[X4U] OSX Jag DNS woes

[Simon Forster]

On 5 Aug 2004, at 23:49, SeaSoft Systems wrote:

> My eMac (OS10.2.8) is periodically losing its DNS resolution 
> capability. The symptoms:
>
> - I begin getting nonsensical "Server not found" errors when browsing 
> the net (in Safari or IE), typically out of the blue after a couple 
> hours of successful surfing.
...
> - An OS 8.6 box on the same LAN behaves normally (mail and http) 
> whilst the eMac remains internet-deaf and dumb, so my ISP DNS 
> resolution is fine.

I had the same on my Powerbook G4. It seems I had an outdated entry in 
the list of DNS servers in System Prefs Network pane. If the suspect 
server replied before the others, it'd do so with an access denied (or 
some such message) and that was the end of that. Fix is incredibly easy 
- remove the suspect DNS server from the list of servers.

Apparently OS X's behaviour is different to that of earlier OSes. I 
have heard that OS X's DNS resolver gives up after the first reply - 
successful or not. Presumably earlier OSes kept on trying until they 
got some sort of sensible reply from a nameserver.

HTH

Simon Forster
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