OSX DNS problems

[Zorglub]

My dual-usb iBook has a nasty tendency to crash - a combination of copying files over the network and an IE crash will make the system unsuable after a reboot (blinking question mark).Lucky I keep up to date Retrospect backups.

Problem is with my last restore. I restored OS9 with no problems, booted with OSX 10.1 CD, re-installed over the existing installation to make sure all is ok.After all this I boot into OSX and notice that I have no network connectivity. All seems normal, pings to router are ok, after some digging I realise that the problem is with my DNS settings.

If I open a terminal window and type "nslookup", it says:

Default Server: localhost
Address: 0.0.0.0

tada, of course this is not correct. If I then type "server 10.0.0.150" inside nslookup, (the address of my gateway and DNS server) I can then query all hosts.

So how can I fix this in the OS so that I have network connectivity again (try web surfing with IP addresses!)? The network panel looks normal, it's set to DHCP, even if I manually set the DNS entry, same problem.

Doing "cat /etc/resolv.conf" says it's pointing to "/var/run/resolv.conf" so then catting this file displays:

domain mydomain.com
nameserver 10.0.0.150

which is also completely normal. So where does this problem come from ??

Any tips much appreciated!

[bruno]

the default content of your host file is:

##
# Host Database
# 
# Note that this file is consulted when the system is running in single-user
# mode.  At other times this information is handled by lookupd.  By default,
# lookupd gets information from NetInfo, so this file will not be consulted
# unless you have changed lookupd's configuration.
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1                     localhost
255.255.255.255         broadcasthost

I had to do some mods to get lookupd to use my hosts file, but if you're dealing with a hack (missing stuff, restore stuff, try it now bob!) You may want to check this.

[liosha]

I had same problem with DNS
I hate surfing via ip addresses, so I found a solution... I removed all "resolv.conf" files:
first login as superuser and then:

rm /private/etc/resolv.conf
rm /var/run/resolv.conf

and maybe (if it's there):

rm /etc/resolv.conf

and then made a symbolic link:

ln -s /var/run/resolv.conf /private/etc/resolv.conf

After all that run any internet app and make connection to any domain (such as www.apple.com or login.icq.com)

Note: I made it without any special DNS Server in Network prefs, so maybe you'll need to remove your DNS Server's address before that medicine, and set it back after that...

Note2: or (I'm not so sure) instead of removing and setting back blah blah blah just create a file (by pico or smth like that)

pico

write there a line:

nameserver server

where "server" is IP address of your DNS Server and then save this file:

/var/run/resolv.conf

Note that it doesn't matter when you'll make a link to this file in /private/etc/ before or after creating /var/run/resolv.conf.......

I hope that will help you (or maybe you've found another hint)

Good luck!

[Zorglub]

liosha - that worked !!

I should have figured that it would be as simple a solution as deleting the resolv.conf files since the entire problem did not make sense to start with.

I cant believe this, got no reply from the Apple forums, I took the iBook to an Apple store and all the so called "expert" could tell me is that I reformat the drive and re-install OSX

Many thanks! Now I can slowly migrate to OSX for good.