Extremely slow DNS lookups

[knockey]

Hi all

I have Debian Sid installed on my laptop and am getting extremely slow DNS lookups when I'm connected to the web through my router at home (datasheet of router: http://www.netopia.com/equipment/pdf/spec/3300w.pdf). This doesn't happen under Windows, though, and the problem doesn't occur either when I'm surfing at school (using Debian).
I've now been searching the web for days for a solution to this but couldn't find anything solid. A piece of advice that was often given was turning off IPv6. But in my case this didn't work out either.
I'm not really familiar with Linux yet and would be glad if you could help me along.

[Nerderello]

not sure if this will help, but I added pdnsd to my Fedora box. Now it first checks a local cache (on my PC) and only if it can't find the address there does it go looking on the net.

I've found that this does speed up my "normal" surfing as most addresses are now local (ie. on my PC) and so there is no need for it to go searching.

Check out :-
http://freshmeat.net/projects/pdnsd/

have fun

Nerderello

[jeremy1701]

I've heard that having localhost (127.0.0.1) or your own IP (ie, 192.168.xxx.xxx) listed as your first DNS look up in /etc/resolv.conf you could have speed issues.

Jeremy

[knockey]

Thank you for your advice.

@Norderello: Your solution may surely help for websites I regurarly visit. But as I do a lot of googling and visit all sorts of websites I've never seen before, this wouldn't make a big difference. I think there must be a more effective, straight-forward solution to this. I mean when dns lookups take about ten seconds, something really fundamental must be wrong.

@jeremy1701: My /etc/resolv.conf looks like this:

search
nameserver 192.168.1.1

How (and where) can I change these settings?

[Nerderello]

if the ISP provides you with your IP address, then it will probably also supply you with the DNS address as well. So editing (as "su -") may be to no avail, as it wil be overwritten. I believe that the code that does this is in the ipup and ipdown scripts (can't remember where they are but a quick search will show you).

Have you done a "dig" or "dnslookup" while connected, to see if you can spot anything obvious?

Nerderello

[Dapper Dan]

We ran into a similar situation here. Maybe this will help as he found a solution.

[knockey]

@Nerderello: I did several pings and digs and I actually got virtually no delays at all. What does this mean?

@Dapper Dan: Thank you for the link. But unfortunately I haven't been able so far to figure out where I am to do the necessary settings... Or can you tell me what is exactly meant by "going into internet connections" in the last message of the thread?

[Dapper Dan]

I think he was talking about changing the settings in his router.

[hollymolly]

This is fairly common in newer distros which turn on IPV6 by default.

You should be able to get back to the speed you are used to by adding these lines at the end of /etc/modprobe.conf

alias ipv6 off
alias net-pf-10 off

[Nerderello]

if you can ping any address outside of your PC (ie not 127.0.0.n or your own IP address), it suggests that your network connection is fine.

What does it say when you do a "cat /etc/resolv.conf" ?

Nerderello