Microsoft Product Activation server reachability

Fri Jan 11 05:02:30 UTC 2013

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Nathan Anderson" <nathana at fsr.com>
> To: "nanog at nanog.org" <nanog at nanog.org>
> Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2013 11:24:16 PM
> Subject: Microsoft Product Activation server reachability
> 
> Anybody else having a problem reaching (what appears to be) the sole
> Microsoft Product Activation server (wpa.one.microsoft.com)?
> 
> $ ping wpa.one.microsoft.com
> PING wpa.one.microsoft.com (94.245.126.107): 56 data bytes
> 36 bytes from 213.199.189.41: Communication prohibited by filter
> 
> I get this sourcing from our network, from AT&T 3G, and from ye residential
> DSL connection located in the greater Seattle area. They aren't simply
> source-filtering. Either that or they are source-filtering for 0.0.0.0/0.
> 
> This is apparently the only server/IP they have set up to respond to these
> requests. wpa.one.microsoft.com resolves to that IP via every DNS server
> I've tried (so no round-robin A records), Microsoft products that need to
> activate over the internet only try to resolve that FQDN, and I've looked
> for others without success (wpa.two.microsoft.com isn't valid, for example).
> 
> --
> Nathan Anderson
> First Step Internet, LLC
> nathana at fsr.com
> 
> 

I am seeing the same from NYC metro. According to MS (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457159.aspx#ECAA), access to that host on 80 and 443 is all that should be required to activate. (and wpa.one.microsoft.com has no AAAA, go figure)

[ben at razor ~]$ ping wpa.one.microsoft.com
PING wpa.one.microsoft.com (94.245.126.107) 56(84) bytes of data.
>From 213.199.189.41 icmp_seq=2 Packet filtered
^C
--- wpa.one.microsoft.com ping statistics ---
6 packets transmitted, 0 received, +1 errors, 100% packet loss, time 5260ms

[ben at razor ~]$ telnet wpa.one.microsoft.com 80
Trying 94.245.126.107...
^C
[ben at razor ~]$ telnet wpa.one.microsoft.com 443
Trying 94.245.126.107...
^C

-- Ben