Well, I managed to get things working despite my ISP. I changed dnscache to forward my ISPs DNS instead of using the root servers, per http://leaf.sourceforge.net/devel/jnilo/dnscache3.html#AEN113. Now I'm able to resolve my mail server, mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com correctly. When I had tried to ping the mail server from XP and failed, this was the error message : Ping request could not find host mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com. Please check the name and try again.
At the moment I'll probably leave well enough alone, but what real problems am I going to have by not using the root name servers and sticking with the ISP name servers? As this exercise shows, one benefit could be that no matter how bad my ISP messes up the name records, I'll always be able to find it.
Thanks again,
John
From: Ray Olszewski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [leaf-user] ISP and DNS issues Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2004 21:30:32 -0800
At 08:32 PM 3/13/2004 -0800, John Wittenberg wrote: [...]when using mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com as the mail server with the LEAF box in place.[...]
Ping tests ---
1) From XP box connected directly to cablemodem -- ping mail.cablespeed.com -- OK ping mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com -- OK receive mail from mail.cablespeed.com -- OK receive mail from mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com -- OK
2) From XP box connected to LEAF box connected to cablemodem ping mail.cablespeed.com -- OK ping mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com -- NO receive mail from mail.cablespeed.com -- OK receive mail from mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com -- NO
3) From Leaf box connected to cablemodem ping mail.cablespeed.com -- OK ping mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com -- OK
For items 2 & 3 above, test the data was the same with config_DNS set to NO and config_DNS set to YES with the ISP DNS ip addrs used. The DNS ip addresses were determined by executing ipconfig /all from the XP box when it was connected directly to the cablemodem (item 1).
Also, if I retreived the ip address 66.235.59.17 from the XP _firewall_
logs during item 1 above. I'm assuming the ISP must be doing some ip translation (?) as the ip addresses discovered by Ray and Michael don't match the 66.235.59.17 address the XP log recorded.
Ben -- As I read this, I **think** your problem is the same as before ... namely, when you are using the LEAF router, your LAN client (the XP host) is NOT NOT NOT using the ISP's DNS servers as forwarders. I may be wrong in this ... your description isn't *quite* complete enough for me to be sure ... but I would check this possibility before I tried anything else.
First, find the XP equivalent of the "host" command and do its equivalent of the following
host -v mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com
Next, please tell us HOW the "ping mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com -- NO" test fails in case 2. The specific error or failure messages ping provides (at least Linux ping, and to some degree Win2K ping, so probably XP ping too) are very informative as to the nature of the problem being encountered. And ping normally reports the IP address it is trying to ping, which would clarify some confusion too.
Then, in test 2, am I right in assuming that the XP host is using dnscache on the LEAF router as its DNS forwarder? If not, what is it using (what is in the XP host's equivalent to /etc/resolv.conf)? If yes, then try changing it so that the XP host uses your ISP's DNS servers and see if that changes the behavior in question.
Finally, when you say "I retreived the ip address 66.235.59.17 from the XP _firewall_" ... do you mean the firewall associates this address with mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com? (Or do you mean something else?)
Checking now:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ host 66.235.59.17 Name: mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com Address: 66.235.59.17
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ host mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com A 216.15.205.76
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ host 216.15.205.76 Name: mail2.evdloh.cablespeed.com Address: 216.15.205.76
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ ping mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com PING mail.bllvwa.cablespeed.com (216.15.205.76): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 216.15.205.76: icmp_seq=0 ttl=46 time=68.7 ms
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ ping 66.235.59.17 PING 66.235.59.17 (66.235.59.17): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 66.235.59.17: icmp_seq=0 ttl=48 time=37.4 ms
Definitely bad DNS setup by the ISP. But leaving it at that is just the "Curse you, darkness!" approach -- you want a fix, not just an explanation. The workaround is probably to make sure all your hosts are using the ISP's DNS servers, either directly or by having dnscache use them as forwarders (can someone who uses dnscache confirm that it can be set up this way?).
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