DNS Issues?

[Scott Gruby]

Reading back a few days I see there have been some DNS issues. Are
these still present? My parents have been having major problems
connecting to sites and when I had them point their computer to my DNS
server (I have a business class account), problems went away. I don't
want them relying on my DNS server. RR support wouldn't help them
because they have a router. I had my dad replace his Netgear router
with a Linksys and he still has problems; plugging in directly to the
cable modem seems to make the problems go away. I suspect that the
difference is that the DHCP server in the router is only distributing 1
DNS server address which is failing and directly connecting a machine
is getting all the DNS servers and rolling over to one that works.
Should I just have them hard code the router to use 66.75.164.90 as the
DNS server?

Thanks.

[Edwin Kruse]

Yes, lets just try that.

Edwin Kruse
Network Services Manager
TWC San Diego

Reading back a few days I see there have been some DNS issues. Are these
still present? My parents have been having major problems connecting to
sites and when I had them point their computer to my DNS server (I have
a business class account), problems went away. I don't want them relying
on my DNS server. RR support wouldn't help them because they have a
router. I had my dad replace his Netgear router with a Linksys and he
still has problems; plugging in directly to the cable modem seems to
make the problems go away. I suspect that the difference is that the
DHCP server in the router is only distributing 1 DNS server address
which is failing and directly connecting a machine is getting all the
DNS servers and rolling over to one that works. Should I just have them
hard code the router to use 66.75.164.90 as the DNS server?
Thanks.

[Scott Gruby]

Post by Edwin Kruse
Yes, lets just try that.
Edwin Kruse
Network Services Manager
TWC San Diego

Post by Scott Gruby
Reading back a few days I see there have been some DNS issues. Are
these still present? My parents have been having major problems
connecting to sites and when I had them point their computer to my DNS
server (I have a business class account), problems went away. I don't
want them relying on my DNS server. RR support wouldn't help them
because they have a router. I had my dad replace his Netgear router
with a Linksys and he still has problems; plugging in directly to the
cable modem seems to make the problems go away. I suspect that the
difference is that the DHCP server in the router is only distributing 1
DNS server address which is failing and directly connecting a machine
is getting all the DNS servers and rolling over to one that works.
Should I just have them hard code the router to use 66.75.164.90 as the
DNS server?
Thanks.

Thanks! I'll try that when my dad gets home.

(BTW, it's good to see that you're still around. You were the TWC
saving grace back in the day when there seemed to be problems
frequently. I stopped reading this newsgroup years ago when I stopped
having problems!)

[Kathy]

I suspect that the difference is that the DHCP server in the router is
only distributing 1 DNS server address which is failing and directly
connecting a machine is getting all the DNS servers and rolling over to
one that works. Should I just have them hard code the router to use
66.75.164.90 as the DNS server?

In our house, we have a router and five computers, one of which died last
week, the one that died was a domain server.

When the domain server was working, I pointed the five computers to the
domain server for primary DNS, and pointed the domain server to RR's DNS,
the router gets its DNS from DHCP.

When the domain server died, I went to our other four computers and pointed
them to RR's DNS directly. Before I did that, we had all sorts of problems.

I expect that's the source of your problem.

- Kathy

[Scott Gruby]

On 2005-12-07 07:37:21 -0800, "Kathy"

Post by Kathy

I suspect that the difference is that the DHCP server in the router is
only distributing 1 DNS server address which is failing and directly
connecting a machine is getting all the DNS servers and rolling over to
one that works. Should I just have them hard code the router to use
66.75.164.90 as the DNS server?

In our house, we have a router and five computers, one of which died
last week, the one that died was a domain server.
When the domain server was working, I pointed the five computers to the
domain server for primary DNS, and pointed the domain server to RR's
DNS, the router gets its DNS from DHCP.
When the domain server died, I went to our other four computers and
pointed them to RR's DNS directly. Before I did that, we had all sorts
of problems.
I expect that's the source of your problem.

The router gets DNS from DHCP and then when it distributes addresses
via DHCP, it passes on DNS that it got from RR. Something is messed up
in getting the DNS from RR and passing it on to the computers.

[Kathy]

Post by Scott Gruby
On 2005-12-07 07:37:21 -0800, "Kathy"

Post by Kathy

I suspect that the difference is that the DHCP server in the router is
only distributing 1 DNS server address which is failing and directly
connecting a machine is getting all the DNS servers and rolling over to
one that works. Should I just have them hard code the router to use
66.75.164.90 as the DNS server?

In our house, we have a router and five computers, one of which died last
week, the one that died was a domain server.
When the domain server was working, I pointed the five computers to the
domain server for primary DNS, and pointed the domain server to RR's DNS,
the router gets its DNS from DHCP.
When the domain server died, I went to our other four computers and
pointed them to RR's DNS directly. Before I did that, we had all sorts
of problems.
I expect that's the source of your problem.

The router gets DNS from DHCP and then when it distributes addresses via
DHCP, it passes on DNS that it got from RR. Something is messed up in
getting the DNS from RR and passing it on to the computers.

Is that true if we're not using DHCP?

We use fixed IP addresses for computers on our internal network, and I
disabled DHCP on our Linsksys router. Maybe I did something wrong, but
before I specified the DNS server address directly we had problems resolving
domain names.

- Kathy

[Darren New]

Post by Kathy
Is that true if we're not using DHCP?

No.

Post by Kathy
We use fixed IP addresses for computers on our internal network,

I liked the firmware in the D-Link router I had, that you could
configure to assign the same IP address via DHCP based on MAC addresses.
It's a shame the actual *routing* functionality was so f'ed I had to
return it and get a linksys. :-)

[Scott Lindner]

I liked the firmware in the D-Link router I had, that you could configure
to assign the same IP address via DHCP based on MAC addresses. It's a
shame the actual *routing* functionality was so f'ed I had to return it
and get a linksys. :-)

Static DHCP, what a concept. I'm surprised many other mainstream consumer
oriented routers don't do it. It's such a simple thing to implement. It
really makes managing the network easy. I use a DLink and it's been fine
for me. Other than all hardware routers seem to be slower than a Linux
based router on a x86. Don't understand that one at all.

[stevech]

I noticed that some of the newer consumer routers support DNS proxy or some
such name.
The clients (PCs) are given the router's address as the DNS server's
address, e.g., 192.168.1.1 is provide to the client as the DNS server.
The router proxies DNS requests.

Maybe this is called DNS Masquerade.

I use a Linksys WRT54G router reflashed with Talisman 1.05. Lots of features
not in the Linksys firmware - but it isn't for the novice.

[Scott Lindner]

Post by stevech
I noticed that some of the newer consumer routers support DNS proxy or some
such name.
The clients (PCs) are given the router's address as the DNS server's
address, e.g., 192.168.1.1 is provide to the client as the DNS server.
The router proxies DNS requests.
Maybe this is called DNS Masquerade.

It's called a "caching DNS server" or simply "caching DNS". To your LAN
your router becomes the only DNS server and your DNS server does the DNS
lookups for you. Your Web surfing will be greatly improved by this since
many times DNS lookups are really slow on the ISP provider DNS servers.
Having it local guarantees extremely fast times if you've hit that domain
already. It also helps when RR is having troubles with their DNS servers.
Many times when people are complaining I'm not having any problems at all.
Although sometimes I can't dodge it if I'm hitting new sites or haven't been
online in a while.

[Darren New]

Post by Scott Lindner
It's called a "caching DNS server" or simply "caching DNS".

It's also built into XP, and I'd be very surprised if it wasn't easy to
turn on in Linux. I don't think 98 caches DNS.

[Scott Lindner]

Post by Darren New
It's also built into XP, and I'd be very surprised if it wasn't easy to
turn on in Linux. I don't think 98 caches DNS.

I'm referring to using a Linux box as a NATing, DCHP, and DNS caching
router, not as a client that is self sustaining. I'm sure XP will do
caching DNS embedded into Internet Explorer only just fine but as far as I
could tell it doesn't go beyond the scope of IE and all apps integrated to
it hoaky network stack.

[Darren New]

Post by Scott Lindner
I'm referring to using a Linux box as a NATing, DCHP, and DNS caching
router, not as a client that is self sustaining.

Oh, fair enough. I was just pointing out that a caching DNS server on
your router won't help all that much if you already have a caching DNS
server on your clients.

Post by Scott Lindner
I'm sure XP will do
caching DNS embedded into Internet Explorer only just fine but as far as I
could tell it doesn't go beyond the scope of IE and all apps integrated to
it hoaky network stack.

Errr, you'd be mistaken. But then, most MS bashing seems to be based on
ignorance, which is a common problem with large complex closed and
proprietary system.

If you actually care, try "ipconfig /displaydns".

[Scott Lindner]

Oh, fair enough. I was just pointing out that a caching DNS server on your
router won't help all that much if you already have a caching DNS server
on your clients.

Good point. Other than multiple clients are now working to keep the router
updated so you take less hits.

Errr, you'd be mistaken. But then, most MS bashing seems to be based on
ignorance, which is a common problem with large complex closed and
proprietary system.

Bashing? Hardly. I've been using MS and Unix's professionaly for long
enough time to call it like it is. No blindness here. Try using Outlook
Express for a while and start noticing how it's behavior is coupled to IE.
Or how your wireless settings and detection may not work in other browsers
until you first use IE to get it all set. Clean network stack? Yeah right.
Please be honest with yourself if you want to talk big.

If it's so clean then why is MS boasting how they finally cleaned it up in
their new OS that has yet to receive an official product name or be released
yet? Are they equaly mistaken?

[Darren New]

Post by Scott Lindner
Bashing? Hardly. I've been using MS and Unix's professionaly for long
enough time to call it like it is. No blindness here. Try using Outlook
Express for a while and start noticing how it's behavior is coupled to IE.

So? And that has what to do with network stacks? And ... isn't that a
good thing? I mean, they call it "code reuse". Used to be all the rage
to talk about, until someone came up with a decent way of actually doing it.

Post by Scott Lindner
Or how your wireless settings and detection may not work in other browsers
until you first use IE to get it all set.

Funny. I never had that problem, and more than half my computers use
only wireless connections. And I don't think I've ever fired up IE
explicitly.

Considering you don't even need TCP/IP to install wireless networking on
Windows, I can't imagine how IE has anything to do with it.

Post by Scott Lindner
Clean network stack? Yeah right.
Please be honest with yourself if you want to talk big.

Please be less ignorant before you make assertions about how software
works. I'm not asserting the network stack is "clean" or anything like
that. I'm merely asserting that the DNS cache in Windows is not tied to
IE, contrary to your assertions.

Post by Scott Lindner
If it's so clean

Not sure where "clean" came into the discussion, or even what it means
in this context. In any case, BIND is far from what I would call "clean".