nslookup times out on some WinXP clients

[Richard Hobbs]

Hello,

Basically, nslookup times out on some Windows machines, but not on others.
we have our own linux-based DNS server that i just built. more info here...

First of all, the info:

we currently have a Windows 2000 Server DNS & DHCP Server serving IP
Addresses between .175 and .199 and serving DNS records for our entire
network (192.168.3.).

All our client machines use static IPs, apart from a few laptops and
visitors. Also, all our client machines are running RedHat 8.0 (apart from
the laptops and a couple of desktop which are on WinXP).

We are trying to migrate to a linux backend instead of a Windows one, and i
have therefore created a DNS Server and DHCP Server on a new linux box i've
built.

I have left the Windows DNS Server running for the moment, but have disabled
the Windows DHCP Server.

Now for the problem:

All the linux machines are on static IPs anyway, so DHCP isn't an issue
here. nslookup works perfectly on all these machines as well, so DNS isn't
an issue under linux either.

The problem arises when i look at the Windows machines.

I took a sample of 5 machines - 3 on static IPs, and 2 on DHCP. I rebooted
the 2 DHCP machines just to ensure they were on the new DHCP server, and i
confirmed this by running "ipconfig /all" on them. I also changed the DNS
Servers on the static IP machines to point at the new Linux one.

I then ran "nslookup" on all 5 machines, in a Command Prompt.

Into each nslookup window, i typed "stg2" (the name of the new linux
DNS/DHCP/Apache/NIS Server).

On 2 of the static IP machines, it worked fine. On the other static IP
machine, and both the DHCP machines, it produced the following error:

  Server:  stg2.crl.toshiba.co.uk
  Address:  192.168.3.2

  DNS request timed out.
      timeout was 2 seconds.
  *** Request to stg2.crl.toshiba.co.uk timed-out

does anyone know why this is happening on some Windows clients, and not
others?

i've found lots of into on the web about a similar thing, which involves
changing the settings on the "Windows 2003 DNS or DHCP Server", but we have
a linux server, so this isnt' relevant.

any ideas??

thanks in advance to anyone who can help! :D

Hobbs.

-- 
Richard Hobbs (Systems Administrator)
Toshiba Research Europe Ltd. - Speech Technology Group
Web: http://www.toshiba-europe.com/research/
Email: richard.hobbs at crl.toshiba.co.uk
Tel: +44 1223 376964        Mobile: +44 7811 803377



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