What is perl doing right? Perl can access internet

nickm has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: What is perl doing right? Perl can access internet - browser, telnet, others cannot by ikegami (Patriarch) on Jan 22, 2009 at 14:33 UTC
It's very pervasive. It probably installed itself as a proxy, and you didn't tell LWP to use a proxy. I just had to clean that nasty bugger. It involved booting from the install CD and renaming/deleting all the files with names like "fjsdahds.*" (i.e. an eight(?) char string of random letters and numbers) in c:\windows or was it c:\windows\system32. Miss one and you have to start over. This is aggravated by the recovery console's `dir`'s inability to recognize the `/od` option. Finally, clean all references to the files you deleted from the registry.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: What is perl doing right? Perl can access internet - browser, telnet, others cannot by bart (Canon) on Jan 22, 2009 at 14:49 UTC
Firewall? Check if your normal apps are blocked. And I recommend installing Wireshark, so you can spy on what really happens, on the network level.	[reply]
Re: What is perl doing right? Perl can access internet - browser, telnet, others cannot by zentara (Cardinal) on Jan 22, 2009 at 15:32 UTC
I saw the same damn thing on Windows Vista...f*cking windblows. What happened with me, was I uninstalled the "free" McAffee virus protection software".....that triggered some sort of system reset to some "security level" that would not allow any downloads unless I opened up Internet Explorer, and added the website to my "trusted sites". I use Firefox, but for every download, I have to open IE and give permission.....I hesitate to think what would happen if I uninstalled IE. I can't fathom how people can use Windows on a daily basis. I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth Remember How Lucky You Are	[reply]
Re^2: What is perl doing right? Perl can access internet - browser, telnet, others cannot by ikegami (Patriarch) on Jan 22, 2009 at 16:10 UTC
Internet settings can be set in the Control Panel. No need to launch IE.	[reply]
Re^3: What is perl doing right? Perl can access internet - browser, telnet, others cannot by zentara (Cardinal) on Jan 22, 2009 at 16:15 UTC
I tried, it didn't work for me, I got all sorts of warnings that changing a setting would screw up something else. Then I fall back to theTroubleshooting Help, and it said to open IE....catch 22. :-( I can see why lawsuits were filed in Europe against MS about IE integration in the OS. It all started by removing the "free" McAffee security. I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth Remember How Lucky You Are	[reply]
Re^2: What is perl doing right? Perl can access internet - browser, telnet, others cannot by Zen (Deacon) on Jan 22, 2009 at 16:40 UTC
The question is, how did you get the virus? Linux has its own headaches I hate dealing with, namely: compiling, recompiling, missing library, this lib doesn't work with that lib so make a new directory, edit the makefile to run this to run that, edit the config file in some format you don't know the flags for without googling, copy paste the magical incantation command line args to get something to run, half-finished software, and more. Unmistakably linux! It's still a headache, just a different kind than windows, but to write off the whole OS because you have gotten a virus is just wrong. Full disclosure: I happen to like Linux, too.	[reply]
(OT) Re^3: What is perl doing right? Perl can access internet - browser, telnet, others cannot by repellent (Priest) on Jan 22, 2009 at 17:58 UTC
I agree with the headaches you mentioned. Small price to pay for a little more robustness in an OS, perhaps? The Linux "pains" were substantially alleviated after I switched to FreeBSD. In my opinion, there seems to be more order and quality control, especially with the Ports system. I'm aware that Ubuntu (and others) have made great strides in enabling easy software deployment - perhaps someday I'll switch back.	[reply]
Re^3: What is perl doing right? Perl can access internet - browser, telnet, others cannot by zentara (Cardinal) on Jan 22, 2009 at 18:59 UTC
I never seem to have the problems you mention on linux. Compiling is a breeze...../configure,make, make install. Maybe get missing lib and compile it. If you don't like that responsibility, use a packaged system, like Ubuntu or Suse. When you use the package manager to get something, it will install the pre-requisites too. At least the system lets you download it!! BTW, Microsoft is laying off 5000 people off because people are switching to linux in droves. :-) I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth Remember How Lucky You Are	[reply]
Re^3: What is perl doing right? Perl can access internet - browser, telnet, others cannot by Tanktalus (Canon) on Jan 22, 2009 at 23:04 UTC
Compiling? Surely, I don't know what you speak of. And I use Gentoo. Sure, my system compiles all the time, but, generally, I don't need to deal with the headaches. The portage system (inspired by BSD, I hear) takes care of it for me. "emerge XML-Twig yaml wxperl" and off it goes, grabbing all the prereqs, including perl itself if it's not already installed. It's about as easy as "cpan -i DBD::CSV". Adding up the headaches of each, I personally believe that Gentoo comes out way ahead on the Tylenol-o-meter. Generally, if I have a problem, a google search will turn up a how-to, including intimate details on configuration files to look at, etc., whereas when I want to do anything even moderately advanced on Windows, I get lost in all the different configuration dialogs, not to mention the myriad of tabs on each, many of which have buttons that bring up yet OTHER dialog boxes. At least on Linux, I've learned that "find /etc -type f \| xargs grep -i blah" will often find the right configuration file for me (much better to get the computer to do my work for me than for me to figure it out myself). DLL Hell: Gentoo wins ("revdep-rebuild" - I suspect other source distros can do likewise), binary distros come in second (hopefully your distro got all the dependencies right for the recompile), Windows is starting to catch up, but without a centralised repository that all vendors can use will never quite make it. Configuration: Linux again wins. Many distros have funny-lookin' GUIs to compete with Windows' control panel, but Linux also has an advanced mode which means you can get better at it. Windows just takes up too much room in the ole noggin' trying to remember which dialog box is where, and what sequence of boxes and tabs and buttons need to be pressed to get you where you want to go. Out-of-box experience isn't hugely different nowadays, either, with defaults generally favouring the newbies anyway. Viruses: Again, Linux comes out ahead. With nearly zero (if not actually zero) viruses in the wild to concern yourself with, the exposure is small. Even once this becomes popular, the chances of hosing your entire system are slim to none, though backups are still required to protect your data which a virus really would have access to. Writing off a "whole OS" over viruses seems prudent to me. Full disclosure: I'm like your maid. I don't do Windows. I've used every version from 3.0 on, except ME, but for real systems (like servers or desktops), I use Linux, AIX, or SunOS (HPUX if a sufficiently large gun is held to my head), and used to use OS/2.	[reply]
Re: What is perl doing right? Perl can access internet - browser, telnet, others cannot by nickm (Novice) on Jan 22, 2009 at 16:24 UTC
SOLVED! It's amazing how quickly I tend solve problems when I decide to ask others for help. My google searches led me to a MS technote containing this little gem : C:>netsh winsock reset That solved the problem, for now at least. Apparently perl doesn't rely on winsock??? Thanks everyone for responding.	[reply]
Re: What is perl doing right? Perl can access internet - browser, telnet, others cannot by mr_mischief (Monsignor) on Jan 22, 2009 at 15:48 UTC
It sounds like the libraries or Windows services involved with those applications are damaged or stopped. In the interests of portability, much of the network modules for Perl may not require the same level of support from the OS as native applications. You may need to uninstall and reinstall such things as the TCP/IP protocol or start such services as "HTTP", "Client", etc. Even though you clearly do have TCP/IP access from the machine, the protocol packages that Windows uses are at a pretty large granularity. You may also need to either repair or delete and recreate the network connection profile. Basically, treat the situation as if you have no network connectivity through that interface at all. That Perl can access the Internet through it shows some functionality, but only by replacing parts of the stack can you assure something's not corrupted and offering only that partial function.	[reply]
Re: What is perl doing right? Perl can access internet - browser, telnet, others cannot by Anonymous Monk on Jan 22, 2009 at 14:22 UTC
Time to switch to Linux. "Friends don't let friends use Windows."	[reply]
Re^2: What is perl doing right? Perl can access internet - browser, telnet, others cannot by Anonymous Monk on Aug 27, 2011 at 23:36 UTC
are you high??? The linux operating system is quite stable. This is true. However, productivity is only as good as the user applications that are stable. At this stage, KDE is swamped with bugs, and so are most other applications that run on-top of KDE. Considering that the reality is most individuals engage with Windows primarily for it's ease of use and intuitiveness, I find it difficult to fathom why you'd make such a statement.	[reply]
Re: What is perl doing right? Perl can access internet - browser, telnet, others cannot by repellent (Priest) on Jan 22, 2009 at 18:10 UTC
In my experience, when some malware like that hits a Windows system, there's no telling what else has been tampered with to cause trouble in the future. It would be best to consider a full-on re-installation of Windows. That said, after re-installation of all favorite software, backup your OS partitions! This will give you an exact snapshot that you can recover faster than performing installs again.	[reply]
Re^2: What is perl doing right? Perl can access internet - browser, telnet, others cannot by Gavin (Archbishop) on Jan 23, 2009 at 11:04 UTC
In my opinion it is always worth trying a Repair Install on Windows without using Recovery Console before going for a clean install. On many occasions after a virus issue or BSOD I have seen a full recovery using this method.	[reply]