Bizarre inability to access Google-related websites from a particular location

I don't support Macs either, but if I did, I would start with 'traceroute

' or 'ping ' to verify that my machine could actually get to their site, and that my nameserver was functioning correctly. If that works properly (and I think it should), then I would expect a firewall problem; however, that should also cause problems in Mexico. You need to post this on an OS X list.

Larry

snipped-for-privacy@playaprestigeproperties.com hath wroth:

On you Mac, look into the file: /etc/hosts and see if there have been any entries added other than the basic localhost and broadcast host lines. If you have to do some editing, do it this way:

EXCEPTwww.google.comor any other sites utilizing Google analytics

Yeah, might be DNS issues with the laptop you're connected to, but doubt it. Otherwise I have no other suggestions.

What I'm really curious to know is if he can ping one of the IP's of google.?

ping 64.233.167.99 if that does not fail type http://64.233.167.99 into a browser let us know what happens.. I'm having a hard time believing it's in the laptop.. but who knows..

Adair

It might be worth checking the proxy setting on your browser. If your Sat ISP is Hughes then they like to have you use a proxy - 192.168.0.1 port 84. Hughesnet will run without it in any case.

This setting might carry over to your other connection, though I can't see how it would be a google specific problem.

Does sound more like hosts file /DNS thing.

Don't some routers have a DNS cache thing going? I think that DD-WRT has that option. Try eliminating the router from the connection.

Steve

Thanks all for the ideas. I'm in Mexico right now, but will try these solutions when I return to Vegas and let you know the outcome. Very appreciative for all the info. Thanks again.

Agree that you should check the hosts file.

I strongly suspect that google arrange to resolve names differently depending on where they think that your IP address is geographically located.

In the UK I get:-

nslookup

Server: xxxx Address: 10.x.x.x

Non-authoritative answer: Name:

Addresses: 66.102.9.147, 66.102.9.104, 66.102.9.99 Aliases:

This offers a possible explanation for the different behaviour in the two locations.

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.co.uk hath wroth:

Yep. From the left coast of the USA, I get (trimmed): nslookup

Non-authoritative answer: Name: Addresses: 72.14.253.103, 72.14.253.147, 72.14.253.104, 72.14.253.99 Aliases:

Quite different depending on where you're located. If one of those useless internet speedup utilities were dumping IP lookups into the hosts file to eliminate alleged DNS lookup delays, this could easily be the culprit.

Thanks, good to have that connfirmed.

I had noticed that

was about 15ms from London and realised that it was unlikely that they had based their servers all in Europe:-)

Amsterdam, Paris?

This attempted geographic detection does cause us problems with our remote offices since at present we have only one routable address block which we advertise relevant bits of from various locations. Upsets some web sites, :-( but not those that are business critical :-)

Thanks.

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.co.uk hath wroth:

I have no idea how many data centers Google uses world wide, but it's apparently a large list. See:

which lists about 60+. As for the number of IP's used, there appear to be over 600+.

Well, traceroute should give a good guess. Well, that was useless. The last 5 machines don't have a functional reverse DNS record.

72.14.253.103 resolves to po-in-f103.google.com but I can't decode the location from the name. GeoBytes can't find it either:

IP2Location says it's on the US east coast, which makes no sense:

I can do some digging, but I'm too lazy.

Google is not the only ones doing that. See "Anycast".

Locally, PBI/SBC/at&t use it for delivering the nearest DNS server IP address to their DSL customers. ICANN also uses it for the root DNS servers.