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jay_k
Contributor
Contributor

Problem with DNS resolution in Ubuntu under WS 5 with bridged connection

I've done a ton of searching on this problem but so far no help. I'm running Ubuntu 6.06 (kernel 2.6.15-26) under Workstation 5.5.5 (build 56455) running on Windows XP SP2. VMWare tools installed with no errors. When the networking is set up as Bridged, I can do pretty much everything EXCEPT resolve names (i.e. I can ping things on my LAN and on the net, I can open websites as long as I type in the IP address, etc.). However, something like "dig @4.2.2.2 www.google.com" will time out after several seconds. Obviously nslookup doesn't work either. I've tried disabling the XP Firewall and that doesn't change anything. If I change the VM to NAT networking things work fine. I have the exact same problem if I install Ubuntu 7.10. I've seen some posts related to problems with a wireless connection, but I just have a single wired ethernet on my host system. Here's my ifconfig output:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0C:29:65:F5:D1

inet addr:192.168.1.7 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0

inet6 addr: fe80::20c:29ff:fe65:f5d1/64 Scope:Link

UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1

RX packets:1085 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

TX packets:249 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000

RX bytes:276015 (269.5 KiB) TX bytes:20726 (20.2 KiB)

Interrupt:185 Base address:0x1400

lo Link encap:Local Loopback

inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0

inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host

UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1

RX packets:7 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

TX packets:7 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

collisions:0 txqueuelen:0

RX bytes:372 (372.0 b) TX bytes:372 (372.0 b)

Can anyone help me here?

Thanks

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15 Replies
O_o
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Can you ping the DNS server ?, how do you get the IP-address, DHCP or Fixed ?

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jay_k
Contributor
Contributor

I just upgraded to WS 6 and the bridged-networking problem is gone (at least with Ubuntu 6.06). Works fine without VM tools installed... now if I can just figure out how to get VM tools to install (giving all kinds of X-related errors... back to the search engines I guess).

- Jay

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jay_k
Contributor
Contributor

I can ping anything. DNS server comes from DHCP, but even overriding (by manually editting /etc/resolv.conf) doesn't help. It doesn't matter whether I access my local DNS server (in my router - 192.168.1.1) or a remote one (4.2.2.2 at Verizon), it still doesn't work (response not getting to the VM?).

- Jay

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Peter_vm
Immortal
Immortal

Can you ping 4.2.2.1 from that guest?

Did you try to setup another guest (like XP) to see if it has the same problem?

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jay_k
Contributor
Contributor

Yes I was able to ping 4.2.2.1 from the guest. I was able to ping and even open web pages on various machines on the Internet - I just couldn't access a DNS server (even on my LAN). I didn't try a bridged connection with any other OS (just Ubuntu 6.06 and 7.10). Now I've upgraded to WS 6 so unfortunately I won't be able to explore the problem I was having with WS 5 any more (WS 5 was uninstalled before installing the new version).

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Peter_vm
Immortal
Immortal

So, I guess, this thread is closed.

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jay_k
Contributor
Contributor

Yeah - I guess; the 'fix' is to upgrade. Just got vmware tools working on 7.10 - needed to patch a source file using some instructions found on-line (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=4091869), even using the very latest build of WS. One wonders what sort of QC VMWare does before shipping this stuff.

Thanks for responding to my earlier problems.

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Peter_vm
Immortal
Immortal

Yeah - I guess; the 'fix' is to upgrade. Just got vmware tools working on 7.10 - needed to patch a source file using some instructions found on-line (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=4091869), even using the very latest build of WS. One wonders what sort of QC VMWare does before shipping this stuff.

They test OS version, then, if passes, they put in their documentation as supported:

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/GuestOS_guide.pdf

This one, from 25 February 2008, does not list Ubuntu 7.10.

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jay_k
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks Peter. By the way - do you work for VMWare?

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Peter_vm
Immortal
Immortal

No, I don't (no VMware icon beside my name).

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jay_k
Contributor
Contributor

So I thought this was fixed (it WAS fixed - not sure what happened), but now I'm having the exact same problem, this time under WS 6. I just did a clean install of Ubuntu 7.04 (since it's officially supported). I have NOT installed vmtools yet, but I get the same problem as before: when I run the VM with NAT networking, everything is fine; when I run it with bridged networking, TCP/IP seems to work ok but DNS resolution doesn't work. I can open a web page by typing in an IP address (i.e. 64.233.169.104 for google), but I can't resolve DNS names. I can ping things just fine (I can ping both my host PC and machines on the Internet), but I can't 'nslookup' anything. At first I thought maybe it was something funky with my router (this Linux VM is set up for DHCP and the router is acting as a nameserver), so I tried forcing nslookup to use a different nameserver:

nslookup
>server 4.2.2.1
>www.google.com

But it still just times out when in bridged mode (works fine in NAT mode).

The only thing I've tried is disabling IPV6 by adding 'blacklist ipv6' to the end of /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist (I found some thread that said this might work), but it didn't help.

Maybe next I'll try installing vmtools to see if that helps.

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jay_k
Contributor
Contributor

Just tried installing vmware tools... took a bunch of errors around the X stuff (although X still appears to work ok, and vmware tools is now running), but didn't help the bridged-mode DNS resolution.

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jay_k
Contributor
Contributor

Just installed a Win2K guest OS and I have the same problem (everything works fine using NAT - no DNS resolution using Bridged).

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Peter_vm
Immortal
Immortal

Where is your host NIC plugged to? Do you manage that port? Any chances that port security features might interfere here?

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jay_k
Contributor
Contributor

I figured it out. The problem was with the nVidia nForce network adapter on my desktop. The big clue was after I tried running a VM with Win2K on another machine (which was connected to the same network switch as my desktop) and everything worked fine even with a bridged connection. This led to a search on my nVidia nForce network adapter, which revealed various issues (I have an ASUS A8N-VM CSM). What's particularly annoying is that I needed to install a bunch of nVidia software just to DISABLE their hardware firewall (I don't know why they couldn't just put a check-box or something in the device-manager properties page). Certainly this also explains the trouble I was having with WS 5 on the same machine. Now both Win2K and Ubuntu work fine using bridged networking.

How annoying. nVidia, you guys suck! (And you owe me $99 for a VM WS upgrade I probably didn't need.)

Peter - thanks for your help.

- Jay

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