Howto confirm DNS is not the problem?

[teddymills]

Howto confirm DNS is not the problem?
I can use ping to test TCPIP networks, but how can I confirm DNS?

Start using dig and nslookup?
Or tcpdump port 53? (can i view the packets in a meaningful way?)



Problem:
======
Just surfing around, I can goto websites and most of them work.
However a great deal of them do not show..Sometimes refreshing the browser
works and it pulls up the page.
Also email...same thing..Usually it works, often I cannot connect. I retry
and it works usually.
Once a FTP or HTTP download starts, its very reliable and fast.


Hardware:
=======
My router is Linux Redhat 9.0, iptables 1.27, with a very basic
IPMasquerading firewall 192.168.0.1 (like 2 lines!)
My workstation is the IPMASQd computer on 192.168.0.2


DNS setup
========

I am running BIND 9.22 on my linux router, but I have even disabled BIND and
used external DNS servers. Does not fix the problem.

1. I assume my Linux router should use my providers DNS1 and DNS2...(ok)
2. Should i enable BIND 9.22 on my router, and tell my workstations to use
my router, or my providers DNS1 and DNS2?


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