----- "kswan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I will readily acknowledge that the problem is likely due to my
> ignorance.
> 
> I looked at the resolv.conf and it just has three nameserver entries
> that are the same as the rest of my network.  The other machines on
> my
> network are resolving fine, but the server fails.  At this point I
> think caching would add a layer of complexity that would make the
> troubleshooting more difficult.

My opinion, if you are having a intermittent network problem, sometimes
the resolving libraries just decide you are off net and quit resolving
for some timeout period. I have seen this especially with the resolving
library mozilla used. I would have to fully kill mozilla in order to
get it to retry a dns lookup for a zone I was editing.

A caching nameserver would primarily get you up out of a library for
resolving and to a full application that could report it's errors. Not
to mention it would probably be much better for your network performance
to keep your lookups primarily local. Not that you will notice much but
why should your workstations jump fully across the internet when they
are opened up to get the yahoo or cnn address. Especially for each
workstation each time the browser is started. A little effort in local
caching would alleviate some traffic and browser startup time. 
 
> Last night when the DNS wasn't working, I tried to restart
> networking,
> but then ssh stopped working.

Please remember you can restart services without needing to restart
other portions. If you are having trouble with DNS, start by using
host or nslookup depending on the install. Probably host. host takes 2
arguments you will want to work with. First arg is what you want to
lookup. Second arg is the nameserver you are wanting to use for
lookup. You may find that one or more of your nameservers in
resolv.conf is lame and or intermittently broken. When it is used the
machine then fails to try a different nameserver. Using host to try the
same lookup on all three of your nameservers might help you identify
the broken one. Further it might make the case for a local cacheing
dns server anyways so you could deal better with a broken upstream
resolver.

> Another problem that I am having is that sometimes after a reboot
> Samba doesn't work.  I can restart Samba and it will be fine.

Does samba require access to dns? If so, you may be sometimes starting
your dns  queries on the lame dns server and so it fails. 

> I am not saying that Ubuntu Server is a bad distro.  It wouldn't
> surprise me if I screwed it up.

While that may still be the case, have you also checked your
confidence in the hardware. occasional samba failures and occasional
dns failures don't yet fully make me think hardware, but it makes me
wonder.

-- 
Steven Critchfield [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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