Time Capsule DNS Bug?
I just got a 1tb Time Capsule — it was a natural accessory for my new MBP, since I finally have a Mac with 802.11n support, and I routinely move large files or folders (500gb-8gb) around our home network; I also like the GE ports.
The Capsule replaced a WRT54G (hacked) and an AirPort Extreme — the APE is now serving as a print server in WDS mode (overkill, but otherwise it would just sit on a shelf, and the print server is handy). It is also providing backup space for all three of our laptops (including Julia’s), and the magic of Time Machine seems like a good security vs. convenience compromise — keeping conventional AFP or SMB shares from reppep.com mounted all the time on all three laptops would be suboptimal. Time Machine seems to handle mounting & unmounting gracefully.
On to the meat of my problem, though: Once I set up the Time Capsule, I noticed my MBP (10.5.2 latest) was getting the TC’s IP as its only DNS server via DHCP. This is annoying, as I configured the TC with 2 upstream DNS servers, and I want it to configure my Macs with at least those two; if the TC inserts itself first that’s fine, but it shouldn’t be my only nameserver.
The problem is aggravated (considerably!) by the fact that the TC is not actually serving names. My dig queries against it all time out.
On a related note, nmap points out that the Capsule is running an FTP server, which I (fortunately) cannot actually log into. I don’t see FTP anywhere in the UI or help (aside from a note about forwarding FTP through NAT). FTP is evil, and I don’t want it on at all! I know why ports 139 & 445 are open — to support SMB/CIFS and WINS, which I could configure but cannot turn off — but why RTSP and RealServer ports, and port 10,000?? I cannot get anything out of 10,000, so it’s not a normal Webmin, but what is Apple doing here??
I filed 3 bugs against Time Capsule, one against AirPort Admin Utility, and one against SP:Network, which I discovered while working around the TC DNS issue.
Meanwhile, I’m not holding my breath for answers & fixes from Apple. Do you all have more information about what’s going on here? Do TC users find a) the TC is the only only nameserver assigned via DHCP, and b) it doesn’t actually work as a nameserver??
EntropyWorks said,
July 17, 2008 at 3:09 am
I’m having similar issues with my TC and DNS. It only assigns the the TC as the DNS server. The TC appears to really stink as a DNS proxy too. Its really annoying to have DNS hang for nearly every query. My upstream DNS server work fine but the TC is crapping thing up it appears. Have you found a solution? My work around has been putting DNS entries in System Preferences -> Network -> DNS Server
I used OpenDNS servers and things have improved a bit. However I still can’t do commands like “dig +trace slashdot.org”. I may switch to my ISP’s DNS server but OpenDNS for me at least has faster queries.
reppep said,
July 17, 2008 at 11:45 am
EW,
Yes, I switched to specifying my home DNS servers in SP some time ago, which is problematic as it means I sometimes try to query them when traveling, and DNS fails because I don’t run public resolvers — restricted to my home LAN.
OpenDNS sounds cool but I don’t want them rewriting my HTTP (Google) traffic.
Current issue is that many services break between the wired and wireless sides. I can ping AppleTV (wired) from MBP on 802.11n, but I generally cannot see it in the lower-right of iTunes for music streaming. Apple had a supposed fix which didn’t work. Hopefully that means they know what the TC is breaking in bridge mode — something to do with broadcast and/or SLP (Bonjour) I guess. Very aggravating!