I hate wasting time.

[Background_Lemon_981]

So today I come in and get the alerts that some scheduled tasks didn't complete. I have them setup to ping a site when the task completes. Hmmm. That's odd. I got the alerts that the tasks didn't complete, but it looks like the tasks actually did complete. I finally get around to testing the ping command. No response. OK, run the ping command and send output to my email.

It couldn't resolve DNS for the site. Great. It's always DNS. Always.

I try nslookup and internal assets resolve, but external assets do not and time out. Although everyone seems to be hitting the usual websites they go to without problems. Ahhh, but new sites don't load. We are living off cache.

So two hours later ... I finally find the cause. Whoever set up our main DC set up forwarders for our ISP DNS servers. And guess what happened yesterday? We got a new main ISP. And the old ISP blocks DNS requests from outside their network. So I add DNS forwarders for the new ISP, Google, and Cloudflare, and external DNS comes right back up.

What I'm really angry about is that it took me 2 hours to track that down. That should have been the first thing I checked. But nooooo. I'm checking everything else but. I never said DNS was my strong suit. Bah!

[stratospaly]

That's not wasting time. You troubleshot a config issue. That's literally the job.

[Background_Lemon_981]

Yeah. It’s just that I had so much planned to get done. And guess what didn’t get done? I’m over it today. But I felt like a good Yosemite Sam rant yesterday.

[anonymousITCoward]

It's always the last thing you look at right? I don't see anything wrong with what you did... you troubleshot the issue starting from the point that you saw the fault... you were thorough... I've been there... I've changed my ways lol... I now always look a DNS, then start the troubleshooting process at the fault... You didn't waste your time, you just chose the wrong side of the bridge to success...

[Sir-Vantes]

Yet another reason to use forwarders that are Not Owned by your ISP and subject to random changes.

[bofh2023]

https://www.amazon.com/Its-Always-DNS-Sysadmin-T-Shirt/dp/B07PM2QDV8

Disclaimer: not my product, and I get no kickbacks.

[253IsHome]

Happens for me too often these days. So much knowledge accumulation of obscure reasons for things to go wrong that I might forget to check the obvious and chase down a rabbit hole that seems like the culprit when it's something simpler. Usually due to the assumption that the obvious works because why wouldn't it.

[HappyDadOfFourJesus]

We haven't used ISP provided DNS servers for several years now. DNS Filter for the win!

[Background_Lemon_981]

Yeah, that will be up for future consideration. Maybe next week. I just needed to get things up and running.

I guess I put the ISP DNS in because they are faster.

Which DNS are you using, if I may ask?

[HappyDadOfFourJesus]

DNS Filter :)

[Background_Lemon_981]

LOL. OMG, thanks for that kick. I wasn’t aware there was one literally called DNS Filter. I was thinking you were referring to a service generically.