Mac laptop intermittent DNS problem

pengcisco · ‎02-02-2007

We have Cisco LWAPP APs with WiSM controllers installed. Some Mac Laptop users got problem to access some random websites with wireless connection. They will get "cannot find server" error at first try, but after refresh serveral times, the web site will be loaded normally. Nslookup failed to resolve the URL to IP when this problem occurr.

It seems only happen to random websites and after trying sometimes, it will be OK. With fixed LAN connections, the Mac never have such problem.

I suspect the LWAPP got problem to encrypt some DNS traffic?

Can anyone help?

bwalchez · ‎02-08-2007

Windows clients get the DNS information with their DHCP assignment. However, the controller knows no bias against non-Windows operating systems. Could you change the order of preference for the DNS server

pengcisco · ‎02-08-2007

Thanks for your reply. I think we found the root cause of this problem. Our primary DNS server's recursive query is disabled for wireless user network range. The secondary DNS's recursive is enabled for both wireless and wired users.

Now only one question left (not related to wireless):

Both Mac and windows laptop configured with primary and secondary DNS servers in order.

When Mac laptop failed to get answer from the primary DNS, it doesn't know switch to the secondary one.

But windows machines will query the secondary DNS server automatically if it doesn't get answer from first one.

Is there any difference between the DNS client implementation on Mac OS X and windows?