Greetings.

Having a super frustrating time figuring out what I am doing.

Here is the scenario.

I am running SUSE 8.0. I would like to set up an internal
DNS server so that all machines internal to my network will
know how to find the webserver.

The webserver works fine from the outside world, the whole issue
is for internal machines.

When an internal machine tries to look at a webpage, it goes out
to the nameserver on my ISP, and comes back and tells it to
go to another internal machine. All this crossing of the Cisco
back and forth causes the source and destination packets to
get goofy, and it winds up pointing me to my Router instead of
my webserver (even though, remember, the server works fine
on port 80 from the outside world).

Ergo, according to Cisco, what I want to do is setup an internal
DNS server, so that internal machines go to the internal DNS
server first, and never have to cross out into the cold cruel
network world... they just stay inside.

I have the webserver listed on the /etc/hosts list,
and have "files" listed first in the conf file, but it still ain't doin
it's thing.

Ideas? Ack....

What do you mean by this? Do you have only entries in /etc/hosts? Do you have BIND or any other DNS server installed?

In your case, I don't think you need DNS server. It's much easier, in my opinion, to make a file like /etc/hosts (in Windows its HOSTS, but you need to search for the path), insert your web server name and IP and give a copy to every machine in your local network.
DNS server is better in many cases (you don't need to copy the file to every new machine), but it takes processor and memory.

Yes, I have BIND installed

My issue also involved virtual hosts
defined in apache.

If it were only the Linux machine that were requiring
the webserver access, it wouldn't much matter, but
there are varying Windows clients as well, so wouldn't
setting my linux box up as a DNS server, and pointing
to it as the primary DNS server on all internal
boxes of every flavor be the most efficient way of doing it?

Are you suggesting that I would simply add the
virtual hosts to an /etc/host file and it would
be sufficient?

Sorry for my confused state, I blame it on my upbringing.

;-)

If there are many machines and many virtual hosts, BIND is an easier solution. It's just a matter of the number of machines...

Quote:

Are you suggesting that I would simply add the virtual hosts to an /etc/host file and it would be sufficient?

Yes, it would be.

If you plan to use DNS, make sure you have /etc/named.conf, right zone files etc. What does not work? Any error messages?

Mara's suggestion would have been great, until you mention the virtual hosts. If you have a large number of hosts / clients then yes, setting up your own internal dns would be beneficial and eventually less work than updating multiple host files on various machines.

I just got through some of what you're covering in another thread. You might want to read through it and look at the various links that crop up - they explain what you're looking to do :

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=50864

However... this :

>All this crossing of the Cisco back and forth causes the source and destination packets to get goofy,

worries me. This should *NOT* happen, and leads me to believe that it's less the 'traffic' which is goofy and more your cisco router / network configuration.

In fact, it sounds more to me like you've had the wool pulled over your eyes and some techy has attempted to cut short his support call with some fluff about 'NAT'ing and /or source routing'. While the solution proposed to you should work the above should *never* happen and serves only to avoid the problem rather than solve it.

Slick.

Ok, farther along. Still not there though.

Here are the issues left to resolve at this point.

1. Something is amiss with my CNAME definitions, but I don't
know what. Internal machines can go to the
www.blah.com virtual websites from Apache no problem,
but if you try to go to http://blah.com, it goes to the
default website. Now this is the case with each and every
one of my virtual sites, so its a config issue in the zone db
files (I assume). No errors in the messages, and when I
do an nslookup on them both (www.blah.com, blah.com)
they both point to the same IP address properly, just
something in my CNAME apparently ain't doin the thing because
they both work fine from EXTERNALLY out on the internet.


AND....


2. My Win2K machines internal to the network are pointed to
my Linux DNS machine, and apparently are using it fine,
but since i have the DNS server defined as 10.10.10.9,
it lists the server on nslookup as "UnKnown".

I tried creating an lmhosts file on the box, but either I don't
know what the heck I am doing, or I am barking up the wrong
tree. How do I go about defining local 10.10.10.X addresses
to my Windows boxes?

No need to reply. I found my error.

In my virtual host setup in Apache, I had neglected to
set the ServerAlias flag.

Doing so, fixed my problem.

Thanks much for your help!