt_server: 127.0.0.1

Next, I restarted the server (may not be necessary as htt_server could
reread /etc/hosts.allow on an connection attempt) with:

service IIim restart

From then on, I no longer get the error. IIIM input works as far as I'm
concerned.

Take note that htt_server now runs as user htt (iiimf-server-11.4-21).
If you get the following message in /var/log/messages, modify the
permissions of /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny such that user htt
can access them:

Mar  1 18:15:47 dreamerbox htt_server[5971]: warning: cannot open /etc/
hosts.allow: Permission denied

That's all. 

I hope this works for other folks experiencing the same problem.

Cheers,

Chong Kai Xiong
aka 'Descender'


P.S. I hope the Simplified Chinese LE gets as good as SCIM's.

[Fedora-i18n-list] Solution for "Can't communicate with IIIM server" error

[Lawrence Lim]

To all members,
If you have encountered the "Can't communicate with IIIM Server" error, 
please give Descender's solution a try, and if the feedback is positive, 
I'll put it up as an FAQ's solution. Also note that after making changes 
in the hosts.allow, restore the htt.conf file back to the original form 
and see if the error persists. I look forward to your feedback.

Great work Descender!


Thanks,
Lawrence

Chong Kai Xiong wrote:

> Hi everyone.
>
> It seems that I'm not the only one getting the 'Can't communicate with
> IIIM server' error. It turns out that in my case, the /etc/hosts.allow
> and /etc/hosts.deny configuration was overly restrictive. 
>
> From /var/log/messages:
>
> Mar  1 15:34:02 dreamerbox htt_server[3563]: started.
> Mar  1 15:34:04 dreamerbox htt_server[3563]: Denied the access from
> localhost.localdomain.
> Mar  1 15:34:16 dreamerbox htt_server[3563]: Denied the access from
> localhost.localdomain.
>
> According to the comments in /usr/lib/im/htt.conf, htt_server uses
> libwrap (tcp_wrappers) for access control. I took a look at /etc/hosts.
> allow and /etc/hosts.deny, and this revealed the cause:
>
> /etc/hosts.deny:
> ALL:ALL
>
> /etc/hosts.allow:
> (empty)
>
> To get it to work, I simply added this line to /etc/hosts.allow:
>
> htt_server: 127.0.0.1
>
> Next, I restarted the server (may not be necessary as htt_server could
> reread /etc/hosts.allow on an connection attempt) with:
>
> service IIim restart
>
> From then on, I no longer get the error. IIIM input works as far as I'm
> concerned.
>
> Take note that htt_server now runs as user htt (iiimf-server-11.4-21).
> If you get the following message in /var/log/messages, modify the
> permissions of /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny such that user htt
> can access them:
>
> Mar  1 18:15:47 dreamerbox htt_server[5971]: warning: cannot open /etc/
> hosts.allow: Permission denied
>
> That's all. 
>
> I hope this works for other folks experiencing the same problem.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Chong Kai Xiong
> aka 'Descender'
>
>
> P.S. I hope the Simplified Chinese LE gets as good as SCIM's.
>
>   
>

[Fedora-i18n-list] Solution for "Can't communicate with IIIM server" error

[Kohei Yoshida]

On Mon, 2004-03-01 at 21:11, Lawrence Lim wrote:
>  To all members,
>  If you have encountered the "Can't communicate with IIIM Server" error, 
>  please give Descender's solution a try, and if the feedback is positive, 
>  I'll put it up as an FAQ's solution. Also note that after making changes 
>  in the hosts.allow, restore the htt.conf file back to the original form 
>  and see if the error persists. I look forward to your feedback. 
I got the "Can't communicate..." error message back again.  Actually my
hosts.allow and hosts.deny files were both empty to begin with, so
restoring the htt.conf to its original state just brought me back the
problem once again.  Adding the "htt_server: 127.0.0.1" line to
hosts.allow didn't do it either.

Kohei

[Fedora-i18n-list] Solution for "Can't communicate with IIIM server" error

[Lawrence Lim]

Looking through some of the solutions posted, it seems that the problem 
is related to security setting on the machine; ie. ACL and iptables..

Kohei:
There is sometihng I wanted to ask you, but I kept forgetting. Do you 
have any iptables or firewall up and running on your machine? If you do, 
please update your Access Rule or shutdown temporary ;-)    and give it 
another go.

Sunjae, Yong:
Does Descender's solution; modifying the hosts.allow do you any good?


Cheers,
Lawrence

Kohei Yoshida wrote:

> On Mon, 2004-03-01 at 21:11, Lawrence Lim wrote:
>   
>
> >To all members,
> >If you have encountered the "Can't communicate with IIIM Server" error,
>
> >please give Descender's solution a try, and if the feedback is positive, 
> >I'll put it up as an FAQ's solution. Also note that after making changes 
> >in the hosts.allow, restore the htt.conf file back to the original form 
> >and see if the error persists. I look forward to your feedback.
> >    
> >
>
> I got the "Can't communicate..." error message back again.  Actually my
> hosts.allow and hosts.deny files were both empty to begin with, so
> restoring the htt.conf to its original state just brought me back the
> problem once again.  Adding the "htt_server: 127.0.0.1" line to
> hosts.allow didn't do it either.
>
> Kohei
>
> --
> Fedora-i18n-list mailing list
> Fedora-i18n-list(a)redhat.com
> http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-i18n-list
>   
>

[Fedora-i18n-list] Solution for "Can't communicate with IIIM server" error

[Kohei Yoshida]

Hi Lawrence,

On Wed, 2004-03-03 at 21:36, Lawrence Lim wrote:
...
>  Kohei:
>  There is sometihng I wanted to ask you, but I kept forgetting. Do you
>  have any iptables or firewall up and running on your machine? If you
>  do, please update your Access Rule or shutdown temporary  ;-)    and
>  give it another go. 
Unfortunately, earlier in my test, I'd already checked to make sure my
firewall was off.  So that won't be the culprit for my case, at least. 
Just now I ran the status check to get:

[root@hydro kohei]# /sbin/service iptables status
Firewall is stopped.

Hmm...

Kohei