Our network has a NetGear SRX5308 Firewall / Router with no local DNS server. We have an external webserver one of our applications connects to and sometimes there is a delay in the resolution of the DNS name. Once the connection is made for the first time then the subsequent connections are very quick. Is there a way to create a host entry on the SRX to manage this resolution (I have not managed to do this yet). And if not, would anyone recommend a method to do this (without necessarily setting up a DNS server?).
Our environment: - 1 application server (internal) - 1 web server (external) - 10 desktops - basic config.
No directory. Computer names set directly on computer, static IP addresses configured on router.
A
I suspect (given the limited information) that you have your client machines set to use both the SRX5308 and OpenDNS in their local DNS settings.
This is not an optimal configuration - the client will just pick one of the servers at random, and if it sends the query for the external domain to the SRX it'll fail, and conversely if sends the query for the internal domain to OpenDNS that'll fail too.
EDIT ok, so that turned out not to be the case. Either way, I'd strongly recommend that you do run a proper internal DNS server - it needn't be anything fancy, even a Raspberry Pi will make a perfectly acceptable DNS server for a lab. You can then have that server be authoritative for your local hosts, whilst forwarding all other queries to OpenDNS (should you want or need their security features) or even performing full recursion locally.