How do you track down a fault in the DNS system?
Asked by
bomyne (
639
)
December 26th, 2012
I own a website that, until yesterday, was working just fine. Now whenever I go to that domain I’m redirected to another website. The website is a domain placeholder.
I’ve checked the settings of my computer, and of my router. They are set to correctly get DNS information from my ISP, then Google. I’ve also checked my computer for Malware, but the results came out negative.
I know it’s not a browser issue, as pinging the domain pings the wrong IP address and when I added the domains to my hosts file, the site started working just fine again. My girlfriend who is in another country at the moment has no problem accessing the site without hosts modification.
What could be going on? How do I track down where the incorrect DNS information is coming from?
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6 Answers
I know nothing about websites, and this sort of thing, but I had the same problem with a computer I had a few years ago. It turns out it was something that had been downloaded onto my computer. Eventually we got it resolved, but it took a while, and we had to pay for several different anti-virus and ad blocker programs before it would.
I’ll agree with @snowberry take your computer to the “fix-em-up” shop. The reaching of an incorrect DNS is a sign of a misdirection from your computer. Sometimes a recent update for OS will cause a corruption of your computer.
Personally, I manually redirect my computer to other DNS servers; I don’t use the one that my ISP provides. And when things go sideways like they have with you, one of the first things I do is check that it’s still using my designated DNS.
Also, I never pay for AV/anti-spyware stuff; there are many free, high quality programs out there ;)
Can we presume you can get to your website normally from other computers? If not then check the DNS at the whois
If you can reach the site on other computers then above are correct, your computer has somehow been hijacked or corrupted.
I’ve done a bit of checking.
Malware scans are coming up negative still on my windows 8 PC but this has started happening on my laptop (Linux Mint 13). It’s only happening on two domains i control. I have done a whois check and they are registered correctly, point to the correct IP and the hosting accounts have not been compromised.
My linux computer also does not use the ISPs DNS server and uses google.
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