Topic: DNS Problem

[dragasoni]

I'm using SME 6.0 as a proxy, web server, and email server at home.  My question is, does this SME Server pull the DNS information from my ISP via the cable modem while booting up?

Right now, I can ping my server but I cannot pull up the website it hosts or download my email form it.  I can telnet into port 80 from here, so I know it's not a firewall issue.

Last night it was taking a very long time to get an IP address from this server (almost 5 minutes).  I ran a check disk, and it failed.  I rebooted, ran the check disk again and it passed and booted up.  Everything start working and kept working for about 3 hours and than it died again.

Any ideas?  I'm at a loss because the server boots up normally with no error messages now.  The server can access the internet also.

-Dragasoni-

[kruhm]

if you have a firewall between your sme and the internet you need to run through the admin console again and put in the dns servers of your isp.

ssh
user: admin
pass: <password>

[CharlieBrady]

if you have a firewall between your sme and the internet you need to run through the admin console again and put in the dns servers of your isp.

No, in general, you do not. There's very, very rarely any need to specify dns servers. The SME server includes a DNS resolver which queries the root name servers on the Internet. It's almost certain to do as good a job, and often a better job, than the ISP's DNS resolvers.

The only time when you would need to enter your ISP's DNS resolver addresses is if they block outside DNS queries and force you to use their own DNS resolvers. If you strike that case, I'd look for another ISP

[CharlieBrady]

I'm using SME 6.0 as a proxy, web server, and email server at home.  My question is, does this SME Server pull the DNS information from my ISP via the cable modem while booting up?

No, it doesn't need to. The server includes a DNS resolver which gets DNS information directly from the authoritative name servers for each domain you access.

Right now, I can ping my server but I cannot pull up the website it hosts or download my email form it.  I can telnet into port 80 from here, so I know it's not a firewall issue.

Are you trying to access it from your home LAN, or from somewhere out on the Internet? What exactly happens when you try to access a website hosted on your server? How are you trying to download email from it?

Last night it was taking a very long time to get an IP address from this server (almost 5 minutes).

How were you trying to "get an IP address"? And where were you trying to "get an IP address?

I ran a check disk, and it failed.

Ran a check disk on what? How did you run "a check disk"? What exactly does "it failed" mean?

I rebooted, ran the check disk again and it passed and booted up.  Everything start working and kept working for about 3 hours and than it died again.

What exactly does "it died" mean?

People here will be more likely be able to help you if you can explain carefully what you are trying to do, what you expect, and what you see.

I find there's good advice here:

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

[CharlieBrady]

Right now, I can ping my server but I cannot pull up the website it hosts or download my email form it.

I don't think that "DNS Problem" accurately describes the problems you are reporting.

I can telnet into port 80 from here, so I know it's not a firewall issue.

If there is a transparent HTTP proxy between you and the server then being able to connect via telnet doesn't indicate that port 80 isn't blocked. It only means that you can connect to the proxy, which then might not be able to connect to your server.

[kruhm]

OK, let me rephrase.

The original post doesn't give enought specific info as to the situtation & setup of SME (server only or gateway).

My post was to get more information from the original poster and take a quick stab at diagnostic/solution.

In my case (server-only), I orginially had the SME running fine. Then the DNS began to give me problems (Slow web pages/no web pages). The only way to fix it was to type in the DNS's of my ISP. http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=26915.msg110423#msg110423 Since I asked the question and no one replied, i have nothing else to go on.

You can try this as a possible solution.

I know the SME isn't suppose to need it but for me, in my experience, it was the only way to get it working.

If someone else is in the same situation and experiencing the same problem, they should give it a shot.

[dilligaf]

if you have a firewall between your sme and the internet you need to run through the admin console again and put in the dns servers of your isp.

No, in general, you do not. There's very, very rarely any need to specify dns servers. The SME server includes a DNS resolver which queries the root name servers on the Internet. It's almost certain to do as good a job, and often a better job, than the ISP's DNS resolvers.

The only time when you would need to enter your ISP's DNS resolver addresses is if they block outside DNS queries and force you to use their own DNS resolvers. If you strike that case, I'd look for another ISP

Charlie,
If you have the SME as the firewall/gateway, and a Win2K3 server behind it, and they tell you that in the Win2K3 server you need to use it's internal DNS for the clients, BUT to set up a "forwarder" that is the ISP DNS, are you saying the same result would be achieved by setting the IP of the SMEServer as the forwarder?