Is this company still in business?

Product Discussion Peplink Balance
1

I have tried a number of times to reach phone support. Left messages but no call back over a week now. They have always been great in the past 10+ years.

Is Peplink still in business?

I cannot find any info here about a problem we are having with our 710. DNS lookup won’t route for apple.com but every other domain works. I had to turn off DNS Forwarding Setup in order for apple.com to route. Which caused a three day outage to not be able to send or receive business email from apple.

If anyone knows the status of this company that would be great.

Thanks in advance.

2

Hi Todd
Peplink is definitely still in business!
For support, please submit a ticket at http://ticket.peplink.com or contact your Peplink Partner.
For details about our available support options, please visit https://www.peplink.com/support/

3

Sounds like a problem with the DNS server itself. Are you getting DNS from your internet provider? Try changing your DNS to 8.8.8.8 (Google DNS).

4

I have spent 3 days on this problem and narrowed it down to the Peplink. I already tried changing DNS to 8.8 to 1.1 to opendns to the ISP DNS. Problem still happens. Took the Peplink out of the picture and connected mail server directly to ISP. Problem goes away.

Somewhere the Peplink is “stuck” with apple.com in its build in DNS server. Upgrading to newest firmware didn’t help. Re-uploading config didn’t help. The only thing that works is disabling DNS Forwarding Setup. Frustrating…

5

The message I would get when doing a host in terminal…

host apple dot com

apple dot com has address 17.253.144.10

;; communications error to 192.168.40.1#53: end of file.

When DNS Forwarding Setup is disabled I get the correct response…

host apple dot com

apple dot com has address 17.253.144.10

apple.com mail is handled by 10 rn-mailsvcp-ppex-lapp45.apple.com.

cal:~ localadmin$

6

That is odd.

When I check apple.com via the local DNS (a peplink router) and via 8.8.8.8 I get the same non-answer:

~ % dig apple.dot.com

; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> apple.dot.com

;; global options: +cmd

;; Got answer:

;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 23254

;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:

; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 512

;; QUESTION SECTION:

;apple.dot.com. IN A

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:

dot.com. 3600 IN SOA hera.ns.cloudflare.com. dns.cloudflare.com. 2034526707 10000 2400 604800 3600

;; Query time: 2 msec

;; SERVER: 192.168.10.1#53(192.168.10.1)

;; WHEN: Tue Feb 23 21:11:50 PST 2021

;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 101

~ % dig apple.dot.com @8.8.8.8

; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> apple.dot.com @8.8.8.8

;; global options: +cmd

;; Got answer:

;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 27058

;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:

; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 512

;; QUESTION SECTION:

;apple.dot.com. IN A

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:

dot.com. 1799 IN SOA hera.ns.cloudflare.com. dns.cloudflare.com. 2034526707 10000 2400 604800 3600

;; Query time: 135 msec

;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)

;; WHEN: Tue Feb 23 21:12:36 PST 2021

;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 101

So I am puzzled.

Might your local response be an old cache entry somewhere?

When I perform an MX check I get solid answers (as one would expect):

~ % dig -t mx apple.com

; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> -t mx apple.com

;; global options: +cmd

;; Got answer:

;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 26799

;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 11, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:

; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096

;; QUESTION SECTION:

;apple.com. IN MX

;; ANSWER SECTION:

apple.com. 3600 IN MX 10 rn-mailsvcp-ppex-lapp45.apple.com.

apple.com. 3600 IN MX 10 rn-mailsvcp-ppex-lapp44.apple.com.

apple.com. 3600 IN MX 10 rn-mailsvcp-ppex-lapp35.apple.com.

apple.com. 3600 IN MX 10 rn-mailsvcp-ppex-lapp34.apple.com.

apple.com. 3600 IN MX 10 rn-mailsvcp-ppex-lapp25.apple.com.

apple.com. 3600 IN MX 10 rn-mailsvcp-ppex-lapp24.apple.com.

apple.com. 3600 IN MX 10 rn-mailsvcp-ppex-lapp15.apple.com.

apple.com. 3600 IN MX 10 rn-mailsvcp-ppex-lapp14.apple.com.

apple.com. 3600 IN MX 10 ma1-aaemail-dr-lapp03.apple.com.

apple.com. 3600 IN MX 10 ma1-aaemail-dr-lapp02.apple.com.

apple.com. 3600 IN MX 10 ma1-aaemail-dr-lapp01.apple.com.

;; Query time: 69 msec

;; SERVER: 192.168.10.1#53(192.168.10.1)

;; WHEN: Tue Feb 23 21:18:26 PST 2021

;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 472

In any way, the issue seems to be broader than your local router.

Z

7

I believe it is cached somewhere in the routers built-in DNS server.

8

Caching can be disabled.Screen Shot 2021-02-24 at 3.00.17 PM

9

DNS in any router should never be fatal, it should never cause a 3 day problem.

If you connect a device to a VPN or Tor, that should bypass the router for DNS. And, on desktop OSs, most web browsers let you specify secure, encrypted DoH or DoT for DNS. This too, should bypass the router for DNS. If nothing else, this should buy you some time until the mystery is solved.

Also, there are many DNS “tester” web pages listed here. Always good to double check that you are actually using the DNS servers you think you are using.

10

This was never enabled. Disabled as per default.

11

Turning off the setting I mentioned has fixed the problem. But the question is why occurring all of a sudden after years of using it on? Peplink support is investigating.