SUMMARY: forcing bind to use port 53 only

From: Christopher L. Barnard (cbar44@tsg.cbot.com)
Date: Mon Dec 14 1998 - 11:46:59 CST


I asked:

> I've got a quick DNS question for the collective. We are unable to do
> DNS lookups to several large sites - the DNS query just times out. After
> our firewall administrator exchanged a bit of email with the firewall
> administrators of these sites, they have determined that my DNS queries
> are going out on random high-order ports and are only using port 53 for
> the response. These firewalls are blocking random high-order port packets.
> The solution is for my DNS server to send out queries on port 53 as well
> as using port 53 to receive responses. I'm sure that this is trivial, but
> I must be looking in the wrong place. A search of the archives at latech.edu
> came up empty, and I don't find any mention of this issue at isc.org/bind.
> Can anyone provide me with a pointer to getting my DNS server to send
> outbound queries (at least for nonlocal lookups) to go out on port 53?
> This is Bind 4.9.5P1 on a Sun running Solaris 2.5.1. Thanks much.

The solution:

I was afraid of this. I'm gonna have to bite the bullet and upgrade my
Bind to version 8.1.2. The ability to set the query-source address to
a particular port is a feature of 8.1.2. As this type of corporate firewall
becomes more and more popular, more and more folks are going to have no
choice other than to upgrade to 8.1.2, I guess.

Thanks to:

Kathy Kost <kathyk@wolfenet.com>
john heasley <heas@shrubbery.net>
Graham Leggett <graham@vwv.com>
Alan Orndorff <dwarfie@mindspring.com>
jrg@blodwen.demon.co.uk (James R Grinter)

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| Christopher L. Barnard O When I was a boy I was told that |
| cbarnard@tsg.cbot.com / \ anybody could become president. |
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| http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/~cbarnard --Clarence Darrow |
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