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I have a strange problem with our local network at office.

We have linksys router, wifi accesspoint (for laptops) and freebsd server which is connected directly to the linksys router. We have intranet web page (x.company.com) which becomes unavailable ("could not find host", trying to access it from laptop (on other laptops it still works ok. all laptops are failing to access the hostname at least once a day or two) sometimes (totally random). All other internal hostnames (e.g. y.company.com) works normal. NS entries are controlled by Bind9 server which is installed on that freebsd server. After approx 10 minutes the hostname becomes available and all works normal again.

What the heck could be the problem ? At least any clue where to search for the problem ?

P.S. Nothing in logs too.

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  • Is there anything in the logs that would show the problem?
    – vmfarms
    Sep 1, 2010 at 13:40
  • How are IPs configured? DHCP? What's the DNS server address for the clients? Are there A-Records in BIND? Are you sure the zone file is correct? Does the FreeBSD server have a statically assigned IP? You mention laptops, but do Desktops have this issue? Are they on different subnets; or is the access point bridging? What brand of access point? Have you checked BIND's logs? They're usually in /var/named/var/log/named.conf but only if you've specifically turned it on in named.conf (it's not enabled by default in some versions).
    – Chris S
    Sep 1, 2010 at 13:41
  • Yes, we have DHCP. The dns server address is local one - 192.168.1.2. And yes, there are A records in BIND. We dont have desktops only laptops (we use them as desktops). FreeBSD server have statically assigned IP. Both router and access point are Cisco Linksys. Ouh, and it seems we hadnt enabled logs.
    – Vilis
    Sep 1, 2010 at 14:05

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Are they failing to lookup the hostname and then tries the second alternative for the domain? You speak of one server. Normally a domain name has two name servers. If so, does this second server have the record for x.company.com?

Im thinking it takes about 10 minutes therefore im guessing that when the TTL for the record expires it tries the server with the correct record again and then succeds in resolving the hostname.

Is the freebsd/bind9 server master for that domain?

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  • Yes, normally it should have two name servers but in our case we have only one. I had very similar idea about TTL but as I am not server administror (and I didnt set up our network) I wasnt sure about that. If with server master you thought that it holds all the zone configs then yes.
    – Vilis
    Sep 1, 2010 at 13:51

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