Name resolution

[Erik Osterholm]

On Sat, Oct 27, 2007 at 04:42:02PM -0700, jekillen wrote:
> I set up a  system with a static ip connection to the internet

> I checked inetd.conf and resolv.conf.

Just FYI, inetd.conf shouldn't matter here, as it has to do with
running a server, not accessing one.


> look in resolv.conf, there was no file by that name.
> So I created one with my local nameservers and the ISP's nameservers.

Are the local nameservers on the same CIDR network?  The ISP servers?
Did you maybe use hostnames here instead of IP addresses?


> But I am not sure whether these changes require that I reboot the  
> machine.

My experience has been that changes to resolv.conf do not require a
reboot.


> The connection is live and working. I can ping another of my static ip
> addresses, and other machines running on the private nework. But
> if I ping one of my websites by name the ping cannot find it. so I know
> it is a resolver issue, with no name server running on this machine.

Are these on the same network?  Did you set your gateway correctly?
The command "netstat -nrf inet" should probably list a default
route.  Sometimes people forget this when they use static IPs as you
have.

 
> This is because after adding the file /etc/resolv.conf I still get
> the  above complaints.

I occasionally type "resolve.conf" instead of "resolv.conf" when
creating this file for the first time.  The wonders of tab completion
can make me unaware of the problem for awhile.  Could this possibly be
the problem?

Do you have any sort of firewall active on this computer?  If so,
outgoing connections to port 53 (UDP and TCP) should be allowed for
DNS to work.

Erik