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I am trying to telnet from Ubuntu server (running Maverick) on ec2 to another machine I have set up not on ec2 - we'll call it "server-x". Server-x is running an imap server and I am trying to test connectivity to it.

The two machines are connected via vpn. I can ping from the ec2 machine to server-x no problem. On another machine also on the vpn but also not on ec2 I can telnet to server-x without issue so it is accepting incoming connections on that port.

But when I run telnet from the ubuntu instance to server-x I get :

ubuntu@ip-10-111-11-11:~$ telnet 5.1.1.1 9143
Trying 5.1.1.1...
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused

Other telnets work like this:

ubuntu@ip-10-111-11-11:~$ telnet imap.gmail.com 993
Trying 173.194.76.108...
Connected to gmail-imap.l.google.com.
Escape character is '^]'.

I have disabled ufw on the ubuntu machine. Is there anything else that can be blocking this outgoing connection? I tried adding the outgoing port to iptables but I'm not certain I'm doing that right.

Update: The service running on server-x is an imap server. When I changed it to use the traditional imap port 143 - the ubuntu machine can now telnet without problem. Why can it not telnet out on 9143?

I'm pretty sure 9143 is open and listening on server-x, when I run netstat:

netstat -an |grep 9143    
tcp46      0      0  *.9143                 *.*                    LISTEN
tcp4       0      0  *.9143                 *.*                    LISTEN
brendan
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1 Answers1

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Connection refused, apart from the port being blocked, may also mean that nothing is listening on that port (or that IP/interface).

Please run the following on the machine you are trying to telnet to:

netstat --numeric-ports -l | grep 9143

And paste the output as a comment, or edit it into your question. If you get no output, then there's a problem with whatever program is supposed to be listening on port 9143.

ish
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