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A possible solution for failed DNS lookups on 10.3
Authored by: gidds on Nov 08, '04 01:33:44PM

I'm still on 10.2.8, so I haven't hit this problem. But I've had a similar one, so I know a little about this sort of thing.

Firstly, in the example above, 192.168.1.1 is the local address of your router. That won't be the right number for everyone; for example, mine's 192.168.7.1. But it'll be the address from the Network preferences 'Router' field; it'll usually begin with 192 or 10.

Secondly, a bit about what's going on. DNS stands for Domain Name Server; it's what computers use to translate hostnames like 'www.bbc.co.uk' into numeric IP addresses like 212.58.224.81, which they can then access directly.

Your ISP will usually provide a DNS server or two you can use; you can put those addresses straight into the list in Network preferences. However, I hit one issue: what if your ISP changes its DNS servers? In my case, my Mac was still calling the old ones and getting no response, so it couldn't find any web sites...

However, I found an alternative. Some routers (maybe all, I dunno) can get the DNS server addresses directly from your ISP, and can then act as a DNS server themselves, forwarding on queries as needed. I gather this is called 'DNS Relay'.

This is what this hint is doing. If your router supports DNS Relay, then you can put its (local) address into the DNS Servers list, and let it worry about finding out where your ISP's servers are, &c. That's all you need to change; and it seems to be a Good Idea(tm) whether you're having the 10.3 problem or not!

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Andy/



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A possible solution for failed DNS lookups on 10.3
Authored by: bjackson on Nov 09, '04 12:41:07AM

Not to nit-pick, but DNS stands for "Domain Name System", the complete system of hierarchical domain name servers on the Internet.

DNS relay is fine, but hard coding your name servers shouldn't be that bad either (ISPs shouldn't be changing them too often!)

The other thing you can do is run BIND or DJBDNS locally and do your own queries.

Brian

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Brian Jackson
b.k.jackson@mac.com
http://www.brian-jackson.net



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