Gateway problem...

[tvradict]

Yesterday I plugged a D-Link DSL-G604T ADSL router into my computer on the first step of my home network. PC-Router interface is spot on, no problems, and the router seems to connect to Pipex fine as well(*).

However, when I tried to get IE to open PH, it couldn't resolve the DNS

A quick nslookup later and I discovered that my gateway was set to 192.168.1.1 - mygateway - ar7.

To me that isn't right, i know for a fact that my router doesn't have any DNS settings so how can the router use itself for DNS lookup?!?!

Anyone got any suggestions on what to do next, how do I find out gateway information?

TIA
Stuart.


 • 
I checked this by using the routers PING function and pinged:
Pipex primary DNS 62.241.162.200
Pipex Secondary DNS 62.241.163.200
And I pinged 195.225.218.139
all came back successful!

[aldi]

Gateway and DNS normally points to the router in a home network, the router knows what the ISP's DNS is because the ISP tells it at the same time it tells it what internet IP it can have. The router just forwards DNS requests to the ISP's servers. You could try manually setting the DNS settings on the PC to point to the ISP's servers just incase somethings buggered about the routers DNS forwarding. Can you ping pipex's DNS servers from the PC? If not what do you see when you tracert to them?

Hope this helps
Neil

>> Edited by aldi on Tuesday 31st January 23:52

[pdV6]

tvradict said:

A quick nslookup later and I discovered that my gateway was set to 192.168.1.1 - mygateway - ar7. To me that isn't right, i know for a fact that my router doesn't have any DNS settings so how can the router use itself for DNS lookup?!?!

Careful with your terminology if you don't want to get confused.

The "gateway" is just the route via which data that's not destined for your internal network gets out to the wider world. In this case, its your ADSL router (presumably with an IP address of 192.168.1.1 on its internal ethernet port as that is a private address not valid on the internet)

The DNS is basically a server somewhere that translates "english" names (such as Pistonheads.com) into an IP address and in your kind of setup will most likely be hosted by your ISP. Therefore, you just need to set Pipex's DNS server addresses in the properties of your network connection on your PC.

If, however, your ADSL router is also a DHCP server (they often are), then you can set your PC's network connection to "obtain an IP address automatically" and it will also pick up things like DNS settings and gateway address automatically from the router. The only thing you'd need to do then is check that they are entered correctly on your router. How you do this will be specific to the model you have.

[tvradict]

aldi said:

Gateway and DNS normally points to the router in a home network, the router knows what the ISP's DNS is because the ISP tells it at the same time it tells it what internet IP it can have. The router just forwards DNS requests to the ISP's servers. You could try manually setting the DNS settings on the PC to point to the ISP's servers just incase somethings buggered about the routers DNS forwarding. Can you ping pipex's DNS servers from the PC? If not what do you see when you tracert to them? Hope this helps Neil >> Edited by aldi on Tuesday 31st January 23:52

I've tried putting in the DNS settings for Pipex into the PC. Nothing happened, same old Cannot find server etc. Can't ping Pipex from PC, request times out, didn't do a tracert but I would assume it would go as far as the router then stop. I can talk to the router from my pc.

[tvradict]

pdV6 said:

tvradict said: A quick nslookup later and I discovered that my gateway was set to 192.168.1.1 - mygateway - ar7. To me that isn't right, i know for a fact that my router doesn't have any DNS settings so how can the router use itself for DNS lookup?!?! Careful with your terminology if you don't want to get confused. The "gateway" is just the route via which data that's not destined for your internal network gets out to the wider world. In this case, its your ADSL router (presumably with an IP address of 192.168.1.1 on its internal ethernet port as that is a private address not valid on the internet) The DNS is basically a server somewhere that translates "english" names (such as Pistonheads.com) into an IP address and in your kind of setup will most likely be hosted by your ISP. Therefore, you just need to set Pipex's DNS server addresses in the properties of your network connection on your PC. If, however, your ADSL router is also a DHCP server (they often are), then you can set your PC's network connection to "obtain an IP address automatically" and it will also pick up things like DNS settings and gateway address automatically from the router. The only thing you'd need to do then is check that they are entered correctly on your router. How you do this will be specific to the model you have.

As above, put the DNS settings into the pc, nothing happened.

DHCP is on and the PC is set to abtain IP automatically.

Not quite sure how to check they are entered properly.

[pdV6]

Open a "DOS" window (Start --> Run --> "cmd" and type in ipconfig/all at the prompt. See what it comes back with.

[tvradict]

Ok, I've done an ipconfig/all command for both my modem (which works) and the router.

ADSL Modem

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name : home
Primary DNS Suffix :
Node Type : unknown
IP Routing Enabled : no
WINS Proxy Enabled : no

PPP Adaptor Pipex

Connection Specific DNS Suffix :
Description : WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface
Physical Address : 00-53-45-00-00-00
DHCP Enabled : no
IP Address : 85.210.41.206
Subnet Mask : 255.255.255.255
Default Gateway : 85.210.41.206
DNS Servers : 62.241.163.200 , 62.241.162.201

ADSL Router

Windows IP Configuration

AS ABOVE

Ethernet Adaptor Local Area Connection

Connection Specific DNS Suffix :
Description : Intel (R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection
Physical Address : 00-OC-F1-B4-01-06
DHCP Enabled : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled : Yes
IP Address : 192.168.1.2
Subnet Mask : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway :192.168.1.1
DHCP Server : 192.168.1.1
DNS Servers : 192.168.1.1
Lease Obtained : 07 February 2006 20:19:03
Lease Expires : 07 February 2006 21:19:03

Now hopefully someone can see something wrong in that lot, I can't.

[aldi]

Just a thought, can you get to the pipex home page via the router? If you try a tracert to news.bbc.co.uk are there any hops after the router?

Edit: Might just be worth pressing the factory defaults button on the thing and setting it up again from scratch?

>> Edited by aldi on Tuesday 7th February 21:18

[tvradict]

aldi said:

Just a thought, can you get to the pipex home page via the router? If you try a tracert to news.bbc.co.uk are there any hops after the router? Edit: Might just be worth pressing the factory defaults button on the thing and setting it up again from scratch? >> Edited by aldi on Tuesday 7th February 21:18

this is where it gets a bit wierd. The Router has a Ping function. From the router I can ping Pipex and PH. I can also ping the 2 computers on the network (one is off most of the time though). From the PC I can ping the router and the other PC but not Pipex or PH.

Tried the Factory settings thing already, no change.

I'll try the tracert in a mo.

>> Edited by tvradict on Tuesday 7th February 21:23

[tvradict]

Trace route results

Tracing route to newswww.bbc.net.uk [212.50.226.44]

1. <1ms <1ms <1ms mygateway.ar7 [192.168.1.1]
2. * * * Request Timed Out
.
.
.
30. * * * Request Timed Out


Did the same from the Modem

Tracing route to newswww.bbc.net.uk [212.50.226.53]

1. 51ms 48ms 50ms ge-1-0-0.cr2.he1.systems.pipex.net [62.241.161.185]
2. 69ms 77ms 71ms ge-0-0-3.cr1.he1.systems.pipex.net [62.241.161.169]
3. 71ms 136ms 87ms xpe-gw0.prt0.thdo.bbc.co.uk [217.79.160.123]
4. 79ms 87ms 85ms 212.58.238.153
6. 59ms 67ms 67ms newssearch01.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.226.53]

[shocker-z]

First off can you access http://192.168.1.1 ?
If so then i'm very very very confused! but i'm guessing that you wont be able to which would indicate a problem with IE/Winsock so Providing you have windows XP with SP2 do the following and then restart when prompted

start -> run -> 'cmd' -> 'netsh winsock reset'

If this says command of file missing try this
start -> run -> 'cmd' -> 'netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt'

Then restart and see if this has helped it might also be worth trying 'ipconfig /dnsflush'

[aldi]

Looks like a router problem rather than a PC problem, its firing packets off in the right direction but getting nothing back. Is the router deffo picking up an IP similar to the one the modem was getting? What model of router is it?

[pdV6]

The above looks ok, so long as the ADSL router has picked up an IP address of 192.168.1.1 on its internal interface, which isn't clear from the ipconfig results you've posted.

However, it must have done, because your PC is using 192.168.1.1 for DHCP and has successfully picked up the "correct" address (192.168.1.2) and default gateway (192.168.1.1).

Note that your PC is also picking up 192.168.1.1 as the DNS server address - does your ADSL router have a DNS server built in? If so, that's fine but then points to it not replicating with a "real" DNS server on t'interweb. Rather than fight it, can you get into the configuration of the router and change it so that it dishes out the Pipex DNS servers' addresses instead of its own? Might be as simple as disabling the DNS server on the router.

[neil_cardiff]

If it were me, I'd be starting from scratch by wiping the router and reinputing all the setups.

With ADSL routers the KISS principle rules - Keep It Simple Stupid

If it works once you've rebuilt the router, and all connected machines can resolve addresses then why are you trying to worry yourself over it - you'll spend ages looking for an answer to a problem that you and other very clever peopl may never find.

Its all cost/benefit - does the amount of time wasted outweigh the benefit IF you do find the answer?

If no, leave it alone!!!

I can't work out why my corporate VPN users can never resolve addresses unless they have connected the the VPN - it affect every machine - I've wasted more than enough time TRYING to fix the issue, and now I'm just going through the motions of redesigning the network (I inherited a mess anyway) and it'll be resolved through that...

[aldi]

Just realised - your DNS appears to be working fine! (since it's resolved news.bbc.co.uk to a different address). So the problem isn't DNS related, its just general routing related at the router. What options have you got re. NAT?

[tvradict]

Thanks for all the replies

Ok, to clear a few things up.

Router is a D-Link DSL-G604T. Its for a small home network of 2 computers, one will be connected by cable, the other wirelessly. The network itself works fine, but for the moment it is disabled.

Both PC's can access 192.168.1.1 without problem, that gets me to the router config pages anyway. From my speedtouch ADSL 330 modem (which I am using now) I can access the internet no problem.

As far as I know, the router connects to Pipex no problem, and through the Routers PING function I can ping Pipex's DNS Servers and PH.

[tvradict]

pdV6 said:

The above looks ok, so long as the ADSL router has picked up an IP address of 192.168.1.1 on its internal interface, which isn't clear from the ipconfig results you've posted. However, it must have done, because your PC is using 192.168.1.1 for DHCP and has successfully picked up the "correct" address (192.168.1.2) and default gateway (192.168.1.1). Note that your PC is also picking up 192.168.1.1 as the DNS server address - does your ADSL router have a DNS server built in? If so, that's fine but then points to it not replicating with a "real" DNS server on t'interweb. Rather than fight it, can you get into the configuration of the router and change it so that it dishes out the Pipex DNS servers' addresses instead of its own? Might be as simple as disabling the DNS server on the router.

I had a look in the router to try and find somewhere to put the DNS address for Pipex but couldn't find anywhere, but then I could just be looking in the wrong place.

[pdV6]

tvradict said:

pdV6 said: The above looks ok, so long as the ADSL router has picked up an IP address of 192.168.1.1 on its internal interface, which isn't clear from the ipconfig results you've posted. However, it must have done, because your PC is using 192.168.1.1 for DHCP and has successfully picked up the "correct" address (192.168.1.2) and default gateway (192.168.1.1). Note that your PC is also picking up 192.168.1.1 as the DNS server address - does your ADSL router have a DNS server built in? If so, that's fine but then points to it not replicating with a "real" DNS server on t'interweb. Rather than fight it, can you get into the configuration of the router and change it so that it dishes out the Pipex DNS servers' addresses instead of its own? Might be as simple as disabling the DNS server on the router. I had a look in the router to try and find somewhere to put the DNS address for Pipex but couldn't find anywhere, but then I could just be looking in the wrong place.

Can't help you with the router config, but maybe try manually setting Pipex' DNS addresses on your PCs.

In fact, set up the PCs completely manually to cut DHCP out of the equation, i.e. un-tick the "obtain IP address automatically" box and manually set the IPs of your 2 PCs to 192.168.1.2 and 192.168.1.3, with a default gateway of 192.168.1.1 and Pipex' DNS addresses in the DNS bit.

[maddog-uk]

Go into the web menu and click on DHCP. Then basically setup the dhcp so that your DNS is the actually gateway itself. ie 192.168.1.1 then the client will use the router as its dns and the router will use pipex as its dns. Email me if you want more help!

[tvradict]

This is starting to drag a bit and get on my nerves now.

Thanks for the help and good advice guys, I am slowly getting somewhere with it, but it still aint working!

OK, progress is this.

DHCP has been turned off and the IP/DNS/GATEWAY information has been inputted into both pcs manually. The IPCONFIG files for both pcs seems to be matching, all relevant information is in place and both pcs know where the Gateway (192.168.1.1) is and the DNS Servers (62.241.163.200 and 62.241.162.201).

However, I still can't get online using the Router. Can ping Servers from the router but not the computer and TRACERT gets as far as 192.168.1.1 before timing out!

Anyone know where I go next, or do I just give up?