really weird(?) DNS setup on linksys router running DD-WRT

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Mon, 21 Sep 2009, Marcelo Cavalcante wrote:

> Hi,
> Why did you put  nameserver 127.0.0.1 in the /etc/resolv.conf?
> 127.0.0.1 is the localhost, just loopback. It means, you're trying to use your
> own computer to resolve its names.
> It's wrong. Try to remove it from the /etc/resolv.conf and test it.


> On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 11:23 AM, Robert P. J. Day <rpjday-L09J2beyid0N/H6P543EQg at public.gmane.org>
> wrote:
>
>        i figure i might as well bug the tlug list on this one, since the
>       location is in TO.
>
>        was helping someone install some linux software this weekend, and
>       there seemed to be intermittent network problems (losing ssh login
>       sessions), as well as DNS resolvability errors.
>
>        took a look at a couple of the internal linux systems (call them
>       192.168.1.100 and 192.168.1.101), and their /etc/resolv.conf files
>       read:
>
>        nameserver 127.0.0.1
>        nameserver 192.168.1.1   (the router)
>        search domain1 domain2
>
>       ok, i thought, they'll try to access the router for DNS info.  but
>       when i browsed over to the router, it was set up for DNS statically
>       with the first two entries:
>
>        192.168.1.100
>        192.168.1.101
>
>       am i just confused?  that makes no sense to me.  the internal
>       systems
>       will consult the router for DNS, while the router turns around and
>       consults the internal systems?  am i missing something here?
>       shouldn't the router be set up to consult 3 *external* DNS servers,
>       as
>       supplied by whoever their network provider is?  or am i just being
>       clueless?

  i had already noticed that -- that setup is just plain strange.  but
am i right in thinking that it's silly to have the linksys router
pointing *inward* for its static DNS servers?  surely, if the internal
systems are consulting the router, the router should be consulting
even *further* outside the org to external nameservers.  i've never
see a situation where those systems point at each other like that.

rday
--

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Robert P. J. Day                               Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

        Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry.

Web page:                                          http://crashcourse.ca
Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
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