I was in Italy and could reach the web. Almost everything else I needed was blocked.
The local network allowed traffic on ports 80 and 443. That covered ordinary web and encrypted web connections. It did not give me the VPN access, SSH tunnel, remote desktop, or dial-out path I needed to reach systems in the United States.
I sent a blunt status note to a Praxis collaborator on November 28. For the moment, he would have to handle the Exchange work without me. I could send an email from the available connection, but I did not expect to receive or read the reply reliably.
The technical issue waiting at home involved DNS and Active Directory. We believed the main setup was correct, but something was still behaving incorrectly. I had been reading about DNS during the trip and suggested going back through a large Windows Server 2003 book we had bought. I did not have a hidden fix to send from Italy. The answer still had to come from checking the configuration and documentation.
This was remote work before a web browser covered most of the tools. Administration depended on reaching specific network services. If a hotel or local provider allowed only web traffic, a systems administrator could be online and still have no usable route to the systems.
I was working at SimAuthor and running Praxis on the side. The email is addressed to the consulting side of that schedule. It does not identify the client or expose the DNS configuration, account details, or server addresses. Those details should remain private even though the connection problem is old.
The message ends without a solution. The local network rules did not change, and I had no alternate path. The practical plan was for the person in the United States to continue, use the server documentation, and treat me as unavailable for the week.
I had internet access in Italy. I did not have access to the work.