[PLUG] Internet access certificate issues

[Russell Senior]

>>>>> "Denis" == Denis Heidtmann <denis.heidtmann at gmail.com> writes:

Denis> The router is out of service, not powered.  Is there any way to
Denis> diagnose it at this point, or would I have to place it back in
Denis> service and observe a repeat of the problem?  Or is the problem
Denis> not in the router at all; just coincidence that it went away when
Denis> I removed the router?  Clearly I need some very basic
Denis> understanding of how all these things operate.

Assuming my wild-assed guess has any merit ...

The problem probably wasn't in the router, except for some transient
state, which probably would go away with a power cycle.  Unless it was
under an ongoing "attack".  I don't think the stock firmware preserves
any state, to speak of, over a reboot.

One thing to do is to determine whether DNS is the problem.  You can
ping hosts where you were seeing the problem and see if the IP address(es)
makes sense.  If possible, try from a different machine (or have someone
else do that), and see if they agree.

The certificate issue comes from asking the machine to provide some
proof it is who it claims to be and finding that it can't.  My theory is
that it's because it isn't the right machine.  It could be that the
service is broken (e.g. the certificate expired, or the server is
misconfigured). However, if you are seeing this at a big name, popular
service, or at more than one unrelated services at the same time, then
the probability of that being innocent seems to go way down.


-- 
Russell Senior, President
russell at personaltelco.net