Why is twitter blocking our servers?

Tagwhat · 2011-11-22T23:30:32.000Z

Twitter seems to be dropping route to our service, tagwhat.com . I have tried to resolve this in the past with zero success. Can someone assist?

kurrik · 2011-11-22T23:57:40.000Z

Would you be able to describe the exact issues you’re seeing which make you believe you have been blocked?

angusshee · 2012-03-27T22:37:33.000Z

Somehow missed this completely. Really appreciate the response! We’re seeing this:

[root@tw01 ~]# nslookup twitter.com
Server: 8.8.8.8
Address: 8.8.8.8#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: twitter.com
Address: 199.59.148.82
Name: twitter.com
Address: 199.59.149.230
Name: twitter.com
Address: 199.59.149.198

[root@tw01 ~]# ping twitter.com
PING twitter.com (199.59.148.82) 56(84) bytes of data.

— twitter.com ping statistics —
18 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 16999ms

kurrik · 2012-03-30T21:56:09.000Z

Thanks. Would you tell me which IP you’re connecting from? A tcptraceroute dump would also be very helpful.

angusshee · 2012-03-30T22:05:13.000Z

Definitely, no problem. Here is the traceroute…

[root@tw01 ~]# traceroute twitter.com
traceroute to twitter.com (199.59.148.10), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 v411.lax.ubiquity.io (23.19.18.1) 5.060 ms 5.912 ms 6.989 ms
2 edge1.chi2.ubiquityservers.com (69.31.111.65) 4.704 ms 4.955 ms 4.946 ms
3 ae1-40g.cr2.ord1.us.nlayer.net (69.31.111.137) 1.172 ms 1.173 ms 1.163 ms
4 mpr1.ord7.us (206.223.119.86) 2.075 ms 2.046 ms 2.046 ms
5 xe-1-3-0.cr1.ord2.us.above.net (64.125.30.142) 2.417 ms 2.401 ms 2.377 ms
6 xe-3-0-0.cr1.lga5.us.above.net (64.125.24.37) 41.476 ms 40.367 ms 40.349 ms
7 xe-2-2-0.cr1.dca2.us.above.net (64.125.26.97) 62.307 ms 61.470 ms 61.433 ms
8 xe-0-3-1.er1.iad10.us.above.net (64.125.29.6) 31.543 ms 31.580 ms 31.173 ms
9 * * *
10 * * *
11 * * *
12 * * *
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18 * * *
19 * * *
20 * * *
21 * * *
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angusshee · 2012-03-30T22:06:30.000Z

Here are the IP’s:
173.234.60.162
173.234.60.163
173.234.60.164
173.234.60.165
173.234.60.166

Last 4 are secondary IP’s.

kurrik · 2012-03-30T22:17:23.000Z

Would it be possible to give a tcptraceroute? http://michael.toren.net/code/tcptraceroute/ - many firewalls block traceroute packets.

angusshee · 2012-03-31T19:10:43.000Z

No problem… we did a tcptraceroute and we got the same result.
Our main server:
[root@tw01 ~]# traceroute twitter.com
traceroute to twitter.com (199.59.150.7), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 v411.lax.ubiquity.io (23.19.18.1) 4.060 ms 4.967 ms 6.398 ms
2 edge1.chi2.ubiquityservers.com (69.31.111.65) 4.917 ms 4.905 ms 4.892 ms
3 ae1-40g.cr2.ord1.us.nlayer.net (69.31.111.137) 1.204 ms 43.198 ms 1.471 ms
4 mpr1.ord7.us (206.223.119.86) 52.539 ms 52.523 ms 52.501 ms
5 xe-1-3-0.cr1.ord2.us.above.net (64.125.30.142) 2.255 ms 2.252 ms 2.242 ms
6 xe-2-0-0.cr1.lga5.us.above.net (64.125.24.33) 40.322 ms 39.200 ms 38.916 ms
7 xe-3-2-0.cr1.dca2.us.above.net (64.125.26.101) 31.629 ms 31.621 ms 31.610 ms
8 xe-7-0-0.er1.iad10.us.above.net (64.125.29.209) 31.675 ms 31.868 ms 31.433 ms
9 * * *
10 * * *
11 * * *
12 * * *
13 * * *
14 * * *
15 * * *
16 * * *
17 * * *
18 * * *
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20 * * *
21 * * *
22 * * *
23 * * *
24 * * *
25 * * *
26 * * *
27 * * *
28 * * *
29 * * *
30 * * *

Our second server:
[root@tw02 ~]# traceroute twitter.com
traceroute to twitter.com (199.59.150.7), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 v411.lax.ubiquity.io (23.19.18.1) 7.152 ms 7.964 ms 8.523 ms
2 edge1.chi2.ubiquityservers.com (69.31.111.65) 4.100 ms 4.089 ms 4.074 ms
3 ae1-40g.cr2.ord1.us.nlayer.net (69.31.111.137) 1.153 ms 1.154 ms 1.141 ms
4 mpr1.ord7.us (206.223.119.86) 1.892 ms 1.887 ms 1.873 ms
5 xe-1-3-0.cr1.ord2.us.above.net (64.125.30.142) 2.102 ms 2.093 ms 2.080 ms
6 xe-2-0-0.cr1.lga5.us.above.net (64.125.24.33) 25.318 ms 25.565 ms 25.553 ms
7 xe-3-2-0.cr1.dca2.us.above.net (64.125.26.101) 32.138 ms 31.428 ms 31.797 ms
8 xe-7-0-0.er1.iad10.us.above.net (64.125.29.209) 31.381 ms 31.553 ms 31.551 ms
9 209.66.115.18.t01337-05.above.net (209.66.115.18) 25.078 ms 24.827 ms 24.817 ms
10 xe-1-3-1.pao1-cr2.twttr.com (199.16.159.87) 85.486 ms 199.16.159.108 (199.16.159.108) 105.190 ms xe-1-3-1.pao1-cr2.twttr.com (199.16.159.87) 85.824 ms
11 ae51.smf1-er1.twttr.com (199.16.159.29) 85.201 ms 85.516 ms xe-11-0-0.smf1-er2.twttr.com (199.16.159.55) 89.473 ms
12 r-199-59-150-7.twttr.com (199.59.150.7) 89.450 ms 84.165 ms 84.905 ms

Hop #9 is where we are being dropped, this machine
209.66.115.18.t01337-05.above.net
this is probably the router that jumps to twitters network as the next machine is twitter owned:
xe-1-3-1.pao1-cr2.twttr.com

kurrik · 2012-04-03T17:07:42.000Z

It still looks like you’re running “traceroute” not “tcptraceroute”

roach · 2012-04-03T20:42:50.000Z

This issue has been identified and resolved via Twitter help center.

angusshee · 2012-04-04T01:20:56.000Z

Arne, looks like someone was able to remove some of the restrictions to our IP. We’re up and running! Thanks for looking into this. If you have any idea why the restrictions were placed in the first place, that would be a great help to make sure we can avoid the same problem down the line.

Thanks again for being so responsive…

kurrik · 2012-04-04T16:33:48.000Z

Glad to hear it’s working now. Thanks for providing the necessary information. Unfortunately I’m not able to provide background on this specific case.

netfortius · 2012-06-06T17:58:11.000Z

Sort-of-follow-up, due to a similar (to the original subj) issue: Twitter “silently” blocking our network. What is to be done?