DNS Problem

[Guest skippykev]

I have recently started using Linux and there's 1 major problem I'm finding with it when I try surf the internet from my home connection, it takes about 8 - 10 seconds before a webpage starts loading. When I type in a page, it says "Looking up www.google.com..." for 8 - 10 seconds, and then the page loads very quickly after that. I used to run Kubuntu had the same problem there, but I found the solution was to manually input the DNS server addresses into the network configuration. I think this worked because my router DHCPs me it's own internal LAN address as the DNS server. I've tried this on mandriva but it doesn't work. Also iwconfig doesn't work on the Konsole. Is there a Mandriva equivalent? I'm running Mandriva 2008.1 Spring Powerpack.

[David Batson]

See if my thread here will solve this for you.

 

Setting up OpenDNS with at&t Sierra Wireless 860 AC [solved]

[Guest skippykev]

Thanks! I'm running a DNS cache now and the internet is seriously fast!

 

The only thing is that when I visit a website for the 1st time it now takes 16-20 secs because it has to wait for 2 DNS timeouts (I'm guessing). Is there a setting I can change to reduce the DNS timeout...?

[David Batson]

Does this command work to flush the DNS Cache? Might make a difference.

 

/etc/init.d/nscd restart

[ianw1974]

Check if ipv6 needs to be disabled, either within Firefox for example, or system-wide.

 

System-wide:

 

http://www.linuxsolutions.org/index.php?op...5&Itemid=26

 

also adding:

 

alias ipv6 off

 

to modprobe.conf like the entry here, can also help get it disabled. Usually ipv6 normally not required. In Firefox:

 

http://www.linuxsolutions.org/index.php?op...4&Itemid=26

[viking777]

I have a similar type of problem at the moment to that discussed here, but not quite the same so it hasn't been answered. I want to manually set the DNS server in Mandriva and I can't find how to do it.

 

I am not using a router so I can't set it through that (I am away from home and using my hsdpa modems). Neither is there any way to configure it through the drakconnect wizard (when you set up a gprs modem it only asks for a apn, password and username).

 

I can modify /etc/resolv.conf, but that is overwritten every time you connect and is thus useless.

 

Unfortunately the default nameserver for my mobile isp is pretty rough and it works much better if I use opendns. I have managed to do this in Suse (or I wouldn't be posting this question) but the procedure for that distro is not the same on Mandriva (it involves editing /etc/sysconfig/network/config - but that doesn't exist in Mandriva).

 

So how do I do it?

[David Batson]

Here is how I did it: http://forum.mandriva.com/viewtopic.php?t=74691

[viking777]

Thanks David, I tried that solution, but as soon as I commented out the lines in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-ppp. I stopped getting a connection altogether. Also the changes to /etc/ppp/ip-up didn't actually result in my getting the nameserver I wanted in resolv.conf. They just reverted to the default ones.

 

It really shouldn't be this complicated!

[David Batson]

Give RJ549's solution a try then.

 

http://forum.mandriva.com/viewtopic.php?t=79053

[viking777]

Thank you once again for trying David. Sadly I have to report another failure. Firstly the file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ppp0 does not contain the lines

 

RESOLV_MODS=yes
DNS1=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
DNS2=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

 

So I can't delete them and secondly when I remove 'resolvconf' from startup in MCC all I get is a nameserver of 10.11.12.13. This is obviously even more useless than my ISP's own offering.

 

But to save you wracking your brains again let me say this. As I posted earlier, I have already solved this problem using OpenSuse. The trouble is though that it doesn't make any difference. Before I switched Suse to Opendns, my browser used to stall for ages 'looking up xxxxxxxxxx". It no longer does this but goes straight to 'waiting for xxxxxxxxxx' and stalls for just as long. In other words it doesn't really matter if the Dns server is quick because the connection isn't and that is that, end of story.

 

I guess I will just have to live with these slow connections until I get somewhere where there is a sensible connection or I go home an start using adsl again.

 

But thank you for trying anyway, much appreciated.

[viking777]

I have found a nice simple answer to this one, just two steps required.

 

1) Edit /etc/resolv.conf to show the nameservers you want.

 

2) Execute this command:

 

chattr +i /etc/resolv.conf

 

Job done.

 

man chattr

 

If you want to know more about it or want to undo it.

[ianw1974]

Yep, chattr is great for stopping some weird process from modifying the file :)

 

I was going crazy about this until I found resolvconf and disabled that crappy service.