DNS issues on VirtualBox with Host-Only Adapter

Question

I'm using Virtual Box to do LAMP development. I'm trying to test an external service' API, but the DNS on the VM only seems to resolve about half the time. I'm using Windows 8 and the VM is Ubuntu 10.04. I have both a Bridged Adapter and a Host-only Adapter on the VM. I do nslookup on the VM and it shows it unreachable sometimes, and other times it works just fine.

I'm not sure what other info is needed to help solve this problem, so let me know.

Thanks

Answer 1

I notice that the Windows' environment's DNS problem too. I.e., it is Windows' environment's DNS problem, and has nothing to do with Virtual Box, either Bridged Adapter or Host-only Adapter.

There isn't much you can do to fix Windows' environment's DNS problem. The best approach is to add a cache-only DNS server within your Virtual Box, so that it can totally shield your from your unreliable local domain DNS server.

The most comprehensive cache-only DNS server setup guide on the net IMHO is,

Providing DHCP and DNS services with DNSMasq
http://sfxpt.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/providing-dhcp-and-dns-services-with-dnsmasq/

You can skip the DHCP server part, and use your local domain DNS server as the source for your DNSMasq cache-only DNS server.

HTH