Cannot Surf Internet, but I can Ping

[Eric Dunbar]

Ok, see what follows post ;-)

On 1/27/06, Tod Merley wrote:
> Please see what follows post:
> > Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2006 10:57:02 -0500
> > From: Eric Dunbar
> > Subject: Re: Cannot Surf Internet, but I can Ping
> > To: Ubuntu Help and User Discussions <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>
> > Message-ID:
> >
> > I'll add a me too.
> >
> > Until Monday I was getting ready to toss my router and buy a new one
> > until I had the epiphany that my problem was possibly with the DNS
> > server in the router -- looking up URLs would take FOREVER, but, once
> > a connection was established I would have normal ADSL connection
> > speeds. I manually populated the DNS server entries in my router
> > (using the very same DNS server IPs that it reported in its Router
> > Status page ;-) and my internet is much better now.
> >
> > Now, this leads me to wonder if my router is dying anyway.
> >
> > Eric.
> >
> > On 1/27/06, Steve Tripp < progressivepenguin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > It's a DNS issue.  In Gnome go to Administration and Networking then
> > > select the DNS tab.  If it is empty, find the DNS servers for your ISP
> > > (in your router's settings) and put them in there, although if you are
> > > using DHCP it is usually automatic.
> > >
> > > Using command line, open /etc/resolv.conf and insert nameserver and
> > > the ip of the dns server like so:
> > >
> > > nameserver  1.1.1.1
> > >
> > > Hope this helps.
> > > Steve Tripp
> > >
> > > On 1/27/06, Kevin Purcell <kevin at kevinpurcell.org > wrote:
> > > > Just installed Ubuntu and am having the following problem.
> > > >
> > > > I opened Firefox and could not surf.  I entered my router's address and it
> > > > is connected to the Internet.  So I tried pinging it and it sees the router
> > > > and my network storage device.  So the network works.  I then tried pining
> > > > (in terminal) the address of my ISP listed in the status page of my Linksys
> > > > Router (it is a WRT54G).  It pinged okay without any packet loss.  A little
> > > > slower than in Windows, but at least it works. Don't know any other Internet
> > > > numeral addresses, so don't know if I can ping anything other than my ISP.
> > > > I tired pinging yahoo.com and google.com and microsoft.com and all failed.
> > > >
> > > > Any idea how to fix this?
> > > >
> > > > Thanks
>
>
> I had a similar problem as follows:
>
> HI List!
>
>   The FC4 box (a desktop) attached via DHCP fine.  Then the problems
> started.
>
>   I noticed that Konqueror would browse (and Kget would download) fine but
> Firefox would browse intermittently (actually not very often and almost
> never to any major sites such as google.com or yahoo.com).
>
>   The problem did not exist when the computers were used outside of the
> Quest DSL home.
>
>   A look at a network traffic recording (tcpdump -w & Ethereal) showed that
> DNS queries from Konqueror were answered properly but DNS queries from
> Firefox were either resulted in a server-fail reply or in an apparent reply
> address of "1.0.0.0".  When Firefox replied with the "1.0.0.0" address the
> network never replied and the system timed out.
>
>   If IPv6 DNS was disabled in Firefox (Using "about:config" in the URL line
> then setting "network-dns-IPv6-disable default Boolean false"  to
> "network-dns-IPv6-disable User Set  Boolean true") then Firefox browsed
> fine. It appeared that we had an IPv6 DNS problem.
>
>   Now, in Fedora if you disable IPv6 (add "alias net-pf-10 off" to
> /etc/modprobe.conf and reboot) then Firefox will browse fine "dns-IPv6" in
> Firefox set or not. But I had changed to Ubuntu on the main machine since it
> was more compatible with some of the software I desire to use.  I found no
> successful way to disable IPv6 in Ubuntu.  I did, however, happen across one
> who mentioned that disabling the use of the DSL modem as a name server
> eliminated the faulty DNS queries.  Indeed, a simple "# " added to the
> "nameserver 192.168.0.1" line in the "resolv.conf" file in "etc" cured the
> network connection problems for internet access from the Ubuntu machine
> completely.
>
> Probably I will leave the Fedora machine with IPv6 disabled and the Ubuntu
> machine with IPv6 enabled but taking care to see that Ubuntu does not use
> the DSL modem DNS.
>
> I hope this is useful!
>
> Cheers!
>
> Tod

Hmm. Now I wonder. Here's my situation.

I have an ADSL modem set to bridge mode. A Netgear 614MR router
(802.11g) acts as a router for the network and also establishes the
PPPoE connection.

When I had the ADSL modem active as the DHCP server (i.e. not in
bridge mode) the Netgear router would function adequately as a
secondary router.

After I put the ADSL modem into bridge mode [1.1] and I used the
Netgear 614MR to login to the ISP using PPPoE, I had the strange
behaviour -- my computers (one Linux (YellowDogLinux 4.0.1 (FC2+3),
two Mac OS X 10.4.4) would resolve URLs VERY, VERY slowly but once
resolved browsing (or any other DNS lookup function that required
access to the wider world) would function OK.

However, if I removed the router from the equation and logged in using
Mac OS X 10.4.4 everything would work beautifully -- I'm not sure if
OS X 10.4.4 would have been using IPv6 or not since a quick look at
the settings has the default as being "automatic" but I suspect it was
using IPv6 ... and, I won't test it right now b/c I've got an audio
capture happening on my Linux server for CBC radio 1's "Ideas" (I've
got a nice collection of ideas going :-)

When I took the DNS servers as reported by the Router Status page (in
Internet Port:Domain Name Server) and entered them into the "Basic
Setup" page I could once again use the router as a go between between
the computers and the modem.

[1.1] The ADSL modem is now unfortunately PERMANENTLY in bridge mode.
I cannot for the life of me figure out how to reset it (no little
button anywhere on the outside... haven't tried opening it up yet)
and, an e-mail to the manufacturer came back with a response "Contact
your ISP. Some modems shipped with that functionality enabled." (I put
it in bridge mode ;-). Fortunately, I have another ADSL modem that's
mine so I'm OK if I ever want to have a non-bridge connection ;-).

Hmm. Is the problem IPv6?

Eric