Westell 9100EM - DNS issue.

[dkerov]

Some time ago DNS started to work unstable.

I've read similar cases around, but none of them looks similar to mine...

DNS stop functioning all the time for several seconds...

E.g.. If I constantly do the nslookup than at least once a minute I'm getting behavior showed below.

At the same time, Google DNS responds with no issues.

I managed to configure most of my numerous devices to use Google DNS, but I do not like such approach.

Router firmware update did not help.

In router logs there is a line:

Apr 19 22:31:23 2011 System Log Message daemon.warn DNS: unknown PTR name format

I could not find correlation between this line and issue, but I did not look deep enough, though.

Any ideas?

Thank you.

DK

C:\Program Files (x86)\Far2>nslookup verizon.com 192.168.1.1

Server:  myrouter.home

Address:  192.168.1.1

DNS request timed out.

    timeout was 2 seconds.

DNS request timed out.

    timeout was 2 seconds.

Non-authoritative answer:

Name:    verizon.com

Address:  192.76.85.245

C:\Program Files (x86)\Far2>nslookup verizon.com 192.168.1.1

Server:  myrouter.home

Address:  192.168.1.1

Non-authoritative answer:

Name:    verizon.com

Address:  192.76.85.245

C:\Program Files (x86)\Far2>nslookup verizon.com 192.168.1.1

Server:  myrouter.homeAddress:  192.168.1.1
DNS request timed out.    timeout was 2 seconds.

DNS request timed out.    timeout was 2 seconds.

Non-authoritative answer:

Name:    verizon.com

Address:  192.76.85.245

C:\Program Files (x86)\Far2>nslookup verizon.com 192.168.1.1

Server:  myrouter.home

Address:  192.168.1.1
Non-authoritative answer:

Name:    verizon.com

Address:  192.76.85.245

[dslr595148]

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@dkerov wrote:

I managed to configure most of my numerous devices to use Google DNS, but I do not like such approach.

---

I am just wondering..

Why is that?

[dkerov]

Google supports DNS servers which could be used by public - 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.8.4

There is also a OpenDNS project - http://www.opendns.com/support/article/197

By default Verizon router DHCP server provides all devices connected to it with DNS set to 192.168.1.1 i.e. to itself.

One could override DHCP DNS settings on the device. E.g. set it to GoogleDNS or OpenDNS. This solves the DNS issue on that particular device.

In the router config, under My Network->Network Connections->Network(Office/Home)->Edit->Configure Connection one could specify DNS servers which will be used by router. However, this does not solve the issue. Router works fine except the DNS service. It is like DNS service restarts (or busy with something important) frequently. At such a moment, all devices which were configured to use 192.68.1.1 for DNS fail to connect (names could not be resolved).

[dkerov]

Sorry - mistake in last message - Google correct DNS addresses are 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

[dnl1]

I am seeing the exact same behavior, it looks like the DNS proxy on the router just stops working after a while or under heavy stress, my guess is that is running under a low level thread and QOS is taking over.

Anyone has had a long term resolution short of changing the DNS servers on all devices in the house?

It also sucks that the DHCP assigned DNS servers are not really working...

[smith6612]

For anyone here who has their DNS requests going through the Westell, could you run this test? It will find out what DNS Proxy/Resolver the router has running on it. If possible, I might put up instructions on how to disable the DNS Proxy on the Westell and instead pass-through DNS servers right onto the PCs. If it's using DNSMasq (which I'd imagine it is), that software will choke badly if the CPU usage on the router is high. It shouldn't be messing up like that otherwise.

http://netalyzr.icsi.berkeley.edu/

[dkerov]

(I'm topicstarter here)...

Funny thing, I contacted Verizon customer support recently and encountered very intellegent and responsive person who read all the details (I used the live chat option) and suggested to replace router for free with the new one - not Westel, something starts with letter A.

I was little bit disappointed that new router had only 100Mb switch and no 5GHz band support... But at least it supports the wifi-N...

Anyway, I do not need all these bells and whisles cause I'm using NetGear router for wifi + Cisco home switch for wired network.

Sorry, I deviated from the main issue course.

I do not have any update on the DNS issue cause all my devices still configured to use Google DNS servers. 

However, I expect that quite soon I will get Logitech Revue and will have update on this issue.

[smith6612]

ActionTec would be what you're looking for. If they said you're getting Wireless N, it sounds like you might be getting a Revision F unit. Revision G ActionTecs have both N and Gigabit. The current Westell you have is G + 100Mbps Ethernet from the last I checked. But if you still have the ActionTec in service, run the test above. You can link the results to me via PM if you wish, or you can look under the DNS section where the test identifies the DNS resolver software and simply provide that.

[svennen]

Soo, it's an old thread but I thought it might be worth a shot...

My father in-law is experiencing the exact same issue with the same model router as described here with DNS working only occasionally and even after changing the DNS servers in the router itself (which by the way is soo sluggish it takes minutes to load each page), it still doesn't work more than occasionally.

Setting DNS directly in each computer works great except I won't be here to help him with that so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Apart from the router being sluggish in its gui and the dns being slow to non existent, everything else seems fine and once the dns is changed in the computers, traffic flows just fine.

Router reboot didn't help but I haven't done a reset yet.

Thanks

Andreas