Vodafone Optimiser Proxy server avoidance

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James_

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#4491 26-Jul-2005 18:05

Does anyone know if it is possible to NOT use the Vodafone Optimiser proxy? I need to retain the IIS default HTTP persistent connection keepalive timeout but the Vodafone proxy cuts my connection after a 30 second timeout.
Does anyone know where to find any technical information on how it works eg. does it only analyse certain ports like 80 and 21? Can it be disabled or perhaps configured with HTTP headers?

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BDFL - Memuneh
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#17078 26-Jul-2005 18:35

All vey good questions, but the best way to find answers is probably contact the Vodafone technical folks - if you know someone.

I will try finding some more information around here.

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muppet

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#17080 26-Jul-2005 19:06

Don't connect with the APN "www.vodafone.net.nz"

This will poke you through the crappy annoying proxy.

Connect with an APN of "Internet"

This will give you a public IP address and not poke you through the proxy.

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#17081 26-Jul-2005 19:20

Does the Macara optimiser client work regardless of APN or does it need to be set to www.vodafone.net.nz?

muppet

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#17082 26-Jul-2005 19:23

From my testing it appears to only work with www.vodafone.net.nz

That testing wasn't really very scientific though.

Anyone @ Voda care to answer?

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#17090 26-Jul-2005 20:02

Hmmm. I didn't see much difference on using "internet" instead of "www.vodafone.net.nz". I have noticed some blurred images...

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muppet

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#17092 26-Jul-2005 20:36

No, you're right, it doesn't seem to make any difference.

I tried manually selecting different APN's via changing the dialup string (*99***1# or 3#) and made sure I got both a public and a private IP address. The stupid image munger was still there though. I'm sure a while back it was only on www.vodafone.net.nz but prehaps I just got so used to the crap images I didn't notice them (I had to use GPRS for 2 weeks - ugh)

It would seem the only solution then is to tunnel your web traffic in some way.

If you have a SSH shell somehwere, setup a basic proxy server on it (I highly recommend polipo http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/) and then setup a tunnel using PuTTY so that port 8080 on your local machine forwards to the port polipo is listening on on the remote box.
Then just setup your webbrowser to use a proxy of "localhost:8080" and all your web traffic will be wizzed over the ssh session to the polipo proxy.

Tim

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James_

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#17104 27-Jul-2005 09:05

Thanks for the suggestions. From my tests the proxy is active over all public APN's. I would love to set up some sort of tunnel but unfortunately our project requirement in this case is to communicate directly to a web server over which we have no control. In fact if we did have control we probably wouldn't bother with a tunnel because it seems that the proxy is only intercepting port 80 traffic (from my tests anyway) - We'd just run our webserver on a different port.

It seems odd that Vodafone doesn't simply provide an APN for customers who don't want this "service" running. We'd end up spending more on GPRS traffic after all.

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#17238 29-Jul-2005 11:57

I was told there's indeed a specific APN that does provide non-NAT addresses, non-firewalled access, that may bypass the optmiser.

It is only used by clients with specific needs, because of the non-firewall issue.

I sugest you contact your Vodafone account manager (if you have a relationship with Vodafone) and follow up on this.

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#17239 29-Jul-2005 12:03

Hmm, I take that a challenge to "guess"
heh.

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#17240 29-Jul-2005 13:02

I'm also lead to believe there is (or at least was) also an APN for free data used internally by Vodafone staff.

Who's up to write some software to launch a dictionary attack? :-)

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#17242 29-Jul-2005 13:24

sbiddle: I'm also lead to believe there is (or at least was) also an APN for free data used internally by Vodafone staff.

Who's up to write some software to launch a dictionary attack? :-)

boy that would be hot property

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#17244 29-Jul-2005 14:00

Hmmm, it would be wouldn't it.

But APN's can be blocked by account. Wouldn't you expect that any free APN's would be only available to Vodafone account Sims? Well, if they aren't, I bet they will be soon.

Good luck on the dictionary attack. Seems to me that you would have to set up the APN name, attempt to connect, disconnect, repeat. Takes me a while to do this. Some of it could be automated I guess. Is there a limit to the length of an APN name? Some of them seem pretty long. Take www.vodafone.net.nz There are 16 alpha characters, plus dots in what might be arbitrary places. So at least 16 to the power of 26 combinations.

James_

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#17245 29-Jul-2005 14:14

assuming of course they used a blank username/password and had accidently provisioned it on your account

follow up with Vodafone - that's a good one. What about the impenetrable fortress of call centres and account managers?
The only official public APNs are www.vodafone.net.nz web.vodafone.net.nz and Internet. Who knows if there are any others lying open but even if there are we probably wouldn't risk using an unsupported APN for our project. It's bad enough using the supported ones and suddenly having my sockets censored and cut off early because surely I could only be using port 80 for website browsing.

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#17248 29-Jul-2005 15:28

But APN's can be blocked by account. Wouldn't you expect that any free APN's would be only available to Vodafone account Sims? Well, if they aren't, I bet they will be soon.

I'm sure they are - Vodafone learnt that lesson when they had free SMSC's! :-)
Now such things are loaded against your account.

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#17249 29-Jul-2005 16:04

James_: follow up with Vodafone - that's a good one. What about the impenetrable fortress of call centres and account managers?
The only official public APNs are www.vodafone.net.nz web.vodafone.net.nz and Internet. Who knows if there are any others lying open but even if there are we probably wouldn't risk using an unsupported APN for our project. It's bad enough using the supported ones and suddenly having my sockets censored and cut off early because surely I could only be using port 80 for website browsing.

Well that's why I said follow-up with then... There are the public ones and there some for special projects. I am not saying to use without authorisation but to seek the proper channels.

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