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I've set up dnsmasq on an ubuntu server on a small local network with several clients including some Windows and some OS X. Windows clients are working great. The OS X clients are having the classic "dig works but ping doesn't" problem. I've done some research but I can't find information about the way OS X's DNS resolution DOES work. I can only find documentation that tells me it doesn't use the same facility as dig.

My question is: Why can my Windows clients and dig on OS X properly resolve local names configured by dnsmasq but the OS X system can't? I've suspected that it has something to do with the fact that dnsmasq doesn't provide SOA records, but I'm not sure. I've also experimented with bind9 instead, but I can't seem to get the configuration right on it.

Here are the contents of my dnsmasq config file:

no-dhcp-interface=en0
address=/neptune.local/neptune/192.168.42.2
no-resolv
server=8.8.8.8
server=8.8.4.4
Jonathan Swinney
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1 Answers1

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If dig works without having to specify a particular nameserver, then both your server and Mac OS client are probably configured correctly. It's likely that your Mac has cached a negative DNS result. (dig runs the DNS query bypassing the cache; ping uses the system name resolver, which uses the cache.) To clear the cache, run sudo dscacheutil -flushcache (Mac OS ≤ 10.6) or sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder (Mac OS ≥ 10.7).

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