I have a Vigor 2860ac connected to a Virgin Superhub. This set-up works fine most of the time however, Virgin currently have an infrastructure problem in my area which causes the Superhub to freeze - sometimes 5 or more times a day - requiring a reboot. My problem is that once the Internet connection fails, so does DNS name resolution on the LAN. My server/workstation connections for SQL Server and RDP sessions also drop out. All this equipment is connected to LAN1 on the Vigor.

I'm sure this shouldn't be happening. Can I set the 2860ac to resolve local names locally and refer to public DNS for internet name resolution?

Hi Paul,

You could change your DNS -
All you'd need to do for the local machines is edit your Hosts file if using a windows machine so it wouldn't have to go away and make DNS requests.

Hope this helps

I'd suggest adding DNS Server and DHCP Server roles to the SQL Server (or another server, if you have one).

Configure your internal zone, like .internal for example. Now create a DHCP scope, in the scope options include the IP address of the server (which must be a static IP btw) as the DNS server, .internal as the domain suffix, Enable Dynamic Updates and choose Always update, and set the address of the Draytek as the gateway.

Set Configure the DNS Server to use either the Draytek or a public DNS provider (OpenDNS, 8.8.8.8 etc) as forwarders.

Next disable DHCP on the Vigor, reboot something and check it all works

Thanks for the replies.

I don't really want to set up DNS/DHCP on my server because it doesn't run all the time. I have no domain configured here (domestic environment), just a homegroup for the Win10 boxes.

The two servers (sql on server 2012 and media on Win10) on the network have fixed IPs and I know I could use hosts files on every machine and allocate fixed IP to everything (6 other boxes on the network) but that seems a big pain and won't work for laptops which need to roam across networks.

My problem is that when the superhub fails, everything fails. I have a 4G modem for failover but I am also struggling to get the 2860ac to failover properly. The 4G connection works fine at 20Mb if it is set to "always on". When it is set to failover, it simply never connects. I have tried both ARP and PING detect on WAN2 but neither seem to work. When the superhub freezes, the 2860 freezes too and doesn't failover. If the failover worked, I could live with the 5-10 second connection time on the 4G since most clients are smart enough to reconnect.

I wonder if I would get a different result if I put the Superhub in "modem only" mode?

That's how it should be configured, to avoid double NAT. Then your next hop will be at the exchange too.

I thought so. The only reason I haven't switched it into router only mode is that I've got an internet radio tuner right next to the Superhub and it is convenient to just plug a short ethernet cable into it. The alternative is a 10m cable from the first floor where the Vigor is.

Guess I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and run that cable.

Thanks for all your suggestions. I'll let you know what happens.