On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 4:01 PM, drew wymore <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 3:32 PM, Denis Heidtmann
> <[email protected]>wrote:
>
>> Well, the old dsl modem was getting flaky, so Qwest replaced it with a
>> PK5000 (rental).  The new one is wireless, so that is good.  But an
>> issue showed up.  I have a work-around, but I am curious if anyone
>> here has ideas as to why Qwest programmed it as they apparently did.
>>
>> The issue:
>> I set up the DHCP server parameters to use static dns addresses of
>> 69.64.224.66 and 69.64.224.67.
>> Sent a DHCP request, the modem responds with its own IP (192.168.0.1)
>> as the primary DNS and what I had entered as the secondary.  A DNS
>> request to  192.168.0.1 fails.  A DNS request sent to 69.64.224.67 or
>> 69.64.224.66  works fine.
>>
>> I have had many email exchanges with Actiontec about this.  Trying to
>> get them to say why this made sense did not get very far.  Their very
>> first response seems to be the most clear:
>>
>> "Honestly not sure why its programmed this way.
>> The DNS is resolved by the WAN connection with Qwest so the primary
>> DNS is 205.171.3.65 and secondary is 205.171.2.65  The PK5000 holds
>> these settings in memory and relays them by using its Gateway IP as
>> the primary.  Same is true if you set static DNS servers in memory.
>> The PK5000 and in fact all Qwest DSL Gateways, show the gateway IP as
>> the primary DNS."
>>
>> Yet later response from Actiontek said:
>>
>> "The PK5000 itself is NOT a DNS server or redirection device. There is
>> no programming in fact to do a DNS redirection internally. It cannot
>> do that at all.
>> It simply takes the DNS servers configured statically in the DHCP
>> server settings, or takes the DNS servers provided by the ISP and
>> broadcasts them as part of its DHCP server services."
>>
>> The best guess I can come up with is that it works when Qwest is the
>> ISP.  I am not using Qwest.
>>
>>
> It shouldn't matter who you are using. Every actiontec I've ever used has
> tried to do this gateway redirection resolution juju and sometimes it works,
> sometimes it fails. It shouldn't however, if configured with static DNS on
> the internal nat'd side instead of getting it through the WAN side DHCP
> service, then it should work correctly on the LAN side. If it's not working
> like that, that indeed is rather weird.
>
I have made assumptions that the bogus dns address is in fact returned
by the PK5000.
Initially I set in the PK5000:
DSL configuration
STATIC
Primary DNS 69.64.224.66
Secondary DNS 69.64.224.67

If /etc/network/interfaces contains iface eth0 inet dhcp, then
/etc/resolv.conf ends up after boot with 192.168.0.1 as the primary
and 69.64.224.67 as the secondary.  I have assumed that the PK5000 is
responsible for this.  Maybe not.  What other stuff on my system could
be doing this?  Is there a way to test it to confirm that it is in
fact returning these addresses?

A visiting geek here fixed things by installing resolvconf and
changing  /etc/network/interfaces to contain:
iface eth0 inet static
  address 192.168.0.70
  netmask 255.255.255.0
  gateway 192.168.0.1
  dns-nameservers 69.64.224.66 69.64.224.67

Now the dns addresses are correct, at the cost of a static IP.  (This
is not a problem for my one-machine system.)

Mike asked:
It sounds like you're more interested in knowing why the Actiontek
DSL modem is setup this way than a workaround.

True.  I have a work-around.  I am asking the WHY question.  Is there
any way that this (presumed) behaviour can be considered correct?

-Denis
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