Unwanted Dialup Connections!

[Mike Parson]

On Wed, Mar 24, 2004 at 11:36:32PM +0000, Dene Stringfellow wrote:
> Michael,
> 
> In the end, I just edited the /etc/hosts file to include all the network
> machines. This seems to have sorted out the problem and stopped the
> Linux server causing the network Netgear router initiating a dialup
> connection each time a PC or Mac logs on.
> 
> I haven't had to change either the /etc/nsswitch.conf or the
> /etc/resolv.conf files.

D'oh.  Of course this would work.  I kept thinking about the Linux box
having to look up the information for the IP on your dialup interface,
and having to dial-up to find the DNS information... but since you're
not dialed-up at the time, there's no IP, no reason to do a DNS
lookup...

> It would seem that Linux needs to know a lot more about incoming and
> outgoing connections than either Windows or MacOS!

What happens if you open a CMD window on your Windows box and type
'route print' ? Does it make your linux box try and dial-up?  This would
depend on where your Windows box is looking for DNS information though.

Huh, just tried this on a Windows 2000 box and it didn't try and resolve
any of the IPs, so I guess the expected answer to my above question is,
'nothing.'

> Thanks again for your response and assistance. Just need to get the
> backup working now!

Woo, backups.  I really should start doing those again some day.

-- 
Michael Parson
mparson@bl.org