Whirlpool

Anybody have an idea on how to get a PASS condition out of this diagnostic? I am using a Netcomm NB9W with G-node. I have been through the troubleshooting tips on the router config page and it hasn't helped. Contacted G-node, and they said don't worry about it. I know it says that if I can still browse the Web that is isn't an issue, but why does it say FAIL? It gave a PASS condition when I initially set everything up, so why not now? Confused!

Is their name server pingable? If not, that would explain the fail.

Billy.

How would one determine if their name was 'pingable'?

Try pinging it. If it fails it isn't pingable.

Find out from your ISP what the IP address of their main name server is. Then:

Open a command prompt (click Start, select Run... then type in command and press Enter).
Type ping name.server.address, then press Enter. Substitute name.server.address for the IP address your ISP gives you; if you were using Primus, you'd be typing in ping 203.134.64.66

If you get "Reply from ..." four times as the response, your modem is lying to you and you *can* ping their name server. If you get "Destination host unreachable" or some other error, then you can't ping their name server and the modem got it right in the first place.

Billy.

Thanks Billy - carried out your instructions, and it did indeed return the message "Reply from 202.10.93.38: bytes = 32 time = 2ms TTL=64" four times.
So - does that mean that my modem has something wrong with it, or is it just a little confused? Is the modem failing to ping the name server when it should be?

I'm wondering why you would want to ping a Domain Name Server, unless you are unable to connect to the net, which would be one of the possible diagnostics you could employ. However, a fair number of Administrators would not want their Name Servers pinged, because that would mean that a denial of service attack could be launched against the server.

As RealAusTech mentions, just because you can or can't ping a Domain Name Server doesn't actually mean it's working.

What you need to do is give it a name query on UDP port 53, e.g.

nslookup www.whirlpool.net.au [ipaddress of DNS server]

so in my case if I wanted to check internode's primary DNS server in Adelaide, I would do


C:\>nslookup www.whirlpool.net.au 192.231.203.132
Server: resolv.internode.on.net
Address: 192.231.203.132

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: www.whirlpool.net.au
Address: 203.147.133.62

brockjack writes...

It gave a PASS condition when I initially set everything up, so why not now?

I just had a quick look at the NB9W diagnostics. What it tries to do is ping the primary Domain Name Server to determine if it is functional.

In the case of g-node, it appears the primary [202.10.80.11] and secondary [202.10.80.10] dns servers no longer respond to ICMP pings. You indicate when your originally set it up, it did, so one would assume this is a recent change on g-node's behalf. However, doing a DNS query with either server works.

As g-node indicate, there is no need for concern. g-node has turned off ICMP on their DNS servers, but they are still standing by and fully functional (as you have noted, otherwise your internet would not be functioning.)