[TriLUG] Linux DNS Server issues with DOS client

[Roy Vestal]

Thanks Aaron, the spanning tree was the issue.

Now a follow up question: So on this same dos setup I have multiple 
Windows servers with 2 nics, the first nic is on the REAL network, the 
second on this private in question. If I try to do a net use g: 
\\servername\share, it says "the computer name specified is not found in 
the network path cannot be located". My boot process mounts one server 
as a drive but manually it doesn't. I've looked through the autoexec.bat 
on this and I don't see anything that would cause this. I've even put 
"hosts" and "lmhosts" in a dir that's on the path to no avail.

Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot this part?

Again the DNS server is also the DHCP server, and it has reservations 
for these servers in the DHCP config. the DNS server also has the 
servers listed in the zones. Since DNS isn't my strongest point, I'm 
assuming I missed something in the DNS setup.

TIA,
 Roy

Aaron S. Joyner wrote:

>Roy Vestal wrote:
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>>... The problem: When it tries to map this drive, it fails 8 times
>>before it finally is able to map the drive.  This happens from ANY
>>network drop I have on this private network. And it is exactly 8
>>failures EVERY time. I cannot manually map from the DOS diskette. I've
>>tried to manually do this 10 times in a row, so I have to put it in a
>>bat file to make it loop. ...
>>    
>>
>
>There were several good suggestions on this thread of possible solutions
>such as a WINS server, but if it hasn't been resolved, have you
>considered the network?  Spanning tree on a managed switch will
>introduce behavior very much like what you're describing, because that
>port won't be active for a certain time after boot.  It goes something
>like this:
>1. Boot computer
>2. Load OS
>3. OS initializes Ethernet card driver
>4. Switch notices link come up on switch port
>5. Switch starts spanning tree process, blocks all traffic
>6. Your loop starts trying to talk to the network
>7. Switch decides ~30 seconds later that your not causing a network loop
>8. Switch allows traffic through your port
>9. Your loop gets to it's 8th iteration and magically starts working
>
>Just a thought, and hopefully may help other people with similar
>problems.  :)  This is a relatively common problem with systems that
>boot quickly on managed switches.
>
>Aaron S. Joyner
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