Possible DNS problem?
 

Hello all! I'm 90 minutes into Ret Hat 9.0. I'm having a problem getting my Linux machine online, and I'd greatly appreciate whatever help anyone can give me.

Here's the situation - I have 2 machines at home. The new machine is running Windows 2000, and has the cable modem directly attached. I have enabled internet connection sharing on it. The second network card in that machine has the static local IP of 192.168.0.1/24.

The old machine was formatted and Red Hat 9.0 has been on it a short while. I gave the Linux box the static IP of 192.168.0.2/24. I set the route correctly as 0.0.0.0 through the gateway of 192.168.0.1.

The Windows box has DHCP for both its outside IP and DNS machines. An NSLOOKUP command reveals that earthlink's DNS machines ae 208.69.188.185 - 208.69.188.187. I have given those 3 DNS addresses to the Linux box.


The Problem:
From the terminal in Linux, I can ping both the other local machine, as well as the mail and web server at my work, so it has internet connection. It can only do this by IP address. If I ask the Linux box to ping those same computers by name, I get no response. I have tried using both the DNS machines from my ISP as well as the DNS machines for my work computers ISP, and both have this result. Interestingly enough, I can't get the traceroute command to do anything. I can ping my work machines, but asking it to traceroute to that same IP it just was able to ping gives the result

1 * * *
2 * * *

all the way up to 30 if I let it sit that long. That same result happens when I try to traceroute from the Linux box to the Windows box over the local network. I would expect I am simply missing a single option somewhere, but I'm clueless at to what that might be, and also where I might find it in Linux. Thanks for your time!

Peace,
Jim

Are you actually putting your ISP's DNS entries in the /etc/resolv.conf file?

No, not directly, I use the system tools -> network in xwindows. So when I looked in /etc/resolv.conf It had the 3 DNS IPs that I had given it. It is using the correct DNS addresses, unless they are found somewhere other than /etc/resolv.conf

question part 2: I went to /etc in the terminal, and entered pico resolv.conf to read the file, it said pico couldn't be found. My boss at work uses pico to read everything (he hates xwindows). Does pico need to be downloaded or specifically installed?

Thanks again,
Jim

You don't need pico installed, its just an easier to use editor.

You can use vi or vim to edit the file.

man vi for more details, etc.

Can you post your resolv.conf file here for clarification? Also can you post your output of the command 'route' ?

contents of /etc/resolv.conf
search jimlinux
nameserver 207.69.188.185
nameserver 207.69.188.186
nameserver 207.69.188.187


and the results of route

Kernel IP routing table

Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
deafult 192.168.0.1 255.255.255.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0
192.168.0.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
169.254.0.0 * 255.255.0.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
127.0.0.0 * 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo
default 192.168.0.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth 0


Sorry, I had to manually copy it down, I don't have file sharing enabled yet. I don't know why default is listed 2 times, and with different Genmasks each time. That might be the source of the problem?

Thanks again for your help
Jim

In your resolv.conf file, remove the line: search jimlinux
And then see if you can resolve names. I personally don't put that in as it's given me problems before, etc.

Another possibility could be the good 'ole redhat firewall settings which using seem to have a dislike for DNS. If your firewall/Lokkit is seems to stop DNS prevent resolution.

If you've got the firewall on turn it off and see it it starts working, if you don't well...then it isn't that then :)

Trickykid got it, it was that initial line in the resolv.conf file. The minute I got that out everything was golden. Of course, I almost needed to post again on how to save and exit a file with vim, but google gave me that answer without too much difficulty. As soon as I get the Red Hat updates, I'm going for pico, my limited experience with vim has already shown me that I don't care for it. Thanks again Trickykid, I'll clikc the icon to give you points for walking me through this!

Take Care,
Jim

Glad that worked for ya. I always leave that out myself as its done the same thing to me in the past. :)