[H-GEN] LPD Stops working if internet link is down....

[Michael Anthon]

[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and ]
[ Unix-related topics.  Please observe the list's charter.          ]

You mean like this? ...

	zone "tams" {
	        type master;
	        file "tams.dns";
	        allow-update {
	                10.10.10.2;
	                };
	        allow-transfer {
	                10.10.10/24; !any;
	                };
	};
	zone "10.10.10.in-addr.arpa" {
      	  type master;
	        file "10.10.10.in-addr.arpa.dns";
      	  allow-update {
	                10.10.10.2;
	                };
	        allow-transfer {
	                10.10.10/24; !any;
	                };
	};

I have had this setup for ages and I also use DHCP with some patches to
provide dynamic updates to the DNS for local machines as they get a lease.
Works a treat.  I can quite happily perform forward and reverse lookups on
all machines on my LAN even without the telstra link functioning.  I had
thought of the DNS resolution issue and had tested it by performing forward
and reverse lookups for the machine trying to access the print services at
the print server.  These lookups worked correctly and with no delays.

Looking at the tcpdump (with ethereal) I can see that the print server
requested the address for the machine trying to print, it immediately gets
an authoritative response to this request.  Immediately after that, it sends
a query for the root name server, or at least that's what ethereal says,
here is the actual packet

15:32:43.002180 10.10.10.11.1148 > 10.10.10.2.53: 34174+ A? . (17)
4500 002d 1be8 0000 4011 36b8 0a0a 0a0b  |  E . . - . . . . @ . 6 . . . . . 
0a0a 0a02 047c 0035 0019 4a6b 857e 0100  |  . . . . . . . 5 . . J k . . . . 
0001 0000 0000 0000 0000 0100 0102 ----  |  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Obviously, since the link is down, this fails and it seemed to just keep
retrying it for ages and sometimes timed out, sometimes didn't (or maybe I
just got too impatient)

I would have to wonder what the print server is doing requesting root server
information since it's not even running a name server.  I did not think it
would do this??

Anyway, this is getting a little long winded 8^)

Cheers for now
Michael the Confused

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Suter [mailto:mark at zwitterion.humbug.org.au]
> Sent: Wednesday, 19 January 2000 5:14 PM
> To: general at lists.humbug.org.au
> Subject: Re: [H-GEN] LPD Stops working if internet link is down....
> 
> 
> [ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and ]
> [ Unix-related topics.  Please observe the list's charter.          ]
> 
<snip>
> By default, unix hosts are fairly bad at handling non-networked
> existence because it loses the DNS.  A good way to get around
> this is to setup a local DNS server that is authoritative for
> what your local day-to-day queries, including:
> 
>     * forward and reverse lookups on all local hosts.
>     * secondary of important zones (ask permission!)
> 

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