the DNS hostname is not available, please repair dns and re-run this tool.

[aicul]

Hi,

My server is showing dreadful slow connection times for file sharing and screen sharing. This is a SL 10.6.8 OSX install.

Further to some investigation, maybe DNS is not right.

So when I "sudo changeip -checkhostname" this concerning message "the DNS hostname is not available, please repair dns and re-run this tool." appears.

I checked :

in server admin>DNS>Zones
the primary and reverse zones seem correct
server.mydomain.com -> 111.222.333.444
444.333.222.111.in-addr.arpa -> server.mydomain.com

in server admin>DNS>Settings
The Forwarder IP addresses are 178.250.208.37, 178.250.209.8
No idea what these are, tried to ping and they exist, tried reverse IP and no result ???

in System Preferences>Network(airport)>Advanced>DNS
The "DNS servers" are (as above) 178.250.208.37, 178.250.209.8
There are no "Search Domains"

I checked around and found this idea from forum "Switon" at entry 6 of http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1431699 but that did not resolve the problem.

Also my WEB services work fine, AFP to the file server works fine, mail works fine, etc. the only problem is with another mac connecting to the server file share on the local network (same for screenshare).

Now my head is spinning, can someone provide some suggestions.

Thanks

[aicul]

I have worked further on this, and after several tests conclude that:

The OSX server setup will not work if the server is not physically connected via ethernet.

All my install/setups using wifi generated a DNS problem, whilst those using ethernet (and wifi set to off) worked.

[jackhdev]

In Network preferences, try setting DNS to 127.0.0.1. This cleared up all issues for me, including not being able to find the DNS hostname (the server provides DNS records for itself, so set the DNS server in Network preferences to localhost).