Viscosity tries to connect to an old IP address

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Chris_J

Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2020 2:39 am

Post by Chris_J » Sun Aug 09, 2020 3:05 am
Hello,

I have been using Viscosity now for a few months and it has been running great! I have one annoying problem with it which I would like to solve.

I usually input my host name as the server, but over the past few weeks, it has failed to connect. After looking at the logs, I see that Viscosity is resolving the wrong IP address. Initially, I thought that this was because the DNS record was out of date, but when I check this, everything is updating fine via the dynamic DNS service on my pfsense router. I also cleared the DNS cache on the device to no avail.

The work around at the moment is to simply force it to connect by inputting the correct IP address, but I would like it to work with my host name as you would expect.

Is there any way to have Viscosity look up the most current IP, rather than preserving the last used address?

James

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Posts: 2313
Joined: Thu Sep 04, 2008 9:27 pm

Post by James » Mon Aug 10, 2020 5:03 pm
Hi Chris_J,

Viscosity does not store or cache the IP address/es for a VPN connection's server address, rather it is resolved when you try to connect.

I recommend you test what IP address/es the DNS entry resolves to using the following command. Replace "my.vpnserver.com" with the server address you're using in Viscosity, and then enter it into the Terminal application and press Return/Enter.
Code: Select all
dscacheutil -q host -a name my.vpnserver.com
Cheers,
James
Web: https://www.sparklabs.com
Support: https://www.sparklabs.com/support
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sparklabs

Chris_J

Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2020 2:39 am

Post by Chris_J » Tue Aug 11, 2020 2:02 am
Thank you for the reply.

When I run the command, the IP address that is returned is an old one.

So, presumably this means that it's the fault of the Mac and not Viscosity? I know this may be out of the scope of your support, but do you perhaps have an idea what would cause this to happen?

James

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Posts: 2313
Joined: Thu Sep 04, 2008 9:27 pm

Post by James » Tue Aug 11, 2020 8:26 am
Hi Chris_J,

This indicates that either the DNS server/s your computer is configured to use are returning that IP address, or a static entry was manually added to your computer's hosts file in the past. If you have any security software installed that may be doing some sort of DNS filtering, I recommend taking a look at that as well.

Cheers,
James
Web: https://www.sparklabs.com
Support: https://www.sparklabs.com/support
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sparklabs

Chris_J

Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2020 2:39 am

Post by Chris_J » Wed Aug 12, 2020 2:03 am
Hi James,

The host file seems to be in tact, so I think that this is being caused by the DNS server running on my pfsense box (Unbound) which Viscosity is connecting to. I force all clients to use this as their only DNS server and the record here must be out of date or something.
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