DNS service problem

[juncool]

We installed wingate 5.23 on our internet gateway PC, but sometimes client PC can not access internet and browser prompt "DNS error",at these time we logged into gatekeeper and see many "DNS look up"message in activity window, and we test web browsing at gateway PC and there were no problems. could you please tell us how to solve this problem?

[MattP]

Hi,

Have you set the DNS for the internal NIC of the WinGate server? If you have then you could be getting a DNS loop which sounds like what you describe. Please make sure that the internal NIC on the server has no DNS entries set. Your external NIC should have DNS entries pointing to your upstream DNS servers.

Regards,

Matt

[trialtester2999]

I have the same DNS problem, the wingate server is installed on a Windows XP Prof machine. The problem would cause the connection drop randomly. I've checked with the settings of all my NIC but the problem remains.

[MattP]

Can you describe your DNS settings then?

You should have:

External NIC
IP address: assigned by ISP or gateway
Default Gateway: as above
DNS server: Upstream DNS server usually given by ISP

Internal NIC
IP address: 192.168.0.1 (or other internal IP address)
default gateway: (blank)
DNS server: (blank)

Client PC
IP address: 192.168.0.2 (internal IP address in the range of the WinGate server)
Default Gateway: 192.168.0.1
DNS server: 192.168.0.1

Regards,

Matt

[trialtester2999]

This is our current setting:

External NIC
IP Address: DHCP
Gateway:na
DNS:na

Internal NIC
IP Address:192.168.1.1
Gateway:na
DNS:na

Client NIC
IP Address:Manual(i.e.192.168.1.2-255)
Gateway:192.168.1.1
DNS:ISP defined(i.e.203.172.17.200) - Do this setting matter at all? Because we also use another wingate server on another network whose client computers use the DNS settings of the ISP but it does not have any problem at all.

[trialtester2999]

Hi this is a follow on a thread earlier done. We installed the demo version of Wingate 5.2.3 on an XP machine running at 500MHZ at first there were no problems but as weeks past by numerous erratic disconnection activity was observed. If the gatekeeper is started there are messages of a "DNS Lookup" on the activity panel. We tried changing the NICs as described on the previous thread but the problem still persists. There is no problem in the wingate server when it is used as a workstation, only those connected to it are having difficulties accessing the internet because of intermittent connection drops.

[MattP]

Is the DNS setting for your external NIC being set to the upstream DNS, ie the DNS server given by your ISP?

Can you try a proxy connection from a client to the server? All you have to do is set the client's IE to connect to the WinGate server on port 80.

Regards,

Matt

[trialtester2999]

The external NIC doesn't have a value set for DNS, only within Wingate we did setup the ISP's DNS. Further we use an ZTE ADSL Modem which automatically gives an IP address to the external NIC, the IP address given is 192.168.1.2 and its gateway 192.168.1.1 for the modem. I think now I know the problem, we have used the 192.168.1.1 also as the internal NIC, it may have interfered with it, what do you think Matt? Unfortunately the system totally crashed yesterday and we have to rebuild the server from scratch. Is it possible to reinstall again the Wingate 5.2.3 demo app?

[MattP]

Ah, that'll do it, you must have the two NICs on different subnets to avoid routing confusions, so changing one of the to the 192.168.2.* subnet should take care of this for you.

You can reinstall 5.2.3 or you can install version 6 and generate a trial key, personally I'd go with version 6. We should have it posted in about half an hour (fingers crossed!)

Regards,

Matt

[trialtester2999]

Really! Wow! I'm very excited to try out your new Wingate! Thanks Matt for the reply on the problem, I think it solved it, cheers!