Local ip address resolution, Linux box fine, windows boxes intermittent???

[bgunn]

Hi All

I have just set up a linux server in our office. It provides both local DHCP, DNS and mail services to the network (which has Linux, Windows 2k and Mac OS X machines).

Problem is that windows users keep having problems checking their email on the server. Both my Linux box and the Mac OS X box never have any problems. I have found the problem is to do with name resolution. I have observed that each time the problem occurs the windows machines have a IP resolution problem as I can no longer ping the mail host (mail.something.somewhere) from the windows computer. It is not a connection problem as they can still ping the server's IP address.

The strange thing is that the problem is not consistent. It will happen for a while then after a while it will come good again. I have run 'ipconfig /all' on the windows machines and all the settings appear to be correct (IP, netmask, gateway, DNS servers [which includes the local server]).

I just dont get it. I am certain the problem must be in either the DHCP or DNS, but I just don't know as the problem is intermittent.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks, Ben

[bgunn]

Hi All

Just wanted to add some more details to the problem.

DHCP is configured to provide three nameserver addresses. First is the local server and then another 2 nameservers (provided by ISP and external from our network). The windows computers can resolve internet addresses (thus can browse the web and check external email servers) but not any local addresses. This would sugggest that the DNS problem is only for the local network as the two external DNS servers appear to be working.

Ben

[bgunn]

Problem solved. For the sake of anyone that has this problem in the future make sure you have Samba configured correctly as this is what handles the name requests from the network's Windows machines.

Make sure you have the following lines in your 'smb.conf' file.

wins support = Yes
dns proxy = Yes

'wins support' enables samba to function as a WINS server. 'dns proxy' tells Samba to look for hostnames using DNS.

Hopefully this will help someone in the future.

Regards, Ben