looking up???

Hi. I have had it with Windows, and have decided to take the leap and
try LINUX. I downloaded Fedora, and so far so good. I'm making
progress. My question is this: When I am trying to get to a web page,
or trying to send mail things slow down pretty dramatically, and I think
I know why. When I try to open a web page it says "looking up
my.yahoo.com" or "looking up www.cnn.com..." When I try to mail
something it says "looking up smtp.comcast.net". IN other words it's
always looking up these pages before anything happens, and at times it
can take 1 minute or more. I have XP running on the same network here
at the house and I don't have that trouble. And, the Fedora computer
always finds what it's looking for and gets the job done....it just
takes too long. Is there something I can do to fix that?
Thanks
Jim

On 2005-02-12, red <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> something it says "looking up smtp.comcast.net".
That means i it lookup up the IP to connect to by resolving this name as
an IN A record in the Domain Name Service (DNS) i.e. questions the
nameserver you configured your system for. On Linux you define the
Nameserver to use systemwide in the file /etc/resolv.conf. Usually
there's also a manpage for resolv.conf but most distributions have their
own tools to tune these settings. If you experience delays in
DNS-lookups it is most likely that the first nameserver stated in
resolv.conf is not responding and the query times out. Timeouts are
usually around 30s and then your resolver-library asks the next
nameserver on your list.
In short: check your nameserver-list.

Its either that or your browser is doing something odd like using an
external proxy server.

Zap

Stefan Schmidt wrote:

> On 2005-02-12, red <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>> something it says "looking up smtp.comcast.net".
> That means i it lookup up the IP to connect to by resolving this name as
> an IN A record in the Domain Name Service (DNS) i.e. questions the
> nameserver you configured your system for. On Linux you define the
> Nameserver to use systemwide in the file /etc/resolv.conf. Usually
> there's also a manpage for resolv.conf but most distributions have their
> own tools to tune these settings. If you experience delays in
> DNS-lookups it is most likely that the first nameserver stated in
> resolv.conf is not responding and the query times out. Timeouts are
> usually around 30s and then your resolver-library asks the next
> nameserver on your list.
> In short: check your nameserver-list.
>
> Its either that or your browser is doing something odd like using an
> external proxy server.
>
> Zap

Computers talk to each other in groups of numbers, called IP addresses, e.g.
mine is 192.168.1.7 and my ADSL modem is 192.168.1.1 . The DNS system is a
set of servers around the world that match the domain name, such as
smtp.comcast.net, to its IP address, which is 63.240.76.27. This shouldn't
take longer than under Windows. In my case, /etc/resolv.conf shows my
nameserver to be 192.168.1.1, i.e.my ADSL modem. Perhaps I need to
substitute one of the worldwide DNS servers here. I do know that lookups
can take time.

You could try opening http://64.236.24.4 . That is the IP address for cnn.com.
If that is quicker. the delay is in the DNS lookup. Otheerwise, it is in
opening the page.

HTH,

Doug.
--
ICQ Number 178748389. Registered Linux User No. 277548.
Black as the devil, hot as hell,
Pure as an angel, sweet as love.
-- Talleyrand's recipe for coffee.