[PLUG] A DNS/firewall problem

[Rich Shepard]

  Something changed here in the past couple of weeks, and I've no idea what
nor how to go about finding the source of the problem.

  Symptom: I cannot access digital data on the State's GIS data server. In
mozilla the attempt keeps up until I kill it. When I try going directly to
the ftp server (with ncftp or ftp) I get different results depending on how
I go about the process. Briefly,

  -- invoking ncftp then trying to 'open' the connection to the server fails
bacause the name cannot be resolved to the IP address. Same with ftp.
Invoking with the IP address works.

  -- invoking ncftp with the full path to the directory with the data I want
connects to the server and proper directory. Attempts to 'ls', 'dir' or
'get' silently kill the connection. Same with ftp.

  -- invoking ncftpget works.

  -- running 'nslookup' or 'host', today, on the domain name returns the IP
address. Didn't work yesterday.

  -- telnet to aracnet.com and log into my shell account. ncftp works like a
charm from there regardless of what approach I take to connect, cd to the
proper directory and list the files there.

  -- locally, /etc/resolve.conf hasn't changed in a very long time:

[rshepard at salmo ~]$ less /etc/resolv.conf
search appl-ecosys.com aracnet.com
nameserver 216.99.193.2
nameserver 216.99.193.19

  -- I have had no problems with ncftp accessing rpmfind.net and getting
files from there, or from freshmeat.net.

  -- The firewall configuration (floppyfw) hasn't changed in the past couple
of weeks.

  I'm completely puzzled and would greatly appreciate the collective wisdom
of the group applied to this problem.

TIA,

Rich