FR DNS problems...

today | self

[general_re]

DNS lookups failing for FR here - no such host. Apparently I'm not the only one, judging from a glance at the Yahoo FR board. Dunno if it's my ISP (Verizon) or what, but I had to manually edit the hosts file to get here. Presumably, if you can post, you're not having this problem, but there are more than a few people who can't post right now because of it...

[GunnyB]

We're waiting on GKG to press some buttons and turn us back on. But I wouldn't be surprised if this took hours on their part. :-(

It could take DAYS - unless you result to trickery. The DNS system, unprompted, propagates rather slowly. The way I like to propagate a domain in the quickest manner is to use one of the many remote traceroute sites on the web. That forces a full lookup of the DNS record from, say, Germany, which then has a cascading effect across other DNS servers around the web.

Now, having said that, we should check into HOW this happened. Tin-foil hat stuff aside, DNS "poisoning" (e.g. inserting incorrect lookup data) is a real possbility - all other things considered.

[Khurkris]

Actions this morning:

1st. couldn't find Free Republic with my favorites selection.
2nd. located Free Repulic & saw reference to yahoo FR groups.
3rd. found info and changed FR DNS to 209.157.64.200.
4th. got to FR but could not log in.
5th. went to yahoo FR group. logged in there and found chat room.
6th. went to chat room and explained my prob.
7th. chatter gave me info regarding new DNS and change to inserting 209.157.64.200 www.freerepublic.com in host folder.
8th. did this and am now logged in & posting.

Now, a question...will this situation change and will it require further changes to maintain FR access?

[mathluv]

Thank you! It works!

[steveegg]

John's already looking into how this happened.

[Bluntpoint]

If you get laid fill us in.

Unless of course you are posting from your laptop from a Star Trek convention.

[steveegg]

Second, change all the absolute links that are internal to FR to relative links, so once you get here using the IP, you can log on.

From what I understand, most of the links here are already relative. The main sticking point was the login procedure was absolute and locked to freerepublic.com, but John reworked that.

[steveegg]

Thank you! It works!

Ping.

[general_re]

If/when FR changes its IP address, your hosts file will need to be changed again to reflect the new address. I have no reason to believe that this will happen any time in the near future, but to be safe, once everything is back to normal, you can go back into the hosts file and remove the entry for www.freerepublic.com. That way, if it does change, your computer will automatically get the new IP address, rather than banging its head against a wall trying the old one. But as long as the IP address remains the same, you shouldn't have to do anything further.

[js1138]

Now, a question...will this situation change and will it require further changes to maintain FR access?

The IP should hold for the foreseeable future, but if it does change, you will have to re-edit your hosts file.

FR should change its login script so you can login using the IP address.

[Carolinamom]

Me too! I finally got here!

[hobbes1]

They Did.

[hobbes1]

Thanx for all of your help by way of a third party....xs....

[mathluv]

I knew there was a chat group on yahoo, but did not know how to get there. I went to Free Dominion, and found a link there. Thanks, Free Dominion!

[zook]

Hi! Glad I found this backdoor entry to FR. I know my IP address. What should I do to restore my link to FR?
Thanks!

[js1138]

Sometimes ordinary coding practices jump up and bite you.

[steveegg]

FR should change its login script so you can login using the IP address.

Actually, John did just that.

[general_re]

Ah, ha! I was wondering who this mysterious proxy questioner was ;)

[Eva]

I followed a link that someone on the Yahoo page posted and then went to log in, and it worked. The person that posted the link said that it would not let him log in.

[Khurkris]

thank you for sharing that with us.

[Eva]

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