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I recently moved to a new DNS server. Currently it is resolving hosts and working, but I noticed when I try to ping ANY host (such as www.google.com) that it returns the translated IP address, but it always times out. It's like it goes out but never comes back in. No matter what address I put in. For example I try to ping www.google.com and it times out, but I can go to google.com no problem (on the DNS server and all clients pointing to the DNS server). All INTERNAL ping requests work without a problem.

DNS server is pointing to itself for DNS by the way (the actual internal address).

Is there maybe a problem with my zones that I don't know about?

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2 Answers 2

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Ping isn't a tool for testing DNS. That being said, your problem is not with DNS as your tests should be telling you. Your DNS server can resolve www.google.com and you're able to get to www.google.com, that should tell you that your DNS server is working. I suspect that a firewall is blocking outbound ping traffic or blocking the inbound responses to your pings.

As www.google.com is pingable, I suspect the problem is with your firewall.

In addition, don't use ping to test DNS. An external web site may be available but may not allow inbound ICMP echo requests (ping) which will send you off on a wild goose chase trying to figure out why you can't ping the site.

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It was the firewall. I don't know why I was thinking about it so hard. –  drpcken Mar 8 '11 at 3:52
Glad you got it resolved. –  joeqwerty Mar 8 '11 at 11:56

Your firewall (are you running Windows Server???) could be blocking the ICMP response. That would cause the ping to not be received. Check that, first.

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Windows Server's built in firewall does not block packet replies on outgoing traffic, and all outgoing traffic is allowed by default. –  Bret Fisher Mar 8 '11 at 15:03

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