a2i communications servers

How to Log In for PPP

Use your canonical login name with @rahul.net appended to it. For example, if your login name is joeuser, then for PPP you will log in as joeuser@rahul.net .

Common PPP login problems include: wrong login name, wrong PPP password.

DNS servers (nameservers)

Normally, your computer will automatically get the right DNS servers when it connects for PPP. Only if necessary, you can manually enter these.

192.160.13.9
192.160.13.6

POP server (for reading mail)

pop.rahul.net

To use SSL, please see the document Using SSL when Retrieving Email.

IMAP server (for reading mail)

imap.rahul.net

To use SSL, please see the document Using SSL when Retrieving Email.

SMTP server (for sending mail)

smtp.rahul.net

We also have old smtp server names still active. These still exist but their use is no longer required.

smtp1.rahul.net (preferred) (old, no longer needed)
smtp2.rahul.net (alternative) (old, no longer needed)
offsite.rahul.net (for use when connected to some other ISP) (old, no longer
bulkmail.rahul.net (for large volumes of outgoing mail) (old, no longer needed)

Webmail servers (for reading and sending mail)

http://webmail.rahul.net/

At the URL given above you will find a menu of our webmail servers. These will let you read and send mail using any web browser.

News (nntp) server

news.rahul.net

Access is available only if you are connected to a2i for PPP. No password is needed. If you are connected to some other ISP for PPP, you may connect to that ISP's nntp server, or you may read news from the UNIX shell on a2i machines. See the online manual 'man a2i-servers' from the UNIX shell for information about which UNIX machines may be used for Newsreading. For more information about accessing Usenet from non-a2i locations, check http://www.rahul.net/howto/nntp.access.html.

HTTP Proxy server

For best reliability and efficiency, configure your web browser to use the proxy server as shown below. Just go to your proxy server configuration screen, and enter the name `http.rahul.net' as the proxy server for http protocol. Depending on your software, your proxy entry will look similar to one of these:

http://http.rahul.net:8080/
http://http.rahul.net/ port 8080
http.rahul.net:8080
http proxy: http.rahul.net port 8080

This is not a 'socks' proxy server, so do not enter any socks information.

We also have an ad-blocking HTTP Proxy server, which will block most display ads from web pages. Instead of `http.rahul.net' specify your http proxy as `noads.rahul.net' using similar syntax as above, but use port 9090.

If you are connected via the NW56 service, or connected to some other ISP, you can still use the proxy servers described above by providing the current proxy login name and password. This information will be periodically announced in the a2i.info newsgroup.

FTP Server

All ftp connections should be made to ftp.rahul.net.

UNIX Servers

To access the UNIX shell on any machine from elsewhere on the Internet, please connect as follows:

Connect to the machine telnet.rahul.net if using telnet protocol.
Connect to the machine ssh.rahul.net if using ssh protocol.

Note: ssh.rahul.net is a convenience symbol that points to some actual machine. It may be repointed as needed for load balancing or if a machine is down. In such cases your ssh client will encounter a new public key on the destination machine and may give you a warning or, depending on how you have configured it, fail to connect. If this is a problem then you may wish to connect directly to one of the Linux machines listed below. In most cases all user-accessible Linux machines will accept ssh connections from the Internet.

Once you have logged into telnet.rahul.net or ssh.rahul.net, you will find yourself in a Linux environment. From here you may connect to various other machines telnet, ssh, and rlogin protocols. Some of the available machines are:

green.rahul.net running Linux.
azure.rahul.net running Linux.
mauve.rahul.net running Linux.
violet.rahul.net running Linux.

Some standard host aliases have been made available. Each will point to a suitable machine.

linux.rahul.net points to a machine running Linux.
shell.rahul.net points to a machine running providing shell access.

Some of the machines and host aliases may allow conecting to them from the global Internet; others will not. If you cannot directly connect to a desired machine, simply connect to and log into telnet.rahul.net or ssh.rahul.net first. Then you may connect to any of the other machines.

Common Problems

Commonly-encountered problems are listed below.

PPP Login Problems

If you mistype your login name, your PPP connection will fail. Always use the form joeuser@rahul.net. The entire string should be in all lowercase.
Common error: wrong PPP password. If your machine is attempting a PPP connection using the wrong password, you will usually get a mysterious connection failure. Any error message(s) you see will usually not tell you that you were using the wrong password.

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