On Thursday 07 February 2008 11:26:03 Doctor Who wrote:
On 2/7/08, Ken Schneider
wrote: <snip> Do you have a search directive in your /etc/resolv.conf file for their domain or are you trying to resolve IP addresses using the FQDN?
FQDN in this case. I have access to both networks at this point. I only have DNS provided by Sprint for Inet in my resolv.conf. I can resolve Inet domains by name but not those on the client's network. The client network I can access by IP but not by name.
Adding the client's DNS server to my resolv.conf as the *first* entry let's me resolve the client's machines by name but then I can no longer resolve Internet addresses by name. It doesn't continue to check other DNS entries in resolv.conf to try to resolve something like www.suse.com. Commenting out the client network DNS entry or moving it to the last of 3 entries again lets me resolve Internet addresses but no longer let's me address client network machines by name.
The reason for the behavior you describe is that the resolver is actually only calling the first name server in the list, which returns a "No such domain" (NXDOMAIN) for the FQDNs it does not know about. The list of name servers is only used if there is no reply from the first nameserver queried. From "man resolv.conf": "The algorithm used is to try a name server, and if the query times out, try the next, until out of name servers, then repeat trying all the name servers until a maximum number of retries are made." Unfortunately, I think this means a negative response from any name server causes the search to terminate. I don't know of any set of resolv.conf parameters that would do what you want. You might consider trying "option rotate", however. This seems like your client's name server is misconfigured. Apparently it is only returning names for its local hosts, and not forwarding queries to any upstream name servers. It might be possible to put a caching name server on your laptop, and then have it forward queries to your client's server or your ISP's. See http://www.bind9.net/BIND-FAQ. The example they give isn't quite your situation, but might give you a clue. -- Jim