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PostPosted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 10:47 am 
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Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2005 9:22 am
Posts: 777
Location: spencerport, ny (USA)
For the last few weeks, if I try to access my MythTV box from any of my windows machines, I end up at a RoadRunner search page, with ads and results talking about MythTV.
I figured it had to do with the WINS browsing, Netbios, etc., on my local network. My Myth box has a hostname of "mythtv" and I can usually access the box that way in a browser, MythTV Player, network shares, etc..
I don't think I'm doing anything wrong. I think my ISP (RoadRunner) has done something to DNS so that when I try to resolve "mythtv", I end up at mythtv.rochester.rr.com (24.28.199.152).

However, local network browsing works fine - I can see and access the shares.

I assume there's some order of precedence here - the local hosts file is first (and that's what I'm doing in the interim). Is DNS next? Apparently so. I'd like it to try the local network for unqualified names such as http://mythtv but I don't know what to look for.
I don't think this is a Windows issue, but it may be. I suspect that another Linux box would have the same trouble (I can probably try that over the weekend, as I have an ubuntu box that runs, but isn't being used right now.

Anyone else see this on RoadRunner?
It's not a "catch-all". If I try to browse to http://foo or "ping fubar", it times out.
I just tried a bunch of other names, and they all just time out. But MythTV or even Myth, go to the RR page. Very odd.


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 5:26 pm 
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Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2005 8:55 pm
Posts: 1381
Location: Farmington, MI USA
Not sure this really helps you much (more like reinforcing what you already know) but...

If you don't have anything on your local network resolving internal systems for you then your external DNS can take you pretty much anywhere - No surprise there. This is why OSes have intermediate mechanisms to allow you to resolve local machines first (hosts file in Windoze, hosts/resolv.conf/host.conf files in *nix, etc.) Obviously RR's nameservers now resolve whatever name you are using to try to access your Myth box(en) so something has changed on their end, but you don't have any control over what those will/will not resolve.

The only way I know of to ensure a name resolves to a particular IP in Windoze is via the hosts file, unless you are running your own DNS server locally (I tried that once, quickly deciding that it was best left to the pros). Your Linux boxen would have the same issue if A) The target system is not defined in /etc/hosts or B) Target system is defined in /etc/hosts, but /etc/hosts.conf is configured to look at the defined nameservers in /etc/resolv.conf first (and the first one listed there is not your local DNS server as mentioned above).

That clears it all up, no? :wink:


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 10:07 pm 
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Joined: Wed Jan 07, 2004 12:14 pm
Posts: 425
Location: Charlotte, NC
I am in Charlotte NC and noticed several weeks ago that Time Warner (RoadRunner) made some DNS changes that occasionally directed me to some strange places but most importantly impacted the performance of my internal network. I was seeing very slow response times on my Myth boxes (several RPC timeouts on NFS mounts for example). The solution was to ping the 3 DNS servers identified on my router (DHCP), and use the fastest one as the ONLY DNS server on my Myth boxes. I found if I had more than one server in NETCARDCONFIG my boxes were slow; with one they are back to normal.

I have another friend here that was having the same problem - this fixed his too...


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 6:08 am 
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Joined: Sat Sep 02, 2006 9:17 am
Posts: 359
You can edit your windows hosts file, its in pretty much the exact same format as Linux/UNIX. You can edit it via Start->Run then enter:
Code:
wordpad %WINDIR%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts


Then you'd simply add
Code:
# Local network's MythTV Backend
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx    mythtv


Substitute mythtv's actual IP address for the x's. Comment lines start with a hash (a.k.a pound-sign)
TIP: There should be nothing in the windows hosts file other than comments unless you've added it. Some malware will put stuff in there to redirect your browser to their stuff; which is basically an evil use of exactly what I'm recommending.


Alternately, you should be able to start SAMBA, and configure it to act as a WINS (Windows naming service) server for your local network. But I've found Windows naming to be squirrily


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 10:41 am 
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Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2005 9:22 am
Posts: 777
Location: spencerport, ny (USA)
I know that I can use the hosts file. It just seems so..... 90's. I know how, I just didn't want to resort to that if there were a better approach. But hosting my own DNS probably isn't going to be a good option. I may find another DNS that is outside the control of RR though, and I've done this successfully in the past.
Thanks everyone for the ideas.


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 5:15 pm 
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Joined: Sat Sep 02, 2006 9:17 am
Posts: 359
thornsoft wrote:
I know that I can use the hosts file. It just seems so..... 90's.
:lol: :lol: :lol:
Yup, That's Windows for you. Unless you want to install Windows Server. (or figure out how to make Samba act like one)


I once set up DNS on a local linux box, it was configured as a caching DNS, and a local domain authority (so it could serve my addresses.) DHCP was the headache, because my router didn't want to assign my server as the DNS server. So I had to set up a DHCP too. Then the ISP moved their DNS ip's so my whole net would lose the ability to resolve uncached addresses until I found and loaded the new addresses. I finally wrote a script to periodically pull updated DNS IP's off my router's ConnectionStatus Page, so everything worked smoothly. Then my router died. The scripts didn't work with the new router. I've been editing hosts files ever since...


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PostPosted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 8:49 am 
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Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2005 2:14 pm
Posts: 55
Location: Madison, WI
If you are having problems with DNS from Roadrunner, why not change your DNS. I'm using http://www.opendns.com/ for my DNS.

I've configured my router to use their servers and fall back to AT&T (my ISP) if unavailable.

I'm using OpenDNS due to a recommendation, but I'd like to hear what others know of them (for or against using OpenDNS).

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PostPosted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 3:40 pm 
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Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2005 9:22 am
Posts: 777
Location: spencerport, ny (USA)
jimdoc wrote:
If you are having problems with DNS from Roadrunner, why not change your DNS. I'm using http://www.opendns.com/ for my DNS.

Excellent - thanks.


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PostPosted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 2:27 am 
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Joined: Mon Jun 21, 2004 5:28 am
Posts: 700
Location: Germany
Domain guessing can happen in may places. The quickest solution is to append a "." to a non-fully qualified domain name. Ex:
Code:
http://mythtv.

That said, I find it is usually windows that is to blame for this. To check (this is for XP, other flavours are similar), right click on the network connection, select properties, in General scroll down to TCP/IP and click Properties, Click Advanced, Click the DNS tab. Make sure "Append these DNS suffixes" is checked (DON'T check Append connection specific DNS suffixes) and remove any suffixes you don't want.

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