Welcome to Vista Banter. You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions, articles and access our other FREE features. By joining our free community you will have access to ask questions and reply to others posts, upload your own photos and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community today! If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact support. |
|
General Vista Help and Support The general Windows Vista discussion forum, for topics not covered elsewhere. (microsoft.public.windows.vista.general) |
|
LinkBack | Thread Tools | Display Modes |
|
|||
timestamps between computer and router -- email failed
A discussion with someone prompted me to look in my router log today,
(perhaps for the first time in 8 years ) and I tried to email the log to myself. This gave rise to 3 questions. A) The time that the log showed for sending the email was 4 minutes later than the time on the computer clock (which I verified with a satellite clock). That is, that time had not arrived yet. An hour later I did something and the log time was 11 minutes later than reality. And several hours later, the lot time was, I think, 16 minutes later. Is there some way I can use this feature to live longer? Or twice? If not, what does it mean? B) I tried to email the log to myself. The field SMTP Server / IP Address had to be filled in, so I used cmd / ping to get my IP address and Sent it, but never got it. I added the smtp server, smtp.verizon.net, but there wasn't enough space in the box to include that and the IP!!! I was one space short so I omitted the space between the two values, sent it, and of course I never got it. In all these tries I had my valid, full address in the other box, called Email Address. What am I doing wrong? It's the wrong IP address, isn't it? I have a gmail account and the word gmail is shorter than the word verizon, so that would fit but I have even less idea what IP goes with the gmail smtp server, and surely that's not the remedy anyhow. C) Later I sent an email from my laptop, wirelessly, and the log entry says "SMTP: sending mail fail". Fail, even though it was sent successfully. It's a D-Link AirPlus G, 11 years old. Could that be the cause of any of these things. Thanks. |
|
|||
timestamps between computer and router -- email failed
On Fri, 25 Dec 2015 01:06:11 -0500, Micky
wrote: It's a D-Link AirPlus G, 11 years old. Could that be the cause of any of these things. Between 8 and 11 years old. I don't remember if I bought it used or new. The firmware is almost 11 years old. |
|
|||
timestamps between computer and router -- email failed
Micky wrote:
On Fri, 25 Dec 2015 01:06:11 -0500, Micky wrote: It's a D-Link AirPlus G, 11 years old. Could that be the cause of any of these things. Between 8 and 11 years old. I don't remember if I bought it used or new. The firmware is almost 11 years old. I have this problem too. The router quartz crystal clock drifts like a *******. If NTP is enabled in the router, and if the NTP does first order corrections by "dribbling" out the corrections, the time accuracy can be made to look better than it actually is. Say the NTP consults an Internet source once a week. On Windows, this might correct the clock just the one time in that week. With a dribbling correction, a tiny correction by a fixed amount might be applied every fifteen minutes. So if the drift off-frequency is a manifest constant, the thing can look like it is keeping perfect time. It's when the order of drift is higher than first order, that such "guessing" methods don't work. Paul |
|
|||
timestamps between computer and router -- email failed
Micky wrote on 2015/12/25:
A discussion with someone prompted me to look in my router log today, (perhaps for the first time in 8 years ) and I tried to email the log to myself. This gave rise to 3 questions. A) The time that the log showed for sending the email was 4 minutes later than the time on the computer clock (which I verified with a satellite clock). That is, that time had not arrived yet. An hour later I did something and the log time was 11 minutes later than reality. And several hours later, the lot time was, I think, 16 minutes later. Is there some way I can use this feature to live longer? Or twice? If not, what does it mean? If by "log" you mean you are looking at the router's log then it looks like your router's time is wrong. If you are talking about the Date field that your e-mail client adds as data to your message (and is the time you started composing the message, not when you sent it) versus the timestamp(s) in the Received header(s) then those will rarely match. E-mail clients insert the Date header as you compose the message, so it gets added the moment you open the new-mail compose window. It could sit in your Drafts folder for weeks before you send it which means the Date header will be weeks older than the timestamps in the Received headers (which the mail servers insert as they transfer your message). While you can use the NTP (network time protocol) service in Windows or run a 3rd party atomic clock to synchronize your computer's time with a time server, you can't do that in the router. Your computer is running a general-purpose OS. Your router is running a special-purpose OS where you cannot add processes to run there. Some routers let you configure or enable an NTP option so it can stay in sync with an NTP server. Some you have to manually specify the time. Yours is so old or is a consumer-grade device that you probably have neither option so you have to manually set the time. http://support.dlink.com/emulators/dir655/121/Time.html That is just one example of the config screen where you would have to set the time. While you can configure the timezone, there is no setting to enable/disable NTP or configure to which NTP server the router will connect. That router doesn't have an NTP client running on its embedded OS to sync its time. B) I tried to email the log to myself. The field SMTP Server / IP Address had to be filled in, so I used cmd / ping to get my IP address and Sent it, but never got it. Do actually have your own SMTP server listening for inbound connects (and those connects can get past a firewall)? I added the smtp server, smtp.verizon.net, but there wasn't enough space in the box to include that and the IP!!! You don't understand DNS? You either specify a hostname and have a DNS server return to your client the IP address for the target host or you specify the IP address of the target host. You don't do both. I was one space short so I omitted the space between the two values, sent it, and of course I never got it. Which means you specified an invalid hostname and an invalid IP address of which you specify only ONE of those. In all these tries I had my valid, full address in the other box, called Email Address. Still need to specify a valid SMTP server. What am I doing wrong? It's the wrong IP address, isn't it? Nope. It's you specifying both hostname and IP address. Humans like names. Computers demand numbers. DNS translates between them. I have a gmail account and the word gmail is shorter than the word verizon, so that would fit but I have even less idea what IP goes with the gmail smtp server, and surely that's not the remedy anyhow. Decide which to use: the hostname for the SMTP server or the IP address of the SMTP server, not both. C) Later I sent an email from my laptop, wirelessly, and the log entry says "SMTP: sending mail fail". Fail, even though it was sent successfully. The log entry for WHICH client you used for sending? It's a D-Link AirPlus G, 11 years old. Airplus G is a model name, not a model number. You will have to go to D-Link's site to search their support for the actual model number printed on the label on the router. http://support.dlink.com/ProductInfo.aspx?m=DI-713P That's for a model name "AirPlus" with model number DI-713P. Unless I missed it through a quick scan of its manual and also search on "time", that router has no means of changing its internal clock. Some routers have an NTP option to keep their clocks in sync. One user in a forum noted in a 6-year old post the following settings: Automatic Time Configuration Enable NTP Server : Yes NTP Server Used : ntp1.dlink.com Without your actual model *number*, no one can go online to D-Link's site to read the manual for you. Of course, you could read the manual. If it doesn't mention automatic time, NTP, or clock settings then there aren't any in that router. You could replace the firmware in the router with someone else's, like dd-wrt, that may give you time settings (I've never done that) but you will still need the actual model *number* of your router. "d-link airplus g" won't find anything at: http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/support/router-database Replacing the firmware code is like reprogramming a brain: only perform on hardware you can afford to lose. The patient doesn't always survive the brain reprogramming. Could that be the cause of any of these things. Looks like the cause is you trying to specify both hostname and IP address of the same target host. The clock of the router is only for timestamping its logs, if logging is enabled. It is not used when your computer makes connections to other hosts. The timestamp (or time specified within the data) of the packet is what gets used. The router just passes on the packets. The router's clock is irrelevant to your network use. |
|
|||
timestamps between computer and router -- email failed
[Default] On Fri, 25 Dec 2015 02:34:30 -0500, in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general Paul wrote: Micky wrote: On Fri, 25 Dec 2015 01:06:11 -0500, Micky wrote: It's a D-Link AirPlus G, 11 years old. Could that be the cause of any of these things. Between 8 and 11 years old. I don't remember if I bought it used or new. The firmware is almost 11 years old. I have this problem too. The router quartz crystal clock drifts like a *******. I didn't know the router had a clock, but it has a button under Tools called Time for which I have checked. Automatic (Automatic time update with pre-defined NTP servers or enter customized NTP) Manual is the alternative. I don't have anything in the customized NTP field and I have the interval for Automatic as 24 hours, the default, so that lets it get wronger and wronger for 24 hours until it gets corrected. If the log were important, I could set the interval at one hour. (it goes up to 72.) But I'll let it stay at 24. I'm glad to know how it can be wrong, when other times are a lot closer. It's a shame I can't use this to peer into the future. If NTP is enabled in the router, and if the NTP does first order corrections by "dribbling" out the corrections, the time accuracy can be made to look better than it actually is. Say the NTP consults an Internet source once a week. On Windows, this might correct the clock just the one time in that week. With a dribbling correction, a tiny correction by a fixed amount might be applied every fifteen minutes. So if the drift off-frequency is a manifest constant, the thing can look like it is keeping perfect time. It's when the order of drift is higher than first order, that such "guessing" methods don't work. Paul |