Topic: no access to a particular website

[mastr]

Here at school we use the SME server together with Windows XP Prof clients. Our SME server is also DNS server.
We can't access the Dutch wikipedia site (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoofdpagina).
Error messages:
"unable to determine IP address from hostname for ...", "no DNS records" or "server failure: the name server was unable to process this query".

This is strange because:
- we reach all other kind of sites; f.i. also the English wikipedia site (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page), and the Italian, ...;
- I can reach the Dutch site at home;
- in a PC-class which is not connected through our SME server, there was also access.

First, we contact the webmaster of the Dutch wikipedia site. He could only think of our IP address being rejected by them, but this was not the case.

Can the reason be found in the SME server? I already looked around on the site. Can anyone help?
Thanks,
Marleen

[raem]

mastr

> We can't access the Dutch wikipedia site
> (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoofdpagina).

I get
While trying to retrieve the URL: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoofdpagina
The following error was encountered:
Unable to determine IP address from host name for nl.wikipedia.org
The dnsserver returned:
Server Failure: The name server was unable to process this query.
This means that:
The cache was not able to resolve the hostname presented in the URL.
Check if the address is correct.


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

resolves OK

Probably there is a problem with the Dutch site ??

[svangool]

Hello,

No poblem here with  http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoofdpagina (Non-sme system).

Sjef.

[jackl]

Hi all

Reached www.nl.wikipedia.org ok using IE6 through SBS 2000 system.
Could not through our SME server.
Got similar results using ping and host commands.
Can ping wikipedia.org ok but not nl.wikipedia.org
Most unusual.

Regards
Jack

  Sorry correction www.nl.wikipedia.org should have read http://nl.wikipedia.org  

[CharlieBrady]

Hello,

No poblem here with  http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoofdpagina (Non-sme system).

Sjef.

No problem here with http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoofdpagina (SME system).

www.nl.wikipedia.org doesn't resolve.

[dallas]

Hmm... I have the same problem with www.ibiblio.org. If I do an nslookup - can't resolve. If I point nslookup to a public DNS - no problem. Strang??
Dallas

[mastr]

No problem with www.ibiblio.org
but still with nl.wikipedia.org.

Starting from en.wikipedia.org, and choosing for other languages, I can reach all kind of languages except the Dutch one.
(And Dutch is my mother language.)

[stiperstones]

Just tried this with 6.0.1 with update script applied and http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoofdpagina would not resolve.

Tried on base 6.0.1 no updates and resolves ok a little head scratching required.

[svangool]

@stiperstones

Maybe the problem is related to something I'm experiencing already a few months.

If not too much trouble (assuming you have two systems available) could you test www.nu.nl or www.ilse.nl and check if all the ads are showing. At my sme6.01 (partially updated) the ads won't show, neither under windows or linux work-station, so it must be server related. The ads on those pages time-out, which slows down the presentation of those web-pages a lot.

Maybe it is related to the following (but I can't make the link with an app on the SME system, I also cleaned my squid cache and even disabled it), these ads are served by the falkag.net servers, those servers were contaminated for a few hours in November 2004 with an app that distributed the I-Frame Exploit by advertisements.

Any ideas?

Sjef

[stiperstones]

Can not access either domain with 6.0.01 with update's applied do not have time to put test server on front end tonight will try sun/mon.

[svangool]

Thanks!

What do you mean by "Can not access", are the web-sites not shown at all or are certain parts not shown (after a long delay)?

Sjef

[stiperstones]

nothing appears after aprox 180 secs on 1mb broadband

[svangool]

On my sme 6.01 system:

http://www.nu.nl takes 200 seconds and then shows that some regions of the frames have timed out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page no problem
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoofdpagina "can't find server or DNS problem"

Could this be a DNS server problem (ISP Caiway.nl)?

Tried Linux and Windows workstation.

Sjef.

[KelvinLee]

I had similar problems with certain domains before with SME 5.6. Problem gets fixed if bind gets updated. I tested http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoofdpagina on my SME 5.6 server with the updated bind and it works just fine.

SME > 5.6 does not use bind (so don't try to update bind if you are using SME > 5.6 )

Kelvin

[stiperstones]

How come i are getting redirected here when i change http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoofdpagina to http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoofdpagina and then then click on the link hoofdpagina then look at the edit page and see #REDIRECT [[Main_Page]] on the edit.

[mastr]

To stiperstones: I tried http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoofdpagina. In fact you reach the English main page, not the Dutch one.

To svangool: I tried http://www.nu.nl and http://www.ilse.nl and have the same problem. But with http://nl.wikipedia.org it's a bit different. It's indeed rather a DNS problem.

I looked at the dns logfile from our server (SME 6.0) and extract some lines. Can someone help me to understand? Or does someone see the problem?
Sorry for the long message.

@400000004277741a249b5c5c query 177383 c0a80578:040a:0014 1 nl.wikipedia.org.
@400000004277741a249c5274 cached cname nl.wikipedia.org. wikipedia.geo.blitzed.org.
@400000004277741a249c6214 tx 0 1 wikipedia.geo.blitzed.org. . c1000e81 c021040c c620400c c0702404 8009006b c03a801e 803f0235 c6290004 c0cbe60a c00505f1 c0249411 ca0c1b21 80080a5a
@400000004277741a272a3ccc rr c1000e81 172800 1 tld1.ultradns.net. cc4a7001
@400000004277741a272ab9cc rr c1000e81 172800 1 tld2.ultradns.net. cc4a7101
@400000004277741a272b2344 rr c1000e81 172800 1 tld3.ultradns.org. c7074201
@400000004277741a272b2efc rr c1000e81 172800 1 tld4.ultradns.org. c7074301
@400000004277741a272ba42c rr c1000e81 172800 1 tld5.ultradns.info. c0643b0b
@400000004277741a272bb3cc rr c1000e81 172800 1 tld6.ultradns.co.uk. c685c70b
@400000004277741a272c195c rr c1000e81 172800 ns org. tld1.ultradns.net.
@400000004277741a272c2514 rr c1000e81 172800 ns org. tld2.ultradns.net.
@400000004277741a272c9a44 rr c1000e81 172800 ns org. tld3.ultradns.org.
@400000004277741a272ca5fc rr c1000e81 172800 ns org. tld4.ultradns.org.
@400000004277741a272cb1b4 rr c1000e81 172800 ns org. tld5.ultradns.info.
@400000004277741a272cbd6c rr c1000e81 172800 ns org. tld6.ultradns.co.uk.
@400000004277741a272e1cfc stats 177383 122980857 77 0
@400000004277741a272e28b4 cached 1 tld1.ultradns.net.
@400000004277741a272e3084 cached 1 tld2.ultradns.net.
@400000004277741a272e3854 cached 1 tld3.ultradns.org.
@400000004277741a272e440c cached 1 tld4.ultradns.org.
@400000004277741a272e4bdc cached 1 tld5.ultradns.info.
@400000004277741a272e53ac cached 1 tld6.ultradns.co.uk.
@400000004277741a272ebd24 tx 0 1 wikipedia.geo.blitzed.org. org. c685c70b cc4a7101 cc4a7001 c0643b0b c7074301 c7074201
...
@400000004277741a29dca2fc rr c685c70b 86400 ns blitzed.org. sou.nameserver.net.
@400000004277741a29dd182c rr c685c70b 86400 ns blitzed.org. sjc.nameserver.net.
@400000004277741a29dd23e4 rr c685c70b 86400 ns blitzed.org. phl.nameserver.net.
@400000004277741a29dd2f9c rr c685c70b 86400 ns blitzed.org. iad.nameserver.net.
@400000004277741a29dd9914 rr c685c70b 86400 ns blitzed.org. bos.nameserver.net.
...
@400000004277741a29de0674 cached 1 sou.nameserver.net.
@400000004277741a29de0e44 cached 1 sjc.nameserver.net.
@400000004277741a29de73d4 cached 1 phl.nameserver.net.
@400000004277741a29de7ba4 cached 1 iad.nameserver.net.
@400000004277741a29de875c cached 1 bos.nameserver.net.
@400000004277741a29dee904 tx 0 1 wikipedia.geo.blitzed.org. blitzed.org. c094fcab cb143405 c2c4a307 d81bb809 c2c4a307 40154fa2
@400000004277741a2cecc544 servfail wikipedia.geo.blitzed.org. input/output error
...
@400000004277741a30f1888c rr c094fcab 86400 1 ns0.blitzed.org. 52c3ea05
@400000004277741a30f22c9c rr c094fcab 86400 1 ns1.blitzed.org. d5c1e1fc
@400000004277741a30f23854 rr c094fcab 86400 1 ns2.blitzed.org. 455d059c
@400000004277741a30f29de4 rr c094fcab 86400 ns geo.blitzed.org. ns0.blitzed.org.
@400000004277741a30f2ad84 rr c094fcab 86400 ns geo.blitzed.org. ns1.blitzed.org.
@400000004277741a30f31314 rr c094fcab 86400 ns geo.blitzed.org. ns2.blitzed.org.
...
@400000004277741a30f38074 cached 1 ns0.blitzed.org.
@400000004277741a30f38c2c cached 1 ns1.blitzed.org.
@400000004277741a30f3edd4 cached 1 ns2.blitzed.org.
@400000004277741a30f3f5a4 tx 0 1 wikipedia.geo.blitzed.org. geo.blitzed.org. 52c3ea05 455d059c d5c1e1fc
...
@400000004277743c1f528054 sent 177383 70

[Ness]

For a while I had a problem where emails were not being sent (they were just sitting in the outbound queue for ages and I saw "CNAME_lookup_failed_temporarily" in the log file.

While searching for help on my problem, I also saw and (for some reason) remembered this posting about the "http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoofdpagina" problem.

After a while, I did find a posting about my "CNAME_lookup_failed_temporarily" issue and found that a tinyDNS update might help. I found it and applied it - it worked but I also found the second problem had also had gone away! Hmmm...

Maybe a coincidence but it might be worth a look at the updated RPM for tinyDNS.

Some kind soul will provide a link to the latest ver for your SME load.

Hope really hope this posting is not a red-herring for anyone though! If it is, I apologise in advance

Chris

[bugme]

This is exactly the problem we have currently, so i'm glad to see that the topic exists.

Unfortunately, it looks like the topic has 'dead ended' with no solution or feedback as to a fix.


We are running SME 6.0.1 and have SA and ClamAV (Swerts-Knudsen contribs).

I suspect squid, as I have seen problems with web site caching back in SME 5.5.

tried disabling squid and restarting SME server with no luck.

How can I determine if squid allows a certain IP or hostname?

Prior to finding this topic, I tried adding a ibay virtual domain and hostnames to remote IP address with no cure.

Update tinyDNS? That was the last suggestion posted on this topic, but no feedback or results?

Is that the DNSd running on 6.0.1?
Where should I get it from?
URL? do a google? any RPM is ok to install? Install instructions?

Thanks.

[svangool]

My feedback: I still have no luck with the sites I mentioned before, I started to live with it profiting from the other positive things SME delivers.

Sjef.

[CharlieBrady]

After a while, I did find a posting about my "CNAME_lookup_failed_temporarily" issue and found that a tinyDNS update might help. I found it and applied it - it worked but I also found the second problem had also had gone away!

Do you perhaps mean an e-smith-dnscache update? I don't know of any tinydns update, or even any tinydns RPM. But there is an updated e-smith-dnscache.

If "rpm -q e-smith-dnsache" does not show that you have 0.3.0-04 installed, then do:

T=http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/e-smith/devel
rpm -Uhv $T/RPMS/noarch/e-smith-dnscache-0.3.0-04.noarch.rpm
/etc/e-smith/events/actions/dnscache-conf

[svangool]

CharlieBrady wrote:

If "rpm -q e-smith-dnsache" does not show that you have 0.3.0-04 installed, then do ...

My system says: "package e-smith-dnsache is not installed"

Sjef.

[CharlieBrady]

CharlieBrady wrote:

If "rpm -q e-smith-dnsache" does not show that you have 0.3.0-04 installed, then do ...

My system says: "package e-smith-dnsache is not installed"

It would help if I spelled correctly. Try e-smith-dnscache.

[svangool]

CharleyBradey wrote:

It would help if I spelled correctly. Try e-smith-dnscache.

Duh, I could have seen that my self but I copied and pasted, now my system says: e-smith-dnscache-0.2.0-01

Sjef

[CharlieBrady]

CharleyBradey wrote:

It would help if I spelled correctly. Try e-smith-dnscache.

Duh, I could have seen that my self but I copied and pasted, now my system says: e-smith-dnscache-0.2.0-01

You need to apply the update. So does everyone else who wants to have reliable DNS resolution.

[svangool]

That worked!
www.nu.nl works normal now.

The wikipedia page still comes up in english but http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoofdpagina does it right, I guess this has something to do with the country settings of my internet browser.

Thanks

Sjef

[raem]

Charlie

> You need to apply the update. So does everyone
> else who wants to have reliable DNS resolution.

Thanks Charlie, I can also confirm that upgrading that rpm does fix the earlier mentioned site access problems.

[bugme]

I was encouraged that sjef got results from updating dnscache to 0.3.0-04 as charliebrady instructed.

So I too tried it, but could not get charlie's commands to work.

So i just went to
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/e-smith/devel/RPMS/noarch/
manually downloaded the rpm, then ftp'd the file to the SME and ran the install command:
rpm -Uvh e-smith-dnscache-0.3.0-04.noarch.rpm
and it said preparing and went to 100%

so i did:
rpm -q e-smith-dnscache
and it responded:
e-smith-dnscache-0.3.0-04

instead of the previous 0.2.0-01 version so i'm good?


I noticed that ibiblio also had a few newer 2005 versions of dnscache (0.5.0-03 & -07) are those not recommended for SME 6.0?


Unfortunately, its still not working for us, it now oddly sends us to a 'placeholder' web page of unknown origin...

do i need to reboot, or reset/clear cache or ?


I originally thought it to be a squid problem, but its related to dnscache? interesting.

Thanks.

[bugme]

ok, we got some real problems now.
nobody in the office can get online now.

after rebooting SME, to see if that would improve the just installed dnscache 0.3.0, we cannot resolve any domains.

i can ping ip addresses ok, but cannot ping any web sites, etc.

same situation using firefox.

how do i fix it? where do i begin? crap.

Thanks.

[Ness]

Do you perhaps mean an e-smith-dnscache update? I don't know of any tinydns update, or even any tinydns RPM. But there is an updated e-smith-dnscache.

If "rpm -q e-smith-dnsache" does not show that you have 0.3.0-04 installed, then do:

T=http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/e-smith/devel
rpm -Uhv $T/RPMS/noarch/e-smith-dnscache-0.3.0-04.noarch.rpm
/etc/e-smith/events/actions/dnscache-conf

In fact I found :

e-smith-tinydns-0.5.0-13.noarch.rpm

Whether applying this as an upgrade fixed it or if the action was a fluke, I don't know, but it worked.

Chris

[raem]

bugme

Did you also run this command as advised by Charlie ?

/etc/e-smith/events/actions/dnscache-conf

You will also need to clear the cache of your browsers and Charlie also provided this link to tell us all how to do that
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bypass_your_cache

[bugme]

thanks raymitchell.

i was doing the upgrade based on a printout of the postings, and the way that the contribs web pages print out poorly, because of the excessive menu column frame on the left, had word wrapped charlies 3 lines of instructions, making it incomprehensible for me.

i ran the 3rd command dnscache-conf as you mentioned, and we're back in action. sort of.

we tried the websites of problem, and they're still not working, so we're back to square 1.

I tried to update to dnscache-0.5.0-07 but it told me i need a lib file update dependency, which i tried to do, then the lib needed a perl and so on.

now i know what they mean when some users complain about linux dependency hassles.

So i tried to do the tinydns-0.5.0-13 update and that took, and i did a /etc/e-smith/events/actions/tinydns-conf command afterwards to be sure, and seems ok.

what is that conf command for anyway?

Should I do the dnscache-0.5.0-07 to see if that will solve our problem not accessing www.nissan-usa.com?

where do i get the perl PAM thingy?

We did the browser cache bypass/clearing wiki you pointed us to and that didnt matter.

Thanks.


[root]# rpm -Uvh e-smith-dnscache-0.5.0-07.noarch.rpm
error: failed dependencies:
        e-smith-lib >= 1.15.1-19 is needed by e-smith-dnscache-0.5.0-07

[root]# rpm -Uvh e-smith-tinydns-0.5.0-13.noarch.rpm
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:e-smith-tinydns        ########################################### [100%]
[root@qube root]# /etc/e-smith/events/actions/tinydns-conf

[root@qube root]# rpm -Uvh e-smith-lib-1.15.1-36.noarch.rpm  
error: failed dependencies:
        perl(Authen::PAM) is needed by e-smith-lib-1.15.1-36

[bugme]

thanks raymitchell.

i was doing the upgrade based on a printout of the postings, and the way that the contribs web pages print out poorly, because of the excessive menu column frame on the left, had word wrapped charlies 3 lines of instructions, making it incomprehensible for me.

i ran the 3rd command dnscache-conf as you mentioned, and we're back in action. sort of.

we tried the websites of problem, and they're still not working, so we're back to square 1.

I tried to update to dnscache-0.5.0-07 but it told me i need a lib file update dependency, which i tried to do, then the lib needed a perl and so on.

now i know what they mean when some users complain about linux dependency hassles.

So i tried to do the tinydns-0.5.0-13 update and that took, and i did a /etc/e-smith/events/actions/tinydns-conf command afterwards to be sure, and seems ok.

what is that conf command for anyway?

Should I do the dnscache-0.5.0-07 to see if that will solve our problem not accessing www.nissan-usa.com?

where do i get the perl PAM thingy?

We did the browser cache bypass/clearing wiki you pointed us to and that didnt matter.

Thanks.


[root]# rpm -Uvh e-smith-dnscache-0.5.0-07.noarch.rpm
error: failed dependencies:
        e-smith-lib >= 1.15.1-19 is needed by e-smith-dnscache-0.5.0-07

[root]# rpm -Uvh e-smith-tinydns-0.5.0-13.noarch.rpm
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:e-smith-tinydns        ########################################### [100%]
[root@qube root]# /etc/e-smith/events/actions/tinydns-conf

[root@qube root]# rpm -Uvh e-smith-lib-1.15.1-36.noarch.rpm  
error: failed dependencies:
        perl(Authen::PAM) is needed by e-smith-lib-1.15.1-36

[CharlieBrady]

In fact I found :

e-smith-tinydns-0.5.0-13.noarch.rpm

Thanks for SME 7. Don't try to use that.

[raem]

bugme

> making it incomprehensible for me.

If you don't understand what you are doing then you should not be doing it.
At least learn the basics of an instruction like the one Charlie posted and then you will be able to more accurately interpret/read what the command is.

Read some of the many howtos that are around to see what the sequence of events is.

I would advise against randomly installing other rpms just because they are there and have a newer version number and look like they might do something for you. As Charlie said, that rpm is for sme7 and will most likely cause problems on other version sme servers.

Uninstall the newer
e-smith-tinydns-0.5.0-13.noarch.rpm
and reinstall the earlier version from the CD.

You should always look at the changelog of an rpm before installing it to see what version it is for and what changes have been made etc & whether they are applicable to your situation.

You can do this a number of ways. An easy one is to use mc, highlight the file, press enter and then select info/changelog/view

do man rpm to find out more about using the rpm command in many ways.

The command of Charlies was really 2 parts, one to download the file from a site and the second to expand templates, configure and restart services etc (very generally speaking).

If in doubt for any situation you can always do
/sbin/e-smith/signal-event post-upgrade
/sbin/e-smith/signal-event reboot


> .... they're still not working...

Not working is very poor information, it tells us nothing. You need to give the exact error message you receive.

You have possibly stuffed things up by installing other unneccessary (and wrong) rpms).

In my case after updating the e-smith-dnsache rpm and running the conf command and clearimg the browsers caches, the non working sites then worked OK for me.


> now i know what they mean when some users complain > about linux dependency hassles.

Especially users who don't know what they are doing !

If you are getting those sorts of problems then you are generally installing something wrongly or inappropriately.
Most released rpms packages will also have the required dependencies with them, so if they don't then you are on your own and need to know what you are doing.
It just means that a certain rpm requires other rpms in order to function, and the rpm command is advising you of that (and protecting you too). You would need to manually locate those other dependent rpms and install those too, and in the correct order.

By having all the required rpms in the same folder and issuing a rpm -Uvh *.rpm
then the rpm command will install them in the correct order and take care of depedency issues.

Only do this though if you understand what and why you are doing it. If you don't iunderstand it then you probably should not be doing it.


> did the browser cache clearing & that didnt matter.

I think that was your remaining problem, after clearing (Ctrl F5 etc) try restarting your browser.

Here's what I have on my sme 6.0 server

rpm -q e-smith-dnscache
e-smith-dnscache-0.3.0-04

rpm -q e-smith-tinydns
e-smith-tinydns-0.5.0-12

rpm -q e-smith-lib
e-smith-lib-1.14.0-07

I can access the site http://www.nissanusa.com/
quite OK


Good luck
Ray

[bugme]

Ray,

Thanks for all your newbie guidance.

I was pretty much aware of those issues, as i have had to have all the dependencies in order to install spam assassin and clamav previously.

its just that i do it so seldom, that i pretty much forget and start all over again.

I am currently studying for the LPI institute Linux Admin exam so I hope to be more proficient.

i wish i had more sme's deployed, but at this time, i only have 1 office that was willing to give it a go.

i had an office on a linux server and switched to a ms sbs 2003 for $8k, and 3 months later, found they needed large email attachment support, and had to spend another $4k for ms exchange enterprise edition.
i was not involved in their entire ms sbs decision and switchover, so it's really up to them now.


anyway, i did a search in the forums but can't seem to find a way to bypass or disable squid proxy.

that might be my best shot to have our web designers be able to access www.nissan-usa.com as part of their job requirement.

i installed squidproperties and have flushed cache, and entered url to bypass squid, but its not helping us to access these problematic sites.

thanks again!

[CharlieBrady]

anyway, i did a search in the forums but can't seem to find a way to bypass or disable squid proxy.

that might be my best shot to have our web designers be able to access www.nissan-usa.com as part of their job requirement.

Bypassing squid will not help. If the hostname is not resolvable in DNS for squid, it won't be for the client's browser either. You need to discover why dnscache is not resolving the name. The dnscache log files will likely contain the answers to that.