[oclug] alternate dns server

[Bill Strosberg]

Sean Hammond wrote:
> Does anyone know of an alternate DNS I could use from Ottawa? (Is such
> a thing even possible?). I'm usually connected DHCP to Rogers, but
> they seem to have DNS issues and most of the time I can't access my
> website, email, shell or ftp accounts etc on sdf.lonestar.org. I'm
> pretty sure it's a Rogers DNS issue, and that they will not help me if
> I try to complain (even if I could find my customer ID).
> 
> I've been searching but could not find a list of IPs for available DNS.


Sean:

I'd suspect you are victim of bad firewall/routing rules - either at 
your end or upstream.  The address for sdf.lonestar.org resolves to 
192.94.73.1, and this is an address that often gets treated badly, as it 
is prefixed by "192".  As you may notice, RFC 1918 addresses like 
192.168.x.y are for use in private networks.  Old style Class C 
(192.168.x.y) private addresses sometimes get caught in badly written 
RFC 1918 firewall filters that catch everything routed to 192.x.y.z and 
don't let it route publicly. Adding the address 192.94.73.1 to your 
/etc/hosts file and specifying the host name as sdf.lonestar.org will 
eliminate DNS as a possibility.

If (after adding the address to your hosts file) still causes the error, 
the problem is either your own firewall, or your upstream routing.

Turn "off" your firewall filters for a second, and retry.  If things now 
work, you know where the problem is.

--
Bill Strosberg