Unexplained 'connection refused' errors for University VPN and certain login/credential websites (affects Ubuntu ONLY on dual-boot set-up)

[Lee Hyde]

Binary package hint: firefox
Binary package hint: chromium
Binary package hint: ubuntu

As of approximately 2 days ago I have been unable to connect to my college VPN and a select number of login/credential websites (see below). I have attempted to access these websites via both Firefox (4.0.1) and Chromium (11.0.696.57) with both yielding 'connection refused' errors. Curiously neither of these browsers nor Network Manager (when connecting to a VPN) expended any considerable time negotiating a connection before throwing out errors.

I am nearly 100% certain that this is NOT a network or firewall issue as I have witnessed these errors under Linux both at home (behind my router/gateway) and at college (behind whatever firewall they have). Additionally, I have NOT witnessed these same errors under my Windows 7 partition, both at home and at college. Under Windows 7 I am able to connect to my college VPN and the websites in question.

So, this bug (if it is a bug and not a local config. issue) appears to be isolated to my Ubuntu/Linux set-up and doesn't appear to be caused by a hardware firewall or network issue. I'm stumped as to what, if any, configuration changes I could have made during the past few days that could cause something like this. AFAIK I haven't made ANY substantive configuration changes AT ALL in over a week.

Here follows a list of known login/credential pages which are effected by this bug:

http://www.bbk.ac.uk/mybirkbeckprofile
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/its/password
https://www.securesuite.co.uk/
https://www.nectar.com/account/viewCurrPointsUpdate.nectar

There are no doubt more, and I'll update as and when they become apparent to me.

[Lee Hyde (anubeon)]

I have no idea how to go about assigning this bug to Chromium and Ubuntu as a whole (as it appears to be browser independent), so if someone in the know would be kind enough to do so I would be truly appreciative.

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

Those all work fine here in Firefox and Chromium. I guess you have a network issue or something like that.

[Lee Hyde (anubeon)]

It can't be a network issue for the following reasons:

1. The issue does NOT arise when I boot into Windows (on the same machine)

2. The issue DOES arise when I boot into Ubuntu 11.04 both at home and work/university

3. I have NOT recently changed any firewall settings (hardware or software) and yet those very same sites were accessible only a few days ago (as was my work/university VPN)

I suppose it could be a configuration on my side, or a recent update. If there are no other reports of this nature then the latter seems very unlikely. However, I'm at a loss to understand what configuration change I have made that could have this kind of effect (I haven't any in the past few days that could AFAIK).

[Lee Hyde (anubeon)]

Addendum: 1. should end with ...(on the same machine AND network)

P.S.: Thanks Chris! Both for taking the time to respond and changing the bug assignment to Ubuntu, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to do that. :-)

[RedSingularity (redsingularity)]

Assigning package.

[Lee Hyde (anubeon)]

It seems that I'm the only one experiencing this strange issue, so it's not a bug per se. That being said I would appreciate some assistance in diagnosing and possibly repairing this issue. The best Firefox, Chrome and Network-Manager can through out are rather generic and/or connection refused errors, which are diagnostically useless to me.

Initially I though it might have something to do with certificates. Perhaps I inadvertently rejected a perfectly valid certificate? Although this does appear to be effecting a range of secure sites (Birkbeck College, Nectar and Halifax Secure and Mastercard 3D Authentication at last count) whilst not effecting others (Facebook, Google, etc...).

I'm Stumped. Help! :-(

[Thomas Hood (jdthood)]

Please provide all details about your VPN setup. For starters (e.g.) are you using OpenVPN or PPTP? Explain step-by-step how you configure the VPN connection in NetworkManager connection editor.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for network-manager (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]