Live data from Hacker News

Why DNS in OS X 10.10 is broken, and what you can do to fix it

arstechnica.com

31–40 of 65 posts

Re: Why DNS in OS X 10.10 is broken, and what you can do to fix it

#31

This article is at best misguided. OS X 10.10 DNS is not broken, it is working as intended - just differently from the past. Standards have changed and many haven't noticed. All of the bugs cited have to do with ".local" domains. You should never use .local domains as IANA has designated this domain as a special use domain for Multicast DNS as part of IP Zeroconf and Bonjour. http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6762 Apple…

In my experience, discoveryd is at best at about the quality of beta software. With some regularity on several different Macs on different networks, it completely loses the ability to resolve names. Kill it and let launchd restart it, and suddenly names resolve again. Another Yosemite daemon addition, recentsd, had serious issues (for example: substantial memory leaks when interacting with Mail.app) until 10.10.2. Ap…

For you and others with similar issues, add this to your .bashrc:

    function restart-discoveryd() {
        sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.discoveryd.plist
        sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.discoveryd.plist
    }
Then simply run `restart-discoveryd` when you can't seem to ping google.com. I always struggle to remember how to start/stop things with launchd, so this is my little shortcut.

Re: Why DNS in OS X 10.10 is broken, and what you can do to fix it

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say that. We are still experiencing the iOS won't connect to wifi bug. The really chaotic thing is that iPhones or iPads of the exact same model and software revision (current iOS 8.1.3) will randomly connect, not connect, or connect long enough to get an ip address then not be able to do anything. It is really getting quite frustrating. We have a Cisco 5807 controller and the 3702e wireless points. Every…

Agree, having wifi problems myself, pretty much have to restart it on every use and that seems to get me around it until the next time it sleeps. I'm at the point of considering going back to iOS 7 on all my devices.

I'm just baffled because we have (among tens of other devices) two iPhones with the same model number and one works and one doesn't. I have some students very happy and some very unhappy. Its not like I can get logs from these folks to figure out what the difference is.

Re: Why DNS in OS X 10.10 is broken, and what you can do to fix it

#33
post #16
post #10

I've come to the realisation that I don't trust Apple software much these days. I used to upgrade to the latest version of both phone and computer OS quickly, but these days I'll hold on as long as I can - I'm still on 10.9, and waiting for the inevitable software upgrade that will make me have to pull the trigger. I miss the Snow Leopard days.

Yosemite is very solid for me as long as it doesn't have to do with iOS integration. iOS 8 is shit-pure-shit, to the point where even my non-technical mother in law and wife have asked about downgrading. Seriously, random non-technical people I meet talk about how bad iOS 8 is and how they won't upgrade. I haven't seen anything like it since the Windows 9x era.

Yosemite's Finder is a continuous source of errors (move a lot of files and watch it crash, never mind the reversion in Applescript). It also has some problems with connecting to drives on a server.

Re: Why DNS in OS X 10.10 is broken, and what you can do to fix it

#34
post #28

This article is at best misguided. OS X 10.10 DNS is not broken, it is working as intended - just differently from the past. Standards have changed and many haven't noticed. All of the bugs cited have to do with ".local" domains. You should never use .local domains as IANA has designated this domain as a special use domain for Multicast DNS as part of IP Zeroconf and Bonjour. http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6762 Apple…

I got offline resolution with dnsmasq to work with # /usr/local/etc/dnsmasq.conf address=/.foobar/127.0.0.1 and # /etc/resolver/foobar nameserver 127.0.0.1

Odd, that's what I use:

# cat /usr/local/etc/dnsmasq.conf address=/dev/127.0.0.1

# cat /etc/resolver/dev nameserver 127.0.0.1

Instead of your choice of foobar.

Doesn't work offline. Your conf looks like the standard dnsmasq conf anyway, so maybe there's one other flag or configuration that you figured out?

Re: Why DNS in OS X 10.10 is broken, and what you can do to fix it

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counter argument to this is that the RFC is exceedingly new, and directly from Apple. Microsoft has been using .local in example (and recommending them for production) AD builds for a decade. I see what Apple is going for, and I don't mind the idea, but the practical results are frustrating and pointless.

No, Microsoft has not been recommending .local, as this document, circa Windows Server 2000, states: > Identify your organization's DNS owner and determine what registered DNS names you have available on the network that will host Active Directory. > If you do not have a registered domain name, you should register a name with an Internet DNS registration authority. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727085…

Actually they've said different things about it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.local#Microsoft_recommendation...

Re: Why DNS in OS X 10.10 is broken, and what you can do to fix it

#36
What kills me about 10.10 is that OSX doesn't even try to resolve a domain name if you're offline. I run dnsmasq locally, which handles all of my DNS requests, capturing .dev domains (resolving them to 127.0.0.1) and forwarding everything else to Google's servers. This is great as long as I'm connected to WiFi or Ethernet (both are configurable through system preferences) but if I'm travelling and don't have an active network connection - quite frequently, in my case - there's not even an attempt* to hit a DNS server. It just fails.

I'm so desperately need a fix to this that I'm wondering if there's some kind of a dongle I can plug into my ethernet or USB port to fake a LAN, just so I can use dnsmasq.

The only thing stopping me from wiping out OSX and using Linux full time is the necessity of running Sketch and the Adobe/MS Office suite for work purposes. :/

Re: Why DNS in OS X 10.10 is broken, and what you can do to fix it

#37
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got offline resolution with dnsmasq to work with # /usr/local/etc/dnsmasq.conf address=/.foobar/127.0.0.1 and # /etc/resolver/foobar nameserver 127.0.0.1

Odd, that's what I use: # cat /usr/local/etc/dnsmasq.conf address=/dev/127.0.0.1 # cat /etc/resolver/dev nameserver 127.0.0.1 Instead of your choice of foobar. Doesn't work offline. Your conf looks like the standard dnsmasq conf anyway, so maybe there's one other flag or configuration that you figured out?

the difference I see is that you are missing a period before "dev" in your dnsmasq.conf

I don't know how to configure dnsmasq at all, so that may not be a problem.

Re: Why DNS in OS X 10.10 is broken, and what you can do to fix it

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, discoveryd is at best at about the quality of beta software. With some regularity on several different Macs on different networks, it completely loses the ability to resolve names. Kill it and let launchd restart it, and suddenly names resolve again. Another Yosemite daemon addition, recentsd, had serious issues (for example: substantial memory leaks when interacting with Mail.app) until 10.10.2. Ap…

For you and others with similar issues, add this to your .bashrc: function restart-discoveryd() { sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.discoveryd.plist sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.discoveryd.plist } Then simply run `restart-discoveryd` when you can't seem to ping google.com. I always struggle to remember how to start/stop things with launchd, so this is my litt…

Or just `killall discoveryd` and let it relaunch on its own.

Re: Why DNS in OS X 10.10 is broken, and what you can do to fix it

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, discoveryd is at best at about the quality of beta software. With some regularity on several different Macs on different networks, it completely loses the ability to resolve names. Kill it and let launchd restart it, and suddenly names resolve again. Another Yosemite daemon addition, recentsd, had serious issues (for example: substantial memory leaks when interacting with Mail.app) until 10.10.2. Ap…

For you and others with similar issues, add this to your .bashrc: function restart-discoveryd() { sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.discoveryd.plist sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.discoveryd.plist } Then simply run `restart-discoveryd` when you can't seem to ping google.com. I always struggle to remember how to start/stop things with launchd, so this is my litt…

Try just doing

  sudo discoveryutil udnsrestartquestions
instead. The one time I had DNS issues (only once!), I ran that command and all of my DNS issues immediately resolved themselves.

Re: Why DNS in OS X 10.10 is broken, and what you can do to fix it

#40

I eagerly await a true fix to 10.10's issues with dropping wifi connections. Both Macbooks in my house running 10.10 drop the wifi connection at least 5x/day, often more. My other devices do not experience these drops, and these same machines were just fine on 10.9. My opinion of Apple's software quality has decreased over the past few months.

Any chance those two MacBooks are connected to a different wifi basestation than your other devices? I have an issue right now where the base station in my living room regularly drops connections (to any devices) but all the other base stations work just fine.
Post reply on HN