But we can all get our email.

I did as instructed in step 3 at http://www.tek-tips.com/faqs.cfm?fid=4017 to try and resolve my problem at work and now no one can surf.

Synopsis:
10.0.0.1 - Our original Windows NT 4.0 server/DHCP server (Domain 1)
10.0.0.5 - Our Smoothwall Firewall
10.0.0.36 - Our Windows 2000 Server. (Domain 2)

DHCP server gives us addresses as follows:
IP 10.0.0.x (my workstation is .22)
DNS 10.0.0.5
Subent 255.255.255.0
Gateway 10.0.0.5

The other day we had a power outage and our connection to our ISP stayed down until the following day. While the connection to the internet was down it would take our Windows 2000 workstations 20 minutes or so to log into Domain 2 which is usually pretty much immediate on a normal day. I suspected DNS configuration errors for a while as I had experienced delayed logons on my XP Pro box for a while.

Our layout seemd to be exactly as it was at the above link with the options greyed out and everything. I deleted the . zone as described in the link above, set up the forwarder to point to our Smoothwall, and then set up the DNS on my workstation to point to 10.0.0.36. No dice. No surfing worked whatsoever.

I figured I'd give up for the day and reverse my changes. I set everything the way it was and recreated the . zone. The forwarder options are greyed out again. I still couldn't surf. I then set my dns back to auto via dhcp and picked up the dns as 10.0.0.5 as it always was. I still couldn't surf... but I noticed that when I would type www.msn.com an ip would show up in the lower left corner of IE for a second or so (it appeared to be resolving the ip properly). I knew it wasn't cached in IE as I don't use it normally, but I decided to use IE to troubleshoot this problem.

Then I received a notification that new mail had arrived in my inbox (??!!). Around this time people started shouting out to me that the internet didn't work. I checked two workstations and sure enough they couldn't surf. I then tried to ping www.google.com and it got the ip and pinged it just fine. I closed my email client totally, cleared the cache on the 10.0.0.36 servers dns console and ran ipconfig /flushdns on my workstation. Ping worked, tracert worked, email worked, bittorrent worked, but still no surfing.

I restarted the Smoothwall and for a brief moment during bootup we could surf. I then logged into the smoothwall and turned off the proxy and url filter features and all seemed good... for a few seconds.

Now, here I am, hours later, on dial-up, at 11 pm pulling out my hair. I have to leave town in the morning to take my son to see a pediatrician and no one at work is going to have internet access.

Anybody?

I've already pointed my pc at my isps DNS servers with no luck. I didn't touch the smoothwall while configuring the DNS stuff on the windows 2000 server, but the issue seems to be there... somehow.

Rene

and now at 11:49 it's working again... with no input from me.

Gone to bed. Ulcer growing.

Um, wow. That's a lot of problems.

It kinda sounds to me like you have several different problems, honestly.

Assuming the problem comes back, what, exactly, do you mean by "no surfing"? What kind of error do you get from your browser? Can you try just an IP address? (One of Google's addresses is 216.239.51.104.) How about doing a "telnet www.google.com 80" at the command prompt? And with the IP address instead?

The browser gives me a "DNS error or server cannot be found" error.

IPs don't work. It seems like just the http traffic was blocked for some reason.

Ping, email, ftp all work fine with domain names and ips. I never had a chance to try with telnet but if it happens again I'll try it.

I'll keep you posted if it happens again. I still have to get things working properly on the dns setup.

I think it's time to swap in a generic home router for the smoothwall. Your VPNs might not work and such, but do it during off hours to see if things return to normal. If they do, reset the smoothwall and start from scratch.

Matthew