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Linksys router/Tomato firmware DNS issues

Linksys router/Tomato firmware DNS issues

I've got a WRT54GS that I've loaded the current version of Tomato onto. I entered static DHCP addresses in for the devices on my network, released and renewed the address on my desktop and tried to ping another computer. All I got was The request could not find host blah. Please check the name and try again. Now, I verified that my desktop and the target machine I'm trying to ping have both received their proper static DHCP lease and that their DNS server is the IP address of my router. What am I missing?

Asked by: Guest | Views: 210
Total answers/comments: 5
Guest [Entry]

"I would start by making sure that the settings are the same on every computer (have to rule it out)... then on each machine, right click on the network interface settings and do properties, double click on IPv4, then advanced.

From here, I would click on the DNS tab and manualy add the server in the top list then select the option ""Append these DNS suffixes (in order):"" and choose something such as .local or .mynetwork then tick the bottom two options.

Restart all machines after making these changes and go to the command prompt and type ipconfig /renew followed by ipconfig /registerdns

Next, at the command prompt, type ""Nslookup"" and just try the name of one or two machines and see what happens.

If you are still getting no where, check DNS settings on the router, it sounds like it is not allowing other machines to register / is a caching DNS server for the internet ONLY, if it does work - cool.

If this doesn't help, you may be best off just using hosts files or using a different firmware - but, hopefully it has helped.

Edit - Also, Just thought - Remember to check that ICMP Echo is allowed on the Windows Firewall!"
Guest [Entry]

"their DNS server is the IP address of my router

The DNS server should more than likely not be the address of your router."
Guest [Entry]

"It's a very long time I do not fiddle with router's firmware, but here are my only two ideas:

it could be a DNSmasq configuration problem of . It would be useful if you would post your dnsmasq.conf file, maybe. That file is heavily commented, so it should be easy for you to see what options might play a role in your problem.
it could be a problem with the host names (if they have a dot in it they are looked up on the internet instead of being retrived from the router).

Additional information that you might consider providing:

Windows version you are using
Tomato version you are using
Host names of your local machines

Hope this helps!"
Guest [Entry]

Try cleaning the ARP cache on both machines (a reboot should suffice) and see what happens.
Guest [Entry]

"I need to check the facts.

You have replaced firmware in the router.
You have given both computers DHCP assigned but static IPs using the router.
You can ping each machine by IP address.
You can sometimes ping by computer name but not always.
The macbook does not have the problem with hostnames.

If so, this is about were windows resolves the computers hostname into an IP address.
Since it is not using NetBIOS to get the IP, it will use the hostname to resolve IP, it is first going to check itself, then the hosts file and then the DNS server to do this.

So a problem with the DNS server results? The fact that it works sometimes and not others is problematic."