DNS Problem? Please Help!!

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Level 1

10 points

DNS Problem? Please Help!!

Hi Community Members,

I'm having a little issue with DNS and I was hoping one of you could help. I am a collage student just learning 10.6 Server and I decided to setup a MacMini as a home server to learn with benefiting the home network with the features OSX Server brings. My question is I have enabled DNS on my server in order to make OD, VPN and all the other core features work but I also have a Linksys WRT54GS router which also does some form of DNS and runs Tomato software.

The problem is I have to manually go into system proferences>network>click on both Ethernet and WiFi and manually add 192.168.1.206 which is the adress of my MacMini since it is doing DNS. This creates a conflict on my macbook pro when I connect other places because the internet won't work unless I remove the 192.168.1.206 address from the DNS section. Then when I get back home, I have to re-add the 192.168.1.206 adress back in for home sync and all that to work. I know when I connect at school the DNS automatically fills in and it is greyed out. Is there a way I can make my network do this. I would like it to add the Tomato DNS which is adress 192.168.1.1 and also the MacMini Server adress which is 192.168.1.206 so all my features will work automatically and I won't have to constantly mess with DNS settings everytime I go to and from school and other networks.

Thanks for your help in advance!

Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.6.6), Snow Leopard Server

Posted on Jan 12, 2012 9:27 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Camelot

Level 9

54,333 points

Jan 13, 2012 8:49 AM in response to runnerboy967

The basic problem here is that your client isn't automatically picking up the 192.168.1.206 server. That's a trivial issue.

The DNS servers are part of the DHCP reply (assuming you're using DHCP) - when your machine connects to the network it sends out a DHCP request and a server replies with all the data that machine should need to connect to the network. That includes the IP address of the DHCP servers.

Your solution is to edit the DHCP server's configuration (that's presumably in the Tomato router, but might not be) and tell it to hand out the 192.168.1.206 address as the primary DNS server. Problem solved - clients on your network will now get 1932.168.1.206 via DHCP and won't need that address set manually in their configuration.

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Answer 2

runnerboy967 Author

Level 1

10 points

Jan 13, 2012 1:32 PM in response to Camelot

Hi Camelott,

Thank you so much for your reply, I really appreataiate it. This makes total sense, except I'm not sure where I would go to turn this on. I'm looking at the DNS settings in tomato and I'm not sure which is the right place for me to imput the DNS IP in the router so DHCP will auto assign both DNS servers. Here are some screenshots of the options in Tomato. Any idea were I might add this so this will work? Once again, thanks so much for you help! =)

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Answer 3

Camelot

Level 9

54,333 points

Jan 13, 2012 1:44 PM in response to runnerboy967

Sorry, I've never used Tomato to know how it deals with this. At first glance I dont' see anything obvious except that you've told it to use its own internal caching DNS server which, by extension, only makes sense if the router is the DNS server for the LAN. Does turning this off give you the ability to specify an alternate DNS server for clients?

If not, I don't know what else to say, other than using a different DHCP server, like the one built-in to Mac OS X Server, for example.

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Answer 4

runnerboy967 Author

Level 1

10 points

Jan 13, 2012 1:56 PM in response to Camelot

Hi Camelot,

Is there another firmware or router that I can get that would enable the DNS to automacially fill in through DHCP? I really like that idea of the DNS doing that so I wouldn't have to manually switch it. Or if I have ot constatnly switch it, if I could have some type of scripe or somethting that could do it quickly.

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