exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

@alexh Your requesting port 137 all the time..

port 137 is associated with NetBIOS Name Service, commonly used in Windows networks for name resolution (e.g., translating computer names to IP addresses)
Ubuntu servers don’t typically listen on port 137 unless you’ve installed and configured Samba (for Windows file/printer sharing). If port 137 is closed, incoming UDP packets to it trigger ICMP "Port Unreachable" responses, which your Snort rule (1:402:16) flagged and led to the IP being banned

Anyway, I have just (unbanned you again) tweaked that firewall rule so you should not get blocked again... Obviously only real-time testing will prove this either way...

I will try and keep an eye on it in the firewall log throughout today, assuming you are going to be logged onto the forum all day so I can monitor it...

I've also noticed several other IP address are also accessing the same port, so I don't know if this is also blocking legitimate users or not because nobody else has said anything :roll:

Thank you.

If you have to turn it back on, I will just have to use mobile device only.

alexh wrote: 09 Jun 2025 10:33 If you have to turn it back on, I will just have to use mobile device only.

I've not turned anything "off". There's settings for "risk" levels basically. I likely just had them set a bit to strict. So more "innocent" requests are now allowed. But if someone hammered port 137 constantly then it would get flagged as a higher risk and get banned. Though all your port requests were on the low risk level anyway.

I've cleared that jail out. Was about 2,500 IPs in there. So if anyone else got banned, they will be unbanned now.

Not sure if this is related to the above or not @exxos but I'm having to turn off my VPN to get access to the forum today (haven't had to before now, or at least not that I remember :roll: )...


EDIT : After doing that for a few minutes it now seems to work OK with the VPN back on as well :shrug:

...and I have to disable the VPN again this morning to allow it to connect & show content.

Weird...

JezC wrote: 10 Jun 2025 08:06 ...and I have to disable the VPN again this morning to allow it to connect & show content.

Weird...

What's your IP?

Lookup your IP address when on VPN. Then use the link exxos provided earlier in this thread to see if it is banned.

https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/IP_CHECK/

Hmm, says it's not banned (193.160.246.3) but I keep having to disable the VPN to connect to the forum (and never used to have to do that)...

JezC wrote: 10 Jun 2025 15:41 Hmm, says it's not banned (193.160.246.3) but I keep having to disable the VPN to connect to the forum (and never used to have to do that)...

Afraid there's not much I can do unless the IP address says it is banned.. There is always server updates and security updates but that's beyond my control.. As to if that is part of your problem I don't know.. I would say the problem would be down to the VPN rather than the server if you can connect normally otherwise.

There's no bans on 193.160.246.3 for the past 2 days looking at the log.

Well, seems to be a problem for first connecting to the forum and then often seems to work even with VPN enabled (like now).

Not worth losing dev time over anyway - I can disable the VPN for a few minutes to connect in the first place & then it seems to "not care" for a while at least.