The answer is yes. Usually the way you'd test this is by opening
a website up in your browser. You can also try to ping different
places like ping
www.microsoft.com. You'll get packet lost
statements sometimes and sometimes not. If an IP address
appears next the server name you're trying to ping, then the
packets are going out to the target, and if the packets come
back, the server is set up to return ICMP packets (ping, tracert
information). If the server is running a firewall, and drops ICMP
packets, you'll get the IP address and you'll see 4 statements
that the packets were lost.
Another thing you can do is to use tracert to trace the path to
the destination. You'll get time counts along the way, and
sometimes at the end you get lost packets (indicating the target
is behind something that doesn't support ICMP packets - like
a firewall or a router that drops such packets).
But the tracert tells you times. It's the times that provide the
important information. If one item in the route is taking long
times to report things, it could be having problems.
Also, to really see if the DNS server is working, you can do
an IPCONFIG /FLUSHDNS on the local machine, then try
to ping an outside source. Do the IPCONFIG /FLUSHDNS
on the server you're routing through.
If DNS is working, then you'll be able to browse websites
just fine, outgoing mail (SMTP) will work fine, incoming
mail (POP3) will work fine, you'll be able to see all other
systems in the organization, etc.
If DNS is not working, none of the above will occur.
--
Jim Carlock
http://www.microcosmotalk.com/
Post replies to the newsgroup.
can an internal DNS server stop you from accessing a
external mail server?
