Accessing websites

[MikeM]

IE will only access Yahoo & Microsoft. Any other site I try to access
I get the message it can't open the site. I can access email and
newsgroups and have updated several programs sussessfully.

Thanks
Mike

 

[Paul]

IE will only access Yahoo & Microsoft. Any other site I try to access
I get the message it can't open the site. I can access email and
newsgroups and have updated several programs sussessfully.

Thanks
Mike

DNS (Domain Name Service) translates symbolic addresses, to
numeric addresses. When you use a browser, and type in www.aol.com,
that has to be converted to a number. DNS does that.

To test DNS, open a Command Prompt window (DOS window). Try

nslookup www.aol.com

Mine returns:

Server: (Address of the DNS server provided by my ISP)
Address: My local IP address (on the LAN side of my router, not my WAN address)

Non-authoritative answer:

Name: www.aol.com.websys.akadns.net
Addresses: 205.188.102.114, 205.188.101.114, 205.188.100.114
Aliases: www.aol.com

If I enter "http://205.188.102.114" without the double quotes, and
hit return in my browser, I'll see the AOL home page. In this second
case, since I provided the number, there is no DNS step to do.
Try http://205.188.102.114 and see if you get AOL. If so, then
probably there is a problem with DNS setup. (If the symbolic www.aol.com
doesn't work, and yet the number one does, it means DNS is busted somehow.)

Note that me choosing www.aol.com as an example, isn't very bright. Some
of the larger sites, use complicated networking setups, where they
need the symbolic info as well, to resolve properly. I got lucky in this
case, that AOL actually responded to one of those numbers. Still, give
it a try.

If you are using DHCP to talk to your ISP, then DHCP should automatically
get DNS server info from the ISP (see your Network control panel). It
could be, that the DNS server they fed you, is currently having problems,
and is not responding. If they give you two DNS servers, and the first one
is busted, sometimes the symptoms seen will be a long delay before any
symbolic address is resolved. Like every web page takes 10 seconds to
open. That is because the OS stupidly tries the busted one first,
every time.

Another DOS window command I use occasionally, is

ipconfig /renew

What that does, is renew the DHCP lease and get a new public address
for your networking setup. That seems to be needed
sometimes, to clean up my network setup.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/.../xp/all/proddocs/en-us/ipconfig.mspx?mfr=true

There is also a page for nslookup, that doesn't help much.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/.../xp/all/proddocs/en-us/nslookup.mspx?mfr=true

HTH,
Paul

 

[Paul]

DNS (Domain Name Service) translates symbolic addresses, to
numeric addresses. When you use a browser, and type in www.aol.com,
that has to be converted to a number. DNS does that.

To test DNS, open a Command Prompt window (DOS window). Try

nslookup www.aol.com

Mine returns:

Server: (Address of the DNS server provided by my ISP)
Address: My local IP address (on the LAN side of my router, not my
WAN address)

Non-authoritative answer:

Name: www.aol.com.websys.akadns.net
Addresses: 205.188.102.114, 205.188.101.114, 205.188.100.114
Aliases: www.aol.com

If I enter "http://205.188.102.114" without the double quotes, and
hit return in my browser, I'll see the AOL home page. In this second
case, since I provided the number, there is no DNS step to do.
Try http://205.188.102.114 and see if you get AOL. If so, then
probably there is a problem with DNS setup. (If the symbolic www.aol.com
doesn't work, and yet the number one does, it means DNS is busted somehow.)

Note that me choosing www.aol.com as an example, isn't very bright. Some
of the larger sites, use complicated networking setups, where they
need the symbolic info as well, to resolve properly. I got lucky in this
case, that AOL actually responded to one of those numbers. Still, give
it a try.

If you are using DHCP to talk to your ISP, then DHCP should automatically
get DNS server info from the ISP (see your Network control panel). It
could be, that the DNS server they fed you, is currently having problems,
and is not responding. If they give you two DNS servers, and the first one
is busted, sometimes the symptoms seen will be a long delay before any
symbolic address is resolved. Like every web page takes 10 seconds to
open. That is because the OS stupidly tries the busted one first,
every time.

Another DOS window command I use occasionally, is

ipconfig /renew

What that does, is renew the DHCP lease and get a new public address
for your networking setup. That seems to be needed
sometimes, to clean up my network setup.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/.../xp/all/proddocs/en-us/ipconfig.mspx?mfr=true


There is also a page for nslookup, that doesn't help much.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/.../xp/all/proddocs/en-us/nslookup.mspx?mfr=true


HTH,
Paul

I just figured something else out.

If I use "ipconfig /all" in a DOS command window, it says:

Default gateway 192.168.1.1
DHCP server 192.168.1.1
DNS server 192.168.1.1

That address is the local address of my router box. My computer
consults the router, and the router in turn consults the real
DNS server(s).

The reason "nslookup" says "Unknown" for my DNS server, is
there is no symbolic equivalent of 192.168.1.1, so the nslookup
command cannot give the server a name. But it can still consult
the server (which in this case is my router). My router uses
the DNS at the ISP, to do the lookup.

If I go to my router box setup web page, it has a couple
addresses listed for DNS. Those would be the DNS servers
my router consults.

If you are connected more directly to the Internet, then
ipconfig /all will return the "real" DNS server info. If
you have a router box in the way, then you may have to
go into the router setup, to see what your ISP is providing
for DNS server addresses.

DNS servers don't have to respond to the "ping" command,
so as a user, you cannot even use that to confirm they
are present on the network. (Some ISPs disable some of the
ICMP functions on their networking equipment, as part of
security procedures. Ping is disabled as a result.)

Paul

 

[Bill]

IE will only access Yahoo & Microsoft. Any other site I try to access
I get the message it can't open the site. I can access email and
newsgroups and have updated several programs sussessfully.

Thanks
Mike

What happens if you put http://64.233.187.99/ in for a url?
Should get you to google. Have you tried a different browser?

Bill

 

[MikeM]

I tried the AOL address and got the reply 'www.aol.com' is not
recognised as an internal or external command, operable program or
batch file

Mike

 

[MikeM]

Can't display this webpage

Mike

 

[Paul]

I tried the AOL address and got the reply 'www.aol.com' is not
recognised as an internal or external command, operable program or
batch file

Mike

On my machine (WIN2K), I use Startrograms:Accessories:Command Prompt
to get a DOS window.

The command you were supposed to type, consisted of two words.
"nslookup" was the first word, then a space, then the second
word would be "www.aol.com" as the symbolic address to translate.
There shouldn't be any double quotes in there.

The response you got, suggests you didn't put the word nslookup
in front of the address.

This is an example of a DOS window, with the output of nslookup in it.

http://www.issociate.de/support/nslookup.jpg (if DNS is working)
http://217.175.242.122/support/nslookup.jpg (if DNS is broken)

Paul

 

[Bill]

Can't display this webpage

Mike

Hmmm. Tried turning off any firewalls? Checked your hosts file to see
if some malware hasn't been messing with it?

Checked the settings on IE's Restricted Zone?

If you're using the stock hosts file it should look like this:

# Copyright © 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host
name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a "#" symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host
#
127.0.0.1 localhost

Bill