Topic: PPoE and DNS

[Dean the hopeless]

OK here is a really stupid problem. I have been connected to Telstra ADSL service for 18months now. Had a record of 41 days uptime until last night. When I was disconnected and reconnected. Since then things have gone crazy! According to telstra they have introduced a new IP range, instead of getting a 144. address I now get a 203. address. This in its own right should not be a problem, but according to Telstra I now have to manually enter the DNS server addresses. How can I do this with e-smith. At the moment I can get the rest of my network on the internet by manually entering the DNS server on each and every client. As you can see this is not really a good solution

[Charlie Brady]

Dean the hopeless wrote:

> This in its own right should not be a problem, but according to
> Telstra I now have to manually enter the DNS server addresses.

You shouldn't need to do that.

> How can I do this with e-smith. At the moment I can get the rest of
> my network on the internet by manually entering the DNS
> server on each and every client.

It sounds as tough they might be blocking ougoing DNS packets to anything other than their DNS server. Log in as "admin" on the console and through the configurations screens of the console. Set a Master DNS setting.

Regards

Charlie

[Dean the hopeless]

sorry Charlie, but like my name implies "I am dean the hopless" (it isn't from lack or trying though)

just how do I set a master DNS in the console?

thanks in advance

[Dan Brown]

http://edocs.mitel.com/6000_SME_Server/smeserveruserguide/English/configmisc.html

[Dave]

I have a similar issue...  I'm using ameritech ADSL (their service until the last few weeks has been horrible, frequent outages, sometimes for days), and I have a static IP so I can host web sites.  I use worldwidedns.net as my DNS service for my sites and they list 2 name servers.  When I enter those IP's in my DHCP server, I loose name resolution from all the DHCP clients on my network.  I use the name servers that ameritech plugs in during authentication and everything works (it's PPPoE authentication, essentially my gateway - SME - is a DHCP client but it always issues my static IP).

This leads to a couple questions:
What would be the advantage of a service provider blocking outgoing DNS requests, those destined to name servers outside the ameritech network?

The other question is not really related, but how can I see what my connection stats are?  I don't subscribe to the Mitel services but I do use SME Server as my gateway.  I want to be able to track internet outages - when my connection goes down and for how long.  I don't know if I've been able to stay connected 24/7 for the last week and a half, if I have, it's a new record (I put SME online a week ago last Sunday).  Outages have normally begun late in the evening and extended into the morning hours.  Prior to using SME, I used WinNT with WinRoute and their Enternet client.  A reconnect required manual intervention, I'm guessing SME will reconnect when service is restored.  I've checked logs from the administration interface but I don't see anything specific to connectivity (unless it's normally there and I haven't experienced any outages).