Firefox on iPad redirects my server's URL to Cisco

Talk about Mozilla browsers for small devices such as PDAs and cellphones.
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jc1742
Posts: 9
Joined: August 22nd, 2007, 10:38 am
Location: Waltham, MA, USA

Firefox on iPad redirects my server's URL to Cisco

Post by jc1742 »

Bizarre problem I've had with a few browsers, and now happens with FF on an iPad: of the 1800 people in the the US who share my first+last name (according to the Census Bureau), one is the CEO of Cisco System. I've had the domain name john-chambers.us registered for years, and it works most of the time. But just now, when I wanted to test some web pages with FF on my handy iPad, entering that domain name doesn't get me to my own server; I get a page of "helpful" links into Cisco System. Nothing I try, not even a full URL with http:// and a path to a page, has any effect; I still get the list of Cisco links.

Is there a way to tell Firefox to stop doing this? Or am I forever locked out of my own server on the iPad? Digging around in Settings didn't give me any clues. I'd really like to see how FF renders some pages on the iPad.

FWIW, my server's log tells me that there was no incoming request of any sort when this happened, so it can't be something my server (apache) is telling FF.
isaacschemm
Posts: 270
Joined: January 20th, 2015, 12:29 pm

Re: Firefox on iPad redirects my server's URL to Cisco

Post by isaacschemm »

I see the same list of Cisco links in Firefox and Internet Explorer on Windows. I think your domain might be set up improperly.
jc1742
Posts: 9
Joined: August 22nd, 2007, 10:38 am
Location: Waltham, MA, USA

Re: Firefox on iPad redirects my server's URL to Cisco

Post by jc1742 »

Hmmm ... I tried using both dig and nslookup on several machines where I have accounts, and they all gave me the correct IP address for my server (207.172.223.184). That would seem to imply that the DNS system is working correctly. Is there a way to ask FF what address it has for a domain name? Similarly, whois gives the correct info for the domain, as far as I can tell.

I also checked one of the other domain names that's served on the same machine/address, and as far as I can tell, the info for them in my /var/www directories for them seem to differ only in the domain names. But accesses to the other domain name don't get diverted to the table of Cisco servers.

More generally, is there any sort of "debug" info I might get from firefox that would tell me why it's giving me that info about Cisco Systems? Presumably there's some data hidden out in its tables explaining why it's doing what it's doing, but I have no idea what it might be called or how to ask for it.
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8-bit
Posts: 908
Joined: October 19th, 2007, 5:19 pm

Re: Firefox on iPad redirects my server's URL to Cisco

Post by 8-bit »

Are you using your ISPs DNS servers or something else... like Open DNS?
isaacschemm
Posts: 270
Joined: January 20th, 2015, 12:29 pm

Re: Firefox on iPad redirects my server's URL to Cisco

Post by isaacschemm »

Here's the result of an nslookup on my end:

Code: Select all

$ nslookup john-chambers.us
Server:         168.63.129.16
Address:        168.63.129.16#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:   john-chambers.us
Address: 192.64.119.159

$ nslookup www.john-chambers.us
Server:         168.63.129.16
Address:        168.63.129.16#53

Non-authoritative answer:
www.john-chambers.us    canonical name = parkingpage.namecheap.com.
Name:   parkingpage.namecheap.com
Address: 198.54.117.211
Name:   parkingpage.namecheap.com
Address: 198.54.117.216
Name:   parkingpage.namecheap.com
Address: 198.54.117.212
Name:   parkingpage.namecheap.com
Address: 198.54.117.217
Name:   parkingpage.namecheap.com
Address: 198.54.117.215
Name:   parkingpage.namecheap.com
Address: 198.54.117.210
Name:   parkingpage.namecheap.com
Address: 198.54.117.218
jc1742
Posts: 9
Joined: August 22nd, 2007, 10:38 am
Location: Waltham, MA, USA

Re: Firefox on iPad redirects my server's URL to Cisco

Post by jc1742 »

isaacschemm wrote:Here's the result of an nslookup on my end:

Code: Select all

$ nslookup john-chambers.us
Server:         168.63.129.16
Address:        168.63.129.16#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:   john-chambers.us
Address: 192.64.119.159

...
That was a useful clue. I spent some time in a chat with a CS person at namecheap.com, the registrar I've used for several domain names. They had some very dubious entries for my domain. After a bit of discussion of how to make their UI do The Right Thing, in this case do nothing but provide a domain name -> IP address mapping, it seems to be working at the moment. I'll be doing some more testing of it for a while. Funny thing is I have a couple of other domains registered with them, and they don't have this problem. I suspect that it does have something to do with my name vs. the name of Cisco's CEO.

Part of the story is is that I've been helping a number of local non-profits build web sites, with an emphasis on teaching them to do it themselves. I've helped wean a bunch of them off the trash-html generated by most of the commercial web-support "services", mostly by teaching them that hand-typed HTML is actually quite easy for what they need. The biggest problem, illustrated by this case, is teaching them to deal with the DNS system. There's not a lot you can do to solve the problems with geeky, idiosyncratic terminology that every DNS company implements.

Anyway, thanks for the useful hint. The numbers were totally different than what I was getting, but fingering namecheap.com as the perp was a big help. I never saw their name in anything I tried.
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