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Date:      Wed, 29 Aug 2001 21:01:13 -0500
From:      Dan Thill <thill@umr.edu>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   NAT'd machine can't resolve hostnames
Message-ID:  <3B8D9E69.C6D52866@umr.edu>

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I've read the FAQs, the Handbook, the Archives, lurked for a few weeks, and even
sacrificed a chicken or three.  However, I'm still stuck.

I have two PCs, 192.168.0.1  and .2 both running FreeBSD 4.3.  I'm using
user-land PPP to provide NAT to the Machine 2.  I have PPP working perfectly
already.  The two machines can see and talk to each other on the network via
hostnames and IP's fine.  However, when Machine 1 is connected to my dialup ISP,
Machine 2 can only resolve sites by IP address.  For some reason, Machine 1
isn't resolving the hostname (or passing it on to my ISPs DNS servers to be
resolved).  Machine 1's resolv.conf is updated for each connection (as it should
be), and if I copy the nameserver address to the resolv.conf of machine 2,
PRESTO!  It can resolve names.

My question is: is there anyway that Machine 2 can get the new nameserver
addresses from Machine 1, or have Machine 1 forward the resolutions on to the
ISP (or something like that... I'm not quite up to par on how all this works)? 
Or do I have to use bind or routed? (I'd prefer to use neither).  I would resort
to just editing Machine 2's resolv.conf, but I'm in a situation where I switch
between several ISPs on a daily basis.  And I KNOW there is a way to so this,
because:

Machine 1 is a dual boot with Win2k (only until I learn FreeBSD enough to ditch
it!), and when I use Modem Sharing from it, Machine 2 can resolve names fine, as
long as I specify Machine 1's IP in the resolv.conf.  But this doesn't work when
Machine 1 is in FreeBSD.

And yes, I have set:

Machine 1:

gateway_enable = "YES"
ppp_nat = "YES"
ppp_mode = "auto"
ppp_profile = "something"
forward_sourceroute="YES" # not sure if I need these,
accept_sourceroute="YES"  # but it helped/hurt anything


Machine 2:

defaultrouter= (machine 1's IP)


I've checked the route tables for both machines, and the default route for
Machine 2 is Machine 1, and Machine 1's default route is set to the ISP.  This
seems logical to me.

I'm thoroughly stumped here.  I'm sure its something simple.  IP resolution
works fine... just not name resolution - unless Machine 1 is using Win2k's modem
sharing.  Go figure.  I would have thought it would have been harder to get
Win2k and FreeBSD playing together than vice versa :)

Thanks in advance for your help.


--

[-] Daniel Thill (University of Missouri - Rolla)
[-] thill@umr.edu  -  http://www.umr.edu/~thill
[-] "Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty."
                                   - Edmund Burke

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