[Asterisk-Users] DNS Server Failure wreaks havoc

[Brian Capouch]

I don't think this is a new issue--I've seen it talked about on the list 
before.  I don't know if I've ever seen anyone post a fix.

My DNS server went out last night in a horrendous storm when an upstream 
link went down.  The madness is that the behavior of the whole server, 
including the part that's handling my POTS lines, gets wigged out on a 
DNS failure, making the whole system unusable.  I have two questions; 
being able to solve either would be wonderful:

* Is it true that if I hand-resolve the server names in all the config 
files, and then use those instead of the hostnames, this problem won't 
occur?  That's not exactly optimal, of course, since it defeats the 
whole purpose of dynamic name binding.  But it's hard to explain to my 
SOHO customers, who don't really need any IP-based functionality 
(although I give all of them some complimentary minutes on nufone) why 
their phones go down when the Internet is down.

* Is it true that there's no way to get applications in Linux, generally 
speaking, to try more than a single server when doing a name resolve? 
Only the first server listed in /etc/resolv.conf (on my systems, anyway) 
seems to ever get consulted.

I think both of these situations are pretty serious failings, if in fact 
they're failings in the systems and not this bedeviled cranium.

Thanks.

B.