SOLVED: DNS not working properly. Failed step 4

[crowfan]

Hello all,

I stopped the DNS server then eventually restarted it. But when I turned it back on, it wasn't working properly. I ran the troubleshooting service and it gave me this as an output:

Step 1: Your HDA IP address is 192.168.1.86
Step 2: Your HDA domain name is home.com
Step 3: Your router IP address is 192.168.1.1
Step 4: Your HDA DNS server is NOT working fine for local hostnames.

243 PTR h243.home.com

That last line is only one of 254 lines that appeared when I ran the last command. There was one for 1 through 254 and they all looked like that (with the number changing appropriately, of course). I have no idea how to copy-paste from the Terminal (I'm using a MacBook Pro with the single button trackpad and remoting into the Amahi desktop with Chicken of the VNC).

Any idea what I need to do to get it back up and running properly again? Thanks!

[bigfoot65]

You may have to restart your network. Is the DHCP server off on your router?

[crowfan]

The DHCP server is active on my router. I have Verizon FiOS and I'm pretty sure I need to leave it on because the set-top boxes use a MOCA network through the router to get their guide data, on demand content, etc. I'm pretty sure the DHCP has always been handled by the router, even when everything was working before.

[bigfoot65]

Did you point the DNS for your router to the HDA? Ensure the DHCP is off on the HDA. You cannot have two DHCP servers running or they will conflict.

[crowfan]

I did, though I guess I can't be sure I did it correctly since it's not working.

The DHCP server was on; I turned it off, so now the router is the only DHCP server going. I forgot to turn it off, but now it's off.

[bigfoot65]

If you have not, might want to reboot the router. Then renew the IPs on the clients so they are fresh. Check each client to see what it's using for DNS.

[crowfan]

It looks like, for some reason, the router is not giving out the hda's address as the DNS server. It's giving out its own address. I don't know why, because I believe I have it set properly to do that. Obviously not, since it's not doing it, but I have no idea where else to look. I really hate the Verizon interface on this router.

However, I manually changed the DNS server in my MacBookPro's Wi-Fi connection to the hda's IP address, and it is still not working.

[bigfoot65]

Here's what I would recommend:

1. Set your router DHCP server range to 1 IP address. Make this the IP that is assigned to your HDA.
2. Turn on the HDA DHCP Server and let it provide DHCP leases to your clients.

By doing this, you should be able to get the clients to use the correct DNS. Keep in mind this may require you to turn off all devices except your HDA initially to get things working. If you can assign the DHCP lease from the router by MAC address, you could then get it working easier.

Hope this works for you. I have seen this done in the past with other users that had AT&T branded modem/router configurations.

[crowfan]

Well, it turns out I was wrong (shocker, I know). I can in fact turn off DHCP on the router and let the Amahi server handle it. I did that, and now it seems to be working again (i.e., I can type "hda" in the address bar of Chrome and it takes me to the Amahi login page).

However, something else seems to be broken. I can't connect to the server using the "hda" designation using the Finder. I have to connect to the IP address, and that works, but I used to be able to connect using the "hda" designation (smb://hda/Docs, for instance). To me it seems that something might still be wrong if that doesn't work.

[bigfoot65]

Did you refresh the client IP address?