[Dnsmasq-discuss] Inconsistent name resolution behavior across Windows XP hosts

Simon Kelley simon at thekelleys.org.uk
Wed Mar 18 13:07:18 GMT 2009


László Monda wrote:
> Hi List,
> 
> I'm running dnsmasq inside an OpenWrt router which acts as the LAN gateway.
> 
> On some Windows XP hosts name resolution works when referring to LAN
> hosts purely through their name.
> 
> On other Windows XP hosts I have to explicitly use the local domain
> such as hostname.lan otherwise the resolution fails.
> 
> Please shed some light on this issue.  I'd love to understand it.
> 

This dnsmasq FAQ entry might help:

Q: Names on the internet are working fine, but looking up local names
    from /etc/hosts or DHCP doesn't seem to work.

A: Resolver code sometime does strange things when given names without
    any dots in. Win2k and WinXP may not use the DNS at all and just
    try and look up the name using WINS. On unix look at "options ndots:"
    in "man resolv.conf" for details on this topic. Testing lookups
    using "nslookup" or "dig" will work, but then attempting to run
    "ping" will get a lookup failure, appending a dot to the end of the
    hostname  will fix things. (ie "ping myhost" fails, but "ping
    myhost." works. The solution is to make sure that all your hosts
    have a domain set ("domain" in resolv.conf, or set a domain in
    your DHCP server, see below fr Windows XP and Mac OS X).
    Any domain  will do, but "localnet" is traditional. Now when you
    resolve "myhost" the resolver will attempt to look up
    "myhost.localnet" so you need to have dnsmasq reply to that name.
    The way to do that is to include the domain in each name on
    /etc/hosts  and/or to use the --expand-hosts and --domain options.



Cheers,

Simon.





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