mDNSresponder not responding (Debian) :(

theYinYeti · 09-07-2005, 05:14 AM

I installed mDNSresponder, along with libnss-mdns, on my fresh install of Debian 3.1.
- /etc/hostname : nomade
- /etc/nsswitch.conf : hosts: files dns mdns4
- /etc/mDNSresponder.conf : <empty>
- `ifconfig` : eth0: 192.168.1.3
- `route` : 192.168.1.XXX -> eth0, default gw 192.168.1.1 -> eth0
- `ps | grep -i mdnsresponder | wc -l` : 3

Network topology:
PC[eth0=192.168.1.3]<-->[192.168.1.1]MODEM[2xx.xxx.xxx.xxx]<-->Internet

My problem:

Code:

nomade:~# ping nomade
... (82.xxx.xxx.xxx) ...
nomade:~# ping nomade.local
... (82.xxx.xxx.xxx) ...
nomade:~# ping nomade.local.
... (82.xxx.xxx.xxx) ...

I don't know where this 82.xxx.xxx.xxx IP address comes from, but I would at least expect the 192.168.1.3 address to show up from the third try, if not from the second one.

So what's wrong with my config? I need to get this 192... address if I am to be able to ssh/http:... whatever to this box!

Yves.

theYinYeti · 09-07-2005, 01:10 PM

Here's an interesting piece of additional information:

Code:

yves@nomade:~$ ping skldjqmlfsdj
PING skldjqmlfsdj (82.101.8.41) 56(84) bytes of data.

--- skldjqmlfsdj ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 4018ms

Needless to say, host "skldjqmlfsdj" does not exist, which means that 82... is somehow a "default" IP address. Hence we shouldn't probably care too much about it...

besides, neither "/etc/init.d/mdnsresponder stop" nor "killall mDNSResponder" does kill the 3 mDNSResponder processes. The only way to stop them is to "kill -9" them!

Back to square one

What's wrong with mDNSResponder?

Yves

theYinYeti · 09-08-2005, 01:17 PM

Quote:

/etc/nsswitch.conf : hosts: files dns mdns4

Solved!

I changed this to:
/etc/nsswitch.conf : hosts: files mdns4 dns

This is normally not the way to do: mdns should be called after dns when dns has failed. This is in part to avoid unnecessary network traffic.
Unfortunately here, dns never fails. If I issue "ping qqsdjkfghqs", it will still resolve to 82.101.8.41!
So I had to put mdns before dns...

I suspect this is because of Club-Internet's (my ISP) "browsing assistant": whenever you type an address that does not exist in a browser, their page appears saying that the address given does not exist and proposing approaching alternatives. The idea is not bad, really. But I wouldn't be surprised if the IP of the machine hosting this page was 82.101.8.41, and in my case it is a pain.

Yves.

BTW: the "kill -9" issue is a bug known to the Debian maintainer of mDNSResponder, so no need to worry about that.