DNS problem with Mac OS X 10.6 and later

[Chris Buxton]

Ignore /etc/resolv.conf; it's not really used by the system. Look at System Preferences / Network / <interface> / Advanced / DNS, instead.

Regards,
Chris Buxton
BlueCat Networks

On Dec 10, 2010, at 9:02 AM, Banana Flex wrote:

> hello list,
> 
> Our setup:
> 
> - a MAN network with thousand of Mac computers running Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5 and 10.6
> - two linux servers running dhcp-3.1.3ESV and bind-9.5.0P2, redundant as a cooperation, this is the main DHCP/DNS servers for the MAN
> - a multitude of servers running Mac OS X Server (10.4, 10.5, 10.6) for our clients, not centralized, connected to the MAN
> - 13 DNS zones
> - HSRP network by Cisco with circa 20 loop of a 23-bit range address (ex. : 10.29.32.1/23, 10.29.36.1/23, 10.29.52.1/23, .../23), that is the MAN
> 
> Each clients computers are connected to the centralized DHCP/DNS Linux server's and are registered in the zone with the DynamicDNS function.
> We use the DHCP Client ID (option 61) of the service to redirect and register the client computer into the good domain
> 
> The linux servers are in the main domain city.educational, at the first level, it's IP addresses is 10.28.25.50 and 10.28.25.51
> All others zones are in the form: department.city.educational
> 
> All clients machines are in DHCP. Servers are in DHCP with a statically assigned address
> 
> The problem:
> 
> On 10.5 computers, all are still okay, you can found all records using the host command and ping them:
> 
> $ hostname
> 002378.department.city.educational
> 
> $ host 002378
> 002378.department.city.educational has address 10.29.76.13
> 
> $ host 10.29.76.13
> 13.76.29.10.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer 002378.department.city.educational.
> 
> $ ping -c3 002378
> PING 002378.department.city.educational (10.29.76.13): 56 data bytes
> 64 bytes from 10.29.76.13: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.547 ms
> 64 bytes from 10.29.76.13: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.512 ms
> 64 bytes from 10.29.76.13: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.482 ms
> 
> --- 002378.department.city.educational ping statistics ---
> 3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
> round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.482/0.514/0.547/0.027 ms
> 
> $ cat /etc/resolv.conf 
> domain department.city.educational
> search department.city.educational city.educational department.city.educational
> nameserver 10.28.25.50
> nameserver 10.28.25.51
> 
> on 10.6 computers, you can host but the ping does not work
> 
> $ host 002378
> 002378.department.city.educational has address 10.29.76.13
> 
> $ ping 002378
> ping: cannot resolve 002378: Unknown host
> 
> This mean that you can not resolve 002378 without his FQDN
> 
> Graphically example is the "Connect to Server" window form the Finder with the short name of the server resulting in a failed connection.
> 
> On a 10.6, a printer like 500265 (FQDN = 500265.department.city.educational) does not print if you not utilize the FQDN. On 10.4 and 10.5 all this work
> 
> If you setup your 10.6 clients statically with the DNS, example with the following command line:
> networksetup -setsearchdomains Ethernet department.city.educational city.educational
> the problem disappaers and all is okay
> 
> If you read the /etc/resolv.conf from a 10.4, 10.5 or 10.6 clients, all lines are the same ! in DHCP setup or statically setup,
> on a linux box is the same result !
> 
> I think Mac OS X 10.6 not interpret correctly the domain search from a DHCP server because all others systems work well
> 
> Please let me know if anyone in the list have the same problem or a workaround
> Help are welcome
> 
> Thank you for reading
> Banana
> 
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