Bizarre DNS problem

Jiokah · Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 8:59 pm Post subject: Bizarre DNS problem

Hey,

I'm having a rather odd problem with the DNS on my gentoo box. Among other things, I'm using the box as a router. The problem I'm encountering is that, at seemingly random times, certain domains just don't exist anymore! So for example, somedomain.com does not resolve to anything, when it's IP address works just fine. Right now it's been doing it with google.com, but what's different about this is that accessing google.ca fixes it! I've been getting around this problem by just using the hosts file to bypass connecting with a DNS name, but an IP address instead. This problem only occurs with machines recieving internet through the gentoo box, when accessing these address on the box itself, I find no problem at all.

So, naturally, I'm horribly confused at this point. Any help would be very much appreciated!

Thanks!

mlivingstone · Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 1:00 am Post subject: Re: Bizarre DNS problem

Jiokah · Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 1:27 am Post subject: Re: Bizarre DNS problem

mlivingstone · Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 2:18 am Post subject: Re: Bizarre DNS problem

Arg, it's too early in the day to figure out multiple level quotes ;-)

you can use

tracert google.com
nslookup google.com
pathping google.com

in windows.

You can also do

ipconfig/all

to see some settings.

HTH

MarkL

zeek · Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 6:11 am Post subject:

Windows remembers DNS failures for 5 mins. When this happens try flushing the DNS cache with:

ChipB · n00b Joined: 07 Oct 2007 Posts: 6 Location: Pacifica CA

Hi,

Once I had bizzare behavior of DNS where /etc/resolv.conf would be overwritten, disabling DNS, every 5 min.
I fixed it by rebooting. This was one of the very few linux problems I fixed via reboot.

More generally,

You might check your /etc/resolv.conf

Personally, I use openDNS
via

nameserver 208.67.222.222
nameserver 208.67.220.220

generally dhcpcd resets it automatically, so to use a static resolv.conf like I need to turn off the resetting.

Good luck,
Chip

Jiokah · Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 8:26 pm Post subject:

Ok, it happened again just now. Turns out google.com works just fine, but www.google.com doesn't.

nslookup:

Jiokah · Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 3:10 am Post subject:

Ok I know this thread is getting old, but just in case any body gets the same problem as I had, I found the solution.

Turns out the DNS from my ISP (Rogers) is just really, REALLY crappy. So I changed my DNS servers from automatic (from DHCP) to Verizon's DNS servers (4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2). Not only is DNS working good for me now, it's actually insanely fast too, before I always had to wait a second or two for a host to resolve and now it's instant.

Hope this helps someone

-Matthew

mno · Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 7:30 pm Post subject:

If you're a Rogers customer, I'm not sure it's such a good idea to use Verizon's DNS. If that's the case, then I'd suggest you use the OpenDNS alternative, or you can run your own local DNS server...
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Jiokah · Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 8:17 pm Post subject:

Hey thanks for the suggestion, I've switched to OpenDNS. I just found two IP addressed at the bottom of the site in big orange bold text so I presume those are the addresses to use.

Just curious though, why wouldn't verizon be a good idea?

Thanks

masseya · Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 9:16 pm Post subject:

If Verizon isn't your ISP, they don't have a contractual agreement to allow you to use their DNS servers. They may or may not care, but they could simply not respond to you and you would have no recourse.

On the other hand, OpenDNS is a great solution. See this Wired.com article for a couple compelling reasons why.
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