cant ping external website

[Markus Schönhaber]

Just to be sure I understood correctly: that
ping www.web.de
fails is not the only problem you have (while web surfing mail etc. all 
work) but merely a symptom of other things not working either?

Donny George:

> the file resolve.conf
                  ^
A typo, I hope?

> nameserver 132.230.200.200
> nameserver 132.230.200.200

Why the same nameserver twice?

> i am able to ping the nameserver ip succesfully
> 
> but when i ping 217.72.195.42 its kind of still and then later shows unknown
> host

Next time, please, don't write prose but copy and paste the commands you 
typed and their output.

> 
> i can ping other machines on the network

Only by IP or also by name?

> 
> the ifconfig is as follows

See above.

> inet addr:10.4.139.3 Bcast:132.230.139.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
> 
> 
> the /etc/network/interfaces is
[...]
> gateway 10.4.139.254

Since you can ping other hosts on your local net, basic IP functionality 
seems to be there.
That
ping www.web.de
says "unknown host" indicates that there's some problem with name resolving.
Combining the two, we can be pretty sure that the root cause of the 
resolver failing is not the net not working at all.
So, first of all check if the nameserver's IP really is correct. Also 
check, if there really is only one nameserver you're supposed to use.
What is the output of
telnet 132.230.200.200 domain
and
host www.web.de
?
If the latter doesn't return an address, try
host -v www.web.de

That
ping 217.72.195.42
fails may have different causes. Among them are
- Your gateway setting is wrong (check that also).
- There are packet filter rules that block certain types of ICMP packets 
and therefore cause pings to external addresses to fail.
What's the output of
traceroute 217.72.195.42

Are you supposed to use a web proxy? If yes, does accessing www.web.de 
through the proxy work? If not, what does
telnet www.web.de http
output?

Regards
   mks