[SOLVED] Firefox cannot access some sites

[denaje]

The problem: For some sites (a consistent but annoyingly large set), Firefox displays the message: "Server not found Firefox can't find the server at xxxx".

For example: I can access forums.gentoo.org, but I cannot access gentoo.org. This behavior is always consistent across reboots.

I am not sure where the problem lies because of these facts:

1. It only occurs at my current internet connection (at home), not at any other internet connection
2. It only occurs on my Gentoo desktop (other computers on the same internet connection are able to access the sites just fine)
3. It only occurs in Gentoo (not my dual-boot Windows)
4. It only occurs in Firefox (Konqueror works fine, but Firefox on other machines works fine as well. The problem also persists among several versions of Firefox.)

So I'm guessing it's most likely a Firefox problem, but it may also be a Gentoo problem, and I thought I'd give it a shot on the forums here since they've been so helpful in the past.

I am using:

• Kernel 2.6.29-r5
• x86_64 Gentoo
• Firefox-bin 3.5.1

I have tried renaming/moving my ~/.mozilla directory, but that did not solve the problem. The problem exists on mozilla-firefox and mozilla-firefox-bin (64 bit and 32 bit, respectively). My /etc/hosts file has nothing but the default localhost lines in it. I figured it might be a DNS problem, but I'm not well versed in that area.

Any ideas? Is there any more info I can provide that would be of more use?

[civilian]

To check if it is a DNS problem try editing /etc/resolv.conf.
My DNS servers' (iBurst in SA) IP is 196.2.97.234 and 196.46.70.10, but I'm not sure if you would be allowed to connect from the outside.

[cach0rr0]

gotta be careful with south african DNS servers, a mere sneeze occupies the entire country's bandwidth

Spot on though, this is DNS

you can use the following publically reachable/accessible DNS servers if nothing else as a test

[civilian]

True about SA bandwidth. Also iBurst's systems might give you different problems, so rather try more reliable DNS servers.

According to /etc/resolv.conf, you can also permanently add the nameserver lines to /etc/resolv.conf.head and /etc/resolv.conf.tail, but I have not tested it yet.

[denaje]

Yep, that was exactly the problem. I tried cach0rr0's temporary fix, and it worked. I also tried using my router's DNS information, and it works too.

Now the question is about a more permanent fix. Are you saying that the problem is my router not providing the DNS information to the client? I see an option for obtaining DNS information automatically, but nothing about providing DNS nameservers to clients. Is this something I configure in the router or in Gentoo? (It's a DHCP setup, not static addresses.)

[civilian]

Actually, I think the DNS server is the problem. I learned of this kind of problem when my ISP's DNS servers were giving problems.

If you're using DHCP then your router should set itself as the DNS server, and then just forward any DNS request to its DNS server.
In my case DHCP sets my resolv.conf to 192.168.0.1.

Try setting it in /etc/resolv.conf.head or /etc/conf.d/net.
If you can afford it, you can try waiting, since the DNS server should get fixed at some point.

[denaje]

[civilian]

[cach0rr0]

all routers are different i suppose, but on mine - Linksys WRT54GS - you can tell it which DNS servers to push out via DHCP.

On mine I use what I've mentioned above.
Of course, I do a bit of cheapie content filtering for DHCP clients since I have my nieces and nephews over occasionally, so I need a way to bypass OpenDNS (208.67.22x.22x) for myself.

To do this:

laptop01 logs # cat /etc/dhcp/dhclient.conf

[denaje]

Thanks, I think I got it figured out. As far as I could tell, resolv.conf.head is only used by dhcpd, not dhclient (which is what I use). I added a