Everything other than ping and pacman can't resolve hostnames

katachrome · 2012-05-27 23:55:43

Hi everyone, I recently installed arch on my laptop, and am working on getting everything set up. Right now, I've got the network set up with netcfg/net-auto-wireless, and that seems to work normally: I can run ping, and pacman works fine.
However, programs like curl and wget do not work. In addition, I had installed firefox on a previous arch install, and that was unable to resolve hostnames either. (I then reinstalled arch, and am trying to get by with as minimal an install as possible--I don't want to install anything I don't need to, and I'm not going to install a window manager or DE until the networking works fine).
Specifically, they are unable to connect to any url I give them ("Unable to resolve hostname"), but work fine if given an ip address. My (I hope to be) reasonable assumption is that the error lies somewhere in the difference between how ping and pacman resolve hostnames versus other programs (curl, wget, firefox, etc), so any information on that would be appreciated much.

And I would be more than happy to supply any diagnostic information that any of you would consider helpful.

Last edited by katachrome (2012-07-01 05:34:51)

ewaller · 2012-05-28 00:50:40

Sounds like a DNS problem.

Tell us more about your network. Are you assigning a static address?
Are you getting your address from a DHCP server?
Where is that server? (Is it on a local router?)
Do you own that router?
can you please post your /etc/resolv.conf file ?

katachrome · 2012-05-28 01:17:09

ewaller wrote:

Tell us more about your network. Are you assigning a static address?
Are you getting your address from a DHCP server?
Where is that server? (Is it on a local router?)
Do you own that router?

I'm not using a static address, I am using a DHCP server--it's a local router in my own house, so I do own it.

ewaller wrote:

can you please post your /etc/resolv.conf file ?

Of course, here:

# Generated by dhcpcd from wlan0
# /etc/resolv.conf.head can replace this line
nameserver 192.168.1.254
# /etc/resolv.conf.tail can replace this line

Also, I tested the nameserver listed there with host, with the following result, which I hope is helpful:

$ host www.google.com 192.168.1.254
Using domain server:
Name: 192.168.1.254
Address: 192.168.1.254#53
Aliases: 

www.google.com is an alias for www.l.google.com.
www.l.google.com has address 173.194.75.106
www.l.google.com has address 173.194.75.147
www.l.google.com has address 173.194.75.99
www.l.google.com has address 173.194.75.103
www.l.google.com has address 173.194.75.104
www.l.google.com has address 173.194.75.105

It would seem that there is no problem connecting to the nameserver to resolve hosts, but for some reason most programs aren't doing so.

EDIT: I had posted this problem originally on the general linux fora, before thinking to post on these more Arch-specific ones; it kept slipping my mind, but I've been meaning to post a link here to prevent, at least to an extent, the need to post duplicates of everything. The only thing, at least as of this edit, differing seriously between the two threads is some recent progress I've made and posted on the other one. Link: http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/arch-l … names.html

EDIT: Solved! Fix was to put '192.168.0.1' in (a file I created) '/etc/resolv.conf.tail'. Now things work as they should.

Last edited by katachrome (2012-06-20 22:30:27)

katachrome · 2012-07-01 05:36:58

Unfortunately, things broke again--now it appears to be an intermittent error, occasionally resaolving hostnames, but most of the time failing. I've also dual-booted ubuntu on this machine, and on that the network works fine; I'll keep working on this myself, but any help would be appreciated.

swanson · 2012-07-01 07:05:56

Use these external dns servers; 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220

There are also googles: 8.8.8.8 and 4.4.4.4 but I fimd them slower. Or your ISP's.

adam777 · 2012-07-01 12:48:36

swanson wrote:

Use these external dns servers; 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220
There are also googles: 8.8.8.8 and 4.4.4.4 but I fimd them slower. Or your ISP's.

Google's alternate sever is 8.8.4.4, not 4.4.4.4.

debdj · 2012-07-01 13:30:06

Might this be a problem with the NIC's duplex settings?
Most of the time, if it doesn't match with what the network supports, there are RTOs or packet loss.
However, I'll just suggest you trying to change the duplex settings considering all else seems fine.

You can check and change it with mii-tool or ethtool.

katachrome · 2012-07-05 04:39:58

swanson wrote:

Use these external dns servers; 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220

Ostensibly, that works: adding those to a /etc/resolv.conf.head gets rid of my (at least for now) hostname resolution issues, however there does seem to be some lag. Pinging doesn't yield anything out of the ordinary (comparing the numbers to pinging with my desktop computer, which runs Ubuntu and has no network issues. And pinging wasn't really broken in the first place: it was everything else that had problems with hostnames), but irssi lags horribly: having both my laptop and desktop connected and joined to a channel, it takes upwards of a minute sometimes to recieve messages from on on the other. This problem doesn't happen when I boot my laptop into Ubuntu.

The fact that Ubuntu doesn't have any of these network problems makes me wonder: as far as I know, Ubuntu uses NetworkManager as its, um, network manager; could the problem I'm facing on Arch be the fault of wireless-tools/netcfg etc.? I want to install NetworkManager on Arch to test this, however I'd like some feedback on this idea first since I'd prefer not to install addition programs if there's no way at all this could be the issue.

I'll do some more disagnostics and testing tomorrow when I've a clear mind: right now I'm too tired to do anything coherently.

Last edited by katachrome (2012-07-05 04:40:51)

swanson · 2012-07-05 06:41:47

Try namebench, think it's in the aur, and test different DNS servers for your need. Doesn't your ISP provide one? That should be the fastest one.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-05-27 23:55:43

Everything other than ping and pacman can't resolve hostnames

#2 2012-05-28 00:50:40

Re: Everything other than ping and pacman can't resolve hostnames

#3 2012-05-28 01:17:09

Re: Everything other than ping and pacman can't resolve hostnames

#4 2012-07-01 05:36:58

Re: Everything other than ping and pacman can't resolve hostnames

#5 2012-07-01 07:05:56

Re: Everything other than ping and pacman can't resolve hostnames

#6 2012-07-01 12:48:36

Re: Everything other than ping and pacman can't resolve hostnames

#7 2012-07-01 13:30:06

Re: Everything other than ping and pacman can't resolve hostnames

#8 2012-07-05 04:39:58

Re: Everything other than ping and pacman can't resolve hostnames

#9 2012-07-05 06:41:47

Re: Everything other than ping and pacman can't resolve hostnames

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