Re: ppp addresses

[Ben Cranston <zben@ni.umd.edu>]

Dan Smith wrote:
> ... I have succeeded in accessing sites using numerical
> domain (DNS) addresses, but not using addresses with words.
> What's up?

Well, your basic networking is functional, but there is some
problem in your domain name resolution setup.  You should have
the numeric addresses of domain name servers willing to do the
translation from names to numbers for you.  These servers are
probably maintained by your internet service provider.

I got it to work by manually creating the file /etc/resolv.conf
containing the addresses (some linux distributions have automated
setup scripts). My  /etc/resolv.conf file looks like this:

   domain umd.edu
   nameserver 128.8.xx.yy
   nameserver 128.8.pp.qq
   nameserver 128.8.rr.ss

Actually, the xx, yy, etc are the numbers of our campus servers,
but these are for our use, you need to find the numbers for the
servers your internet service provider maintains.

You might also check that your  /etc/host.conf  file has
a "bind" somewhere in it -- this tells the lookup software to
try DNS as well as a static host table.  The file contains
something like:

   order hosts,bind
   multi on

but I suppose if "bind" gets lost that could also explain the
symptoms you describe...

This is all documented on pages 459 and 460 of
"Running Linux" (Second Edition) by Matt Welsh and Lar Kaufman.

-- 
Charles B. (Ben) Cranston
mailto:zben@ni.umd.edu
http://www.wam.umd.edu/~zben