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Re: MathKernel access Internet?

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg39627] Re: [mg39565] MathKernel access Internet?
• From: Murray Eisenberg <murraye at attbi.com>
• Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 02:43:48 -0500 (EST)
• Organization: Mathematics & Statistics, Univ. of Mass./Amherst
• References: <200302260410.h1Q4AFS18178@wolfram.com>
• Reply-to: murray at math.umass.edu
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

I did a Lookup on the IP address, and it's my ISP's (attbi.com -- now 
merged with Comcast).

Mathematica still seems to work normally even if I just deny the 
permission manually when ZoneAlarm pops up with the query whether to 
allow the access.

Naturally, I wondered whether some rogue program had somehow worked its 
way into Mathematica!

John Fultz wrote:
> No, it shouldn't.  There is some code in Mathematica that accesses the 
> network for support of the license manager; it is possible that some of 
> this code is being unnecessarily executed (most likely code which simply 
> verifies the machine's IP address and/or hostname, or perhaps the code 
> which initializes the Windows network libraries) and thus making spurious 
> calls to the network.
> 
> I don't know what the IP address is you've listed, but I wouldn't be 
> surprised if it's your own machine, your gateway, or your DNS server.  I'm 
> curious whether you can simply suppress the communication via ZoneAlarm 
> and still have Mathematica work.
> 
> We'll add some tests to run a single-user license Mathematica with 
> ZoneAlarm on its strictest settings for future versions of Mathematica, 
> but I'm afraid there's not much that can be done for you right now.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> John Fultz
> jfultz at wolfram.com
> User Interface Group
> Wolfram Research, Inc.
> 
> 
> On Sun, 23 Feb 2003 05:01:02 -0500 (EST), Murray Eisenberg wrote:
> 
>>Should MathKernel in Mathematica 4.2.1 be attempting to access the
>>Internet?  Whenever I start the kernel, my software firewall ZoneAlarm
>>Pro reports that MathKernel.exe is trying to access IP 63.240.76.19:DNS.
>>
>>This is a single-user installation (not one running against license
>>manager on a network) running under Windows XP.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Murray Eisenberg                     murray at math.umass.edu
Mathematics & Statistics Dept.
Lederle Graduate Research Tower      phone 413 549-1020 (H)
University of Massachusetts                413 545-2859 (W)
710 North Pleasant Street
Amherst, MA 01375