DNS in 12.04

[Ric Moore]

On 05/14/2012 06:20 PM, Paul Smith wrote:
> On Mon, 2012-05-14 at 17:38 -0400, Ric Moore wrote:
>> I just re-installed clean, and all is well. But gnome screwed up my
>> network connect, which should have been dead easy out of the box as
>> it's wired to a DHCP aware modem and worked fine during the install. I
>> re-configured it to a static ip and static nameservers, and now it
>> works. My resolv.conf, which network-mangler is supposed to
>> administer, pointed to 127.0.0.1 localhost.<giggles inanely>  A newbie
>> would have been in tears, swearing to curse Linux for the rest of
>> their lives. I knew where to dig, so I'm just merely swearing. Someone
>> just needs to shoot Network Manager and put it out of it's misery, as
>> well as mine.
>
> Your problem here is "too much knowledge" :-).  I don't know what the
> original issue with your networking was, because you don't describe the
> problem you had.
>
> Having 127.0.0.1 in your /etc/resolv.conf is NOT broken: that is the
> correct setting for the design of the DNS infrastructure in Ubuntu
> 12.04.
>
> In Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu switched to using a local caching proxy DNS
> server capability based on dnsmasq and using the resolvconf package.  In
> order for this to work, your resolv.conf file MUST point to 127.0.0.1 so
> that your local DNS proxy is being queried, not the upstream server.
>
> Why the proxy was not working is a different problem, one that can only
> be solved if you can describe the original issue you were having.

Ah... it didn't work??

> Personally I don't recommend leaving your system in the "broken" state
> where you've forced /etc/resolv.conf, because that will likely break
> again in the future with updates etc.

That's relative, what is broken to you is fixed to me. It didn't work 
and now it does.

> FYI, as someone who's struggled with network settings on laptops,
> running _multiple_ VPNs with different private DNS domains on the same
> system at the same time, etc. I'm very happy to see Ubuntu attempt to
> make this work properly out of the box.  I've been deploying dnsmasq
> with a hand-built configuration as a DNS proxy to deal with exactly the
> same sets of problems for years now and it works GREAT (I don't use
> resolvconf, though, as too many proprietary network tools don't work
> with it).  Traditional UNIX resolv.conf is a weak, pathetic answer to a
> complex problem.

It also happens to work. It pretty much always works and always has.

It's hard to imagine that in a dynamic open source
> environment in 2012 we still have to put up with such anemic solutions.

Well, it's easy. It didn't work, as I said. What's to not understand?

Nothing resolved and it just sat there. I could not get to anything on 
the Internet, nor send email. It was a dead parrot. So, I fixed it. This 
is from a FRESH install, so you tell me why it broke, as all I can tell 
you is that it was broke. Ifconfig showed I was properly connected with 
the address of 192.168.0.2, as always, to my sat modem.

So, ethernet was up and talking to my sat modem. I rebooted the modem, 
to no effect. Yes, I could find 192.168.0.1, my gateway, and the html 
setup page via firefox directly to the modem. So, all good, just no name 
resolution. So, I fixed it. Easy-peasy. A newbie would be stuck like 
chuck, with no where to go.

The fun part is that everything worked just peachy during the install, 
which I allowed to apply all updates. After the reboot, nada. You check 
out my linux user number. Yes, I have been doing this for years myself. 
My first install was a stack of slackware floppies before we had the 
Internet in my old town. resolv.conf is dead easy. That is my point. You 
can add caching software, without adding ~another~ layer of obfuscation 
to break. We're going to out-windows Windows at this rate. Will the 
"Blue Screen Of Death" be next?  I think that this could have been an 
optional package to install, an addon, not another half-baked 
musterbation from Ubuntu.


-- 
My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say:
"There are two Great Sins in the world...
..the Sin of Ignorance, and the Sin of Stupidity.
Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad.
http://linuxcounter.net/user/44256.html