Topic: DNS not working when connecting directly via ADSL

[Tom]

I've put up a SME 5.5 server/gateway. Want to use it as a firewall/router for the internal network. It installs ok and is up running smoothly.

But for some reason the machines on the network can't use internet domain names (browsers wont work). Accessing the outside using ip numbers is no problem. Could there be a problem with the dns service?

The server is attached directly to an ADSL connection using a static ip (and set up this way, too).

Strangely everything works fine if I put a hardware router between the ADSL and the SME server. As if the dns is then somehow resolved correctly?

Someone know a workaround or have any suggestions? Isn't it possible to tell the server that I want to use the dns-adresses my ISP has supplied me with?

[James Pybus]

Have you entered your isp dns in the server settings?

See: http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=8420.msg31480#msg31480

HTH
James

[christian]

Hi Tom,
I believe during the setup or "server configuration" routine you can enter a "master" dns server address.  You might want to check that.

Christian

[Kelvin]

Hi Tom,

This may or may not apply to you as I skipped SME 5.5 altogether and moved from 5.1.2 to 5.6.

I identified a problem with bind (that does DNS lookups for your SME server) in SME 5.1.2 in which the server will not resolve some domain names. Hardware routers, W2K servers, direct dial to the ISP, etc. all works but not if you use SME 5.1.2 as the DNS server. I fixed the problem (the link to the howto is posted at contribs.org) by upgrading bind in SME 5.1.2 to the version used by SME 5.6 and the domains will resolve correctly after that.

Again, because I totally skipped SME 5.5, this may not apply to you, but thought I'd mentioned it in case it might help.

Kelvin

[Charlie Brady]

christian wrote:

> I believe during the setup or "server configuration" routine
> you can enter a "master" dns server address.  You might want
> to check that.

That is very likely to cause problems, and very unlikely to fix this one.

I'd first check that the server itself can resolve names, and then check that clients are correctly configured via DHCP from the server.

Charlie