Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 12:08:12 -0700 (PDT) From: "Bryan K. Ogawa" <bkogawa@primenet.com> To: matthew@federal.co.uk Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Internet configuration Message-ID: <199804181908.MAA02932@foo.primenet.com> References: <35388945.B7942D76@federal.co.uk>
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In localhost.freebsd.questions you write: >I asked a question and got a reply that helped me out tremendously. >Since then I have been playing around and am confused as to how I am >managing to access the web. >My original problem was that I could establish a PPP connection no >problem, but could not get out onto the web at all or receive any mail. >I was sure that the problem was in /etc/rc.conf and had been messing >around with it, but with no luck . The response I got from John Kenagy >suggested that I create a file /etc/resolv.conf and put the name server >imformtion in there, which I did and bingo everything started to work. >Just to see what happened I then removed the configuration in >/etc/rc.conf for tun0 and set defaultrouter="NO". I was ure that one of >these entries was important, but to my surprise I could still acces the >web. Ithen removed tun0 as a device from /etc/rc.conf, rebooted and it >still works. >The question I have is why is it still working, does /etc/rc.conf not >have any effect on dial-up connections? Why is there no mention of >/etc/resolv.conf in the manual, is this file really neccessary, or >should I be able to get out onto the web without it? I have another Rc.conf has potential effects on dial up connections, but the specific things you mention don't have a fundamental effect in many cases. User PPP sets up the routing for you, so defaultrouter=NO should work all the time. My rc.conf doesn't have any mention of tun0 at all, and I'm not sure where you would put it in there. See handbook168.html for details about setting up resolv.conf and the need to do it. You can go on the web without it in one of several ways: 1. You can do what I do, and configure a real DNS server on your machine. This isn't worth the effort for many people, but it gives much greater flexibility. This is a learning experience if you've never done DNS before. 2. You can use IP addresses without name service working in netscape, but don't expect to go to http://www.yahoo.com. Instead, try http://204.71.200.69 . This is essentially unusable on the public web. >account with a different ISP that does not supply DNS addresses, so >obviously I wouldn't be able to put an entry in /etc/resolv.conf. How Your ISP should supply these if you ask; they may not supply them because windows can "find" DNS servers in the proper configuration. However, the DNS machines still have IP addresses which you can put into resolv.conf . Even if they aren't willing to provide this info, you can still probably use the first ISP's name servers for the second ISP -- just leave the name servers in your resolv.conf file . >would I get this working. Can I use both ISP's and how would bsd know >which was which as they both assign addresses dynamically. Does God >exist, and will I ever stop asking stupid questions? Yes, you can use both ISPs. BSD will not care which is which -- it will use all nameservers specified in the resolv.conf in round robin (or some other rule). This is usually OK since you can just go out over the internet to talk to the other ISP's name server if you are connected to the first ISP. Yes, I believe God exists. Your questions are not stupid -- you are asking "why?" questions which increase understanding. For more information about resolv.conf , try man resolv.conf on your system. You can do this for many configuration files (rc.conf as well). -- bryan k ogawa <bkogawa@primenet.com> http://www.primenet.com/~bkogawa/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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