This is a strange one. A site that 2

[Guest_imported]

This is a strange one. A site that I work from has just moved to a new server, thus changing IP numbers. My Win2K computer keeps going to the old server if I try to browse to it using the domain name. It also goes to the old server using VisualRoute and doing a command line ping or tracert.


RoadRunner tech was just here and manually changed the IP number that their DHCP server issued my computer and ended up with the same results. New modem made no difference either.

This indicates that it is not a browser issue or my ISPs DHCP server. The problem lies somewhere in the deep dark depths of Win2K. Is there someplace in Win2K Pro that caches this type of info? The RoadRunner guy has washed his hands of the problem. The Win 98 machines on my network go to the news sites.

I tried the nbtstat -R & -r with no joy.

 

[sobak]

Attempt to do "NSLOOKUP site name" This should resolve the IP Address of the site. Once you get that information you can make your conclusion.....

1. There is corruption in your RR DNS table (unlikely but possibl)

2. The hosting administrator didn't update their DNS tables so the new site IP Address would replicate out to other DNS systems on the Internet.

I don't believe this would be a problem with W2K I believe it can be traced down to a DNS problem.....

david e
*end users are just like computers, some you can work with...others just need a simple reBOOTing to fix their problems.*

 

[TerryA]

This website has propagated properly. Win98 machines on the same network get the new website. Other local RR customers are sent to the new site. The only machine in the whole world that does not is this Win2K machine.

 

[sobak]

When you run NSLOOKUP on the machine in question, what IP Address is it pointing to?

david e
*end users are just like computers, some you can work with...others just need a simple reBOOTing to fix their problems.*

 

[TerryA]

This is what I get doing NSLOOKUP
Default Server:ns1.cfl.rr.com
Address: 24.95.227.34

How do you do nslookup on a Win98 machine?

 

[sobak]

You can't do NSLOOKUP on a Windows 98 system. The information you typed in shows the DNS Server and the Address of the DNS server.....

What you need to do is type...

NSLOOKUP

http://www.yahoo.com

You should get something like this....

Server: yourdns.com
Address: 172.16.4.45

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:

http://www.yahoo.akadns.net

Addresses: 216.115.102.75
Aliases:

http://www.yahoo.com

This will tell you if the DNS server table is correct.

The other thing I would do is check the host file.

%windir%\system32\drivers\etc\host

Make sure you don't have a static route setup in the host file. Don't know how it would be there if you didn't place it there but this is one of the ways windows resolves host names to IP Addresses.....


david e
*end users are just like computers, some you can work with...others just need a simple reBOOTing to fix their problems.*

 

[rcne]

I have just installed rr, all worked well, except the static IP address that existed on a different subnet.

I worked around the problem by first seeing if i could ping the rr router, if not I assinged a static IP to that subnet.

After the W2k could ping, I let the IP be assigned by the router and all worked well. Hope this helps

 

[TerryA]

Yea, it works. I once upon a time ran a broadband wizard and it wrote a bunch of IPs into the host file. I saved a backup copy and then deleted the IP information from the file, saved and restarted the computer. Works like a champ now. Thanks david e!

 

[dilettante]

Yeah, using a HOSTS file leads to all sorts of problems down the road. I've fought this time and time again.

Sometimes you have no choice, but the person making a HOSTS file entry needs to somehow post warnings in big red letters someplace, and these entries need to be commented with "remove or review" dates. They should be looked at as temporary kludges.

I personally blew about 20 hours last week trying to resolve a "DNS problem" on a mainframe that some idiot had made HOSTS entries in instead of fixing a DNS Resolver problem. I had to tie up two other mainframe guys, a couple of the users who had been screwed over by the problem, a network DNS guy (sad to say, no guru), around 40 emails, four conference calls, and a lot of patience all around. And we STILL have to grab the troublemaker by the scruff and get the problem fixed when he's back to work next week. At least we know what the trouble is now.

Under Win2K/XP there is another issue to consider: DNS caching. Most entries will expire out (they have a TTL value associated) but the TTL might be days in some cases.

To delete the entries in the DNS cache, type ipconfig /flushdns at a command prompt.

See:

http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=KB;EN-US;Q245437

 

[sobak]

Terry,

Speaking from experience only on this one. Can't say how many times I've wasted troubleshooting issues like this just to find out someone thought it would be a good fix for a DNS issue instead of fixing the problem with DNS. Glad everything is working for you now.....

david e
*end users are just like computers, some you can work with...others just need a simple reBOOTing to fix their problems.*

 

[Guest_imported]

In the first paragraph of your problem description, you mentioned that you issued a ping to the server by name. This problem could have easily been resolved by paying close attention to the ping results. Check this out . . .


If I ping a host by name and the name is translated to an IP address via the local hosts file, then the results looks like this:

C:\>ping resolved_by_hosts_file

Pinging resolved_by_hosts_file [172.16.10.15] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 172.16.10.15: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
Reply from 172.16.10.15: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
Reply from 172.16.10.15: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128
Reply from 172.16.10.15: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 172.16.10.15:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 1ms, Average = 0ms


On the other hand, if I ping a host by name and the name is translated to an IP address via a dns server, then the results looks like this:

C:\>ping resolved_by_dns

Pinging resolved_by_dns.domain [172.20.20.1] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 172.20.20.1: bytes=32 time=43ms TTL=126
Reply from 172.20.20.1: bytes=32 time=43ms TTL=126
Reply from 172.20.20.1: bytes=32 time=46ms TTL=126
Reply from 172.20.20.1: bytes=32 time=43ms TTL=126

Ping statistics for 172.20.20.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 43ms, Maximum = 46ms, Average = 43ms


Notice that ping responds with two formats: 1) Pinging hostname, and 2) Pinging hostname.domain. If your ping request was resolved by dns, you would have seen the domain name appended to the hostname you supplied in the ping command.


Dave