[ale] DNS issues

[Jim Popovitch]

On Sun, 2005-02-06 at 17:35 -0500, Jim Philips wrote:
> I made numerous upgrades on my Slackware box earlier this week, 
> including BIND. Now DNS seems to have gone crazy. Sometimes I can't 
> retrieve mail. When I try the following:
> 
> dig mail.speedfactory.net

Works for me.  I get IP 66.23.201.84.  

# dig mx speedfactory.net

speedfactory.net.  3600  IN  MX  20 duke.speedfactory.net.
speedfactory.net.  3600  IN  MX  10 duchess.speedfactory.net.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
duchess.speedfactory.net. 3600  IN  A  66.23.201.84
duke.speedfactory.net.  3600    IN  A  66.23.201.83

Hmmm, not very reliable having both listed MX records on the same
subnet. <sigh> 

> 
> I get a message back saying no servers could be reached. The DNS servers 
> in /etc/resolv.conf are the correct ones for Speedfactory, as far as I 
> know. This is what I have:
> 
> nameserver 66.23.208.138

# host 66.23.208.138
resolves as ns.speedfactory.net from other networks.

# host ns.speedfactory.net
returns 66.23.217.98.

# host ns.speedfactory.net 66.23.208.138
(timeout)

> nameserver 66.203.208.142

# host 66.203.208.142
Host 142.208.203.66.in-addr.arpa not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)

# host ns2.speedfactory.net
ns2.speedfactory.net has address 66.23.208.142

# host ns.speedfactory.net 66.203.208.142
(timeout)

http://www.dnsreport.com/tools/dnsreport.ch?domain=speedfactory.net
Hmmm.

> 
> But some addresses just can't be found even when I have a perfectly good 
> PPP connection. This issue doesn't exist in Windows (which I'm using 
> now) so it has to be a Linux issue. Any further ideas on what I should 
> check?

Assuming that SF isn't having issues, what does "iptables --list -n"
show?  Is it blocking mail/dns?

-Jim P.