Trying to reach website times out

G

gpatrick

I'm using namecheap as my domain registrar and I'm unable to access http://www.namecheap.com, although I can access subdomains such as support.namecheap.com and community.namecheap.com. In fact I did an online chat with support which the applet is in the support.namecheap.com subdomain.

However, if I click on a link that tries to go to http://www.namecheap.com it times out. I can access the site on my BlackBerry so I assumed it was Firefox related. But then I installed Opera 10.10 and the same problem occurs. So it can't be browser related.

If I try to ping http://www.namecheap.com it doesn't return.
# ping -a http://www.namecheap.com
no answer from http://www.namecheap.com(74.81.78.44)

A traceroute goes to asterisks after hop 12.

All their support says is it isn't their problem and my networking problem. It isn't a networking problem on my side. I can access ANY other site. Flash and Java are enabled too.

Ideas??????????
 
They have a ridiculous short TTL of 20 seconds. They break the record of http://www.amazon.com with a TTL of 60 seconds.

Code: 
$ dig www.namecheap.com 

; <<>> DiG 9.3.4 <<>> www.namecheap.com
;; global options:  printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 38374
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.namecheap.com.             IN      A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.namecheap.com.      [color=blue]20[/color]      IN      A       74.81.78.44

;; Query time: 340 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.222.10#53(192.168.222.10)
;; WHEN: Mon Jan 25 19:11:59 2010
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 51

Their support subdomain has a more sensible TTL
Code: 
$ dig support.namecheap.com

; <<>> DiG 9.3.4 <<>> support.namecheap.com
;; global options:  printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 8706
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;support.namecheap.com.         IN      A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
support.namecheap.com.  [color=blue]14400[/color]   IN      A       74.86.205.83

;; Query time: 348 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.222.10#53(192.168.222.10)
;; WHEN: Mon Jan 25 19:15:40 2010
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 55
Go tell them 20 seconds is way too short ;)
 
ping as a diagnostic tool is quite useless. Plenty of sites block ICMP echo, and this site is no exception. The same goes for traceroute. Lots of sites block the udp packets needed for a traceroute.

Try net/tcping, and run [cmd=]tcping http://www.namecheap.com 80[/cmd]. That will simply send a tcp packet to port 80, just like a web browser.

Code: 
# tcping www.namecheap.com 80
www.namecheap.com port 80 open.

You can also try net/tcptraceroute and run [cmd=]tcptraceroute http://www.namecheap.com 80[/cmd], but I see mixed results in different networks on that one. E.g.:

Code: 
12  xe1-0.cr01.lga01.us.mzima.net (216.193.255.213)  94.817 ms  86.075 ms  89.633 ms
13  * * *
14  * * *
15  * * *
16  * * *
17  * * *
18  * * *
19  * * *
20  * * *
21  * * *
22  * * 74.81.78.44 (74.81.78.44) [open] 102.070 ms

On a different network:

Code: 
14  atl-core-h-p2.gnax.net (207.210.95.253)  112.312 ms  111.841 ms  111.851 ms
15  silvercore1.whbdns.com (207.210.114.166)  112.037 ms  111.820 ms  111.534 ms
16  * * *
17  74.81.78.44 (74.81.78.44) [open]  112.150 ms  111.644 ms  2990.037 ms

I have also seen two networks where this command resulted in timeouts from the first hop. No idea why. On those networks a tcping and a straight telnet to port 80 still worked, though.
 
BTW, the single fact that a domain hoster has its own domain hosted on mydyndns.org makes me smile. A cynical smile, that is. And the IP address isn't even dynamic:

Code: 
network:Class-Name:network
network:ID:11.74.81.64.0/19
network:Auth-Area:74.81.64.0/19
network:Network-Name:WebHostingBuzz
network:IP-Network:74.81.78.0/24
network:Organization;I:WebHostingBuzz
 
I started using namecheap because it is, well... cheap :)

I like the one year free of whois privacy you get with namecheap, and the additional years are inexpensive too. Their ssl are also not as expensive as others.

Obviously I need to move to another registrar. Do you have other recommendations for a good registrar?
 
You don't need to move ;)

IMHO somebody of their staff made a mistake in the DNS records for http://www.namecheap.com. A ttl of 20 seconds is just ridiciously short. Perform the dig commands that I used, on your own FreeBSD box and paste them in a bug report to them.
 
I've used GoDaddy and really like them. Also comes with free privacy for the length of time you register the domain for if you register like 4-5 names or more. They have coupon codes out all the time - check the fatwallet or slickdeals forums and I'm sure you'll turn some up that'll work. The last domain I registered I did for a year and it cost like $17 including the privacy protection. (Which I had to pay for since I was doing only one domain. :( ) They will either handle the DNS for you or you can set it up to hit your box in their web admin tool.
 
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