I have a number of PCs connected to the internet via DSL router. They are all set up with static addresses in the 192.168.0.0 network with the router as the gateway.
The problem I'm having is that on the Linux boxes (SuSE 8.2) the DNS lookup is very slow compared to the Windows boxes... e.g. a Windows lookup is almost instantaneous, whereas a Linux lookup can take upwards of 20 seconds. Obviously, this isn't doing my case for switching completely to Linux any favours.

Where should I be looking to sort this out?

Are You sure that your primary name server is set to your ISP dns serve and not your router?

If you don't know, your nameserver(s) are set in the file /etc/resolv.conf. It is always a good idea to have multiple nameservers, preferably choose ones close to you (route wise, not as the crow flies).

/etc/hosts reads:

127.0.0.1 localhost

# special IPv6 addresses
::1 localhost ipv6-localhost ipv6-loopback

fe00::0 ipv6-localnet

ff00::0 ipv6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ipv6-allnodes
ff02::2 ipv6-allrouters
ff02::3 ipv6-allhosts

192.168.1.36 kaltel_dev.local kaltel_dev
192.168.1.52 testkiosk.local testkiosk
192.168.1.50 penguin.local penguin


/etc/resolv.conf reads:

nameserver 159.134.248.17
nameserver 159.134.237.6

which is the same as my windows box.


/etc/host.conf reads:

order hosts, bind
multi on

(I've tried switching multi off, but no change)


/etc/nsswitch.conf reads:

passwd: compat
group: compat

hosts: dns files
networks: dns files

services: files
protocols: files
rpc: files
ethers: files
netmasks: files
netgroup: files
publickey: files

bootparams: files
automount: files nis
aliases: files

(hosts and networks had files and dns in the opposite order, changing to the current config made no difference)

any other files I should check?

after a bit of a sniff with ethereal, it looks like IPv6 translation was the culprit... switch it off and lookups are instantaneous

I turned of IPv6 in /etc/rc.conf (FreeBSD) but dns lookups are still painfully slow. what else could i do?

my windows boxes look up instantly. I am behind a router.
I use freebsd 4.8