DNS issue, i presume... ???

[topgrey]

I'm not sure how this occurred but after a power outage I can no longer access the internet unless I use the ip addy of the site.  First noticed this after having used Opera.  I closed Opera and tried opening Seamonkey to see if the page displayed differently (it did).  Then I left the box and came back later, about 3 hours after the outage.  I turned on the comp, booted to VL, logged in, opened Opera and opera never opened.  Tried Seamonkey and it gave me a "page cannot be displayed" message.  FF also would not open.  So in terminal as root I ran all 3.  Opera started then crashed (i figured out why already).  FF won't start at all but also does not error out.  Seamonkey starts but still page is not displayed.  Ifconfig shows wlan0 is pulling an IP addy within the ranges set from my router. 

Now the confusing part for me:  I can open SM or Opera and surf to the router web page.  Clicking a link from there errors out...So I'm thinking I have a DNS issue.  Sure enough in either SM or Opera using the IP gets me there.  From terminal as root I can ping and IP but not a domain address.  From my two laptops (XP and Vista--i know, uhhggg) and from my VL box if I boot into XP I have no issues at all.  I read in another post that SM may have caused an  issue in the firewall but they did not elaborate.  I don't think this is the issue.  More likely it may be that my ISP changed their DNS and  VL wasn't able to update it.  I believe I should look in /etc/resolv.conf but I am not certain what to look for there.  Once I post this I will see whats in it and post that, also.

FYI:  VL 5.8 SOHO

Anything else some enterprising soul might need just ask!!

Thanks for any help with this issue.

[topgrey]

**UPDATE**
Ok, so as root I mcedit /etc/resolv.conf and when it opens it's empty.  Browsing to /etc/resolv.conf in kde there is a text file with the extension .sv.  Opening it gives me the following:

nameserver 64.xxx.xxx.xxx
nameserver 65.xxx.xxx.xxx
search uel.home

My router gives me two completely different dns:205.xxx.xxx.xxx and 216.xxx.xxx.xxx

If I try to open the file I can but cannot make changes to it.  If logged in as root in kde the same is true.  In terminal, either as user or su I tried opening /etc/resolv.conf with mcedit and still it's blank.  As root (su),I tried adding the DNS servers listed in my linksys router and tried saving it by pressing F2.  I am asked if I'd like to save it, I select Save, am then asked what to save the file as and in the field is etc/resolv.conf so I again say yes.  At this point it tells me the file cannot be saved. 

So, I know I'm doing something wrong, I'd love some help if possible.

And I have also read that I've done a considerably naughty thing in that I selected Mark All upgrades in gslapt....Maybe this is how I broke it.

[nightflier]

I would try vasm and reset the networking configuration.

Since you have your router info, try setting it manually, using the address of your router for gateway (usually 192.168.1.1, but it may vary), and the DNS server your router indicate. In my case, using manual settings decrease my boot-up and shut-down times.

[topgrey]

Thanks, I'll give that a shot.  I've not been successful with using VASM to make any changes that stick so I avoided it until now.  Thanks for the super quick response!!

[topgrey]

UPDATE #2:::

Ok, we can kill this thread...I hosed the system somehow which the DNS issue was merely a small visible issue.  Upon digging further I found that pretty much all types of issues started occurring, most notably that I root literally seemed to disappear.  I could not access from either directly logging in or as su in terminal.  Most likely, from what I've read is that performing the "Update All Marked" via gslapt was a really, totally, awfully, evil and bad idea......

[caitlyn]

Actually, no, during the VL 5.8 life cycle (as in from release until I switched over to 5.9 for my production partition) I did a system wide upgrade of VL religiously.  I had only one minor problem with wifi-radar and an updated wifi-radar package solved that in short order.  It USED TO BE a really bad idea but it shouldn't be in 5.8 or 5.9. 

I'd really like to know what you upgraded that caused breakage.  Did you have the testing repository enabled?  An external (i.e. Slackware) repository?  A system-wide upgrade with testing or an external source enabled IS a disaster waiting to happen and should never be done.

Assuming you haven't reloaded your system yet I'd really love to troubleshoot this and rollback the offending package and actually solve the root cause.