RE: [Plug] Server configured name server

["Michael C. Toren" <mct@netaxs.com>]

> You may be able to go to www.allwhois.com and put your isp's domain name in
> and see what servers they have. 

This looks like another interface to NetSol's whois database.

Be careful, though.  The nameservers that an ISP may tell it's customers
to use and the nameservers that they list in the root servers may not be
the same.  For instance, some larger ISP's that host a massive number of
domains run two sets of servers.  One set is configured for non-recursive
queries only, which they list in the root nameservers, and the other for
full-recursion, which they instruct their customers to use.  Querying a
non-recursive server for domains that it is authoritative for will yield
correct results, however they will be unable to resolve domains which it
is not doing either primary or secondary DNS for.

> > I just contacted my isp with a question about a secondary dns, and
> > they gave me the dns number, but they also told me to set my computer
> > to "Server Assigned DNS", which must be some dumb Microsoft thing.

It appears that pppd supports the Microsoft extension, at least when
it's operating in "server" mode.  I found this in the man page:

     ms-dns <addr>
          If pppd is acting as a  server  for  Microsoft  Windows
          clients,  this  option allows pppd to supply one or two
          DNS (Domain Name Server) addresses to the clients.  The
          first instance of this option specifies the primary DNS
          address; the second instance (if given)  specifies  the
          secondary  DNS  address.   (This  option was present in
          some older versions of pppd under the name dns-addr.)

You might want to try placing the line "ms-dns" in your PPP options file,
with no nameservers listed, and see if that will at least trigger pppd to
log somewhere when it receives DNS information from your provider.  If you
get that far, you can write a short script, called from ip-up, to extract
this information from the logfile and write it to your resolv.conf file.

HTH,

-mct