thanks to Tim and Steve for their replies, very helpful. It seems clear that 206.13.20.12 is indeed stale or no longer exists. [byers@f12 f12]$ dig +noall +stats example.com @206.13.20.12 ;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached [byers@f12 f12]$ same type of msg from both nslookup traceroute -I for the working servers: [byers@f12 f12]$ nslookup 206.13.31.12 Server: 206.13.31.12 Address: 206.13.31.12#53 12.31.13.206.in-addr.arpa name = dns1.scrmca.sbcglobal.net. [byers@f12 f12]$ nslookup 68.94.156.1 Server: 206.13.31.12 Address: 206.13.31.12#53 1.156.94.68.in-addr.arpa name = dnsr1.sbcglobal.net. So, I changed ifcfg-eth0 to get rid of DNS1=206.13.20.12 and NM then automatically removed it from resolv.conf. I still left ifcfg-etho with DOMAIN=pacbell.net; (possibly also set in my router config? It has been years since I had to fuss with that). I might want to get into the router and change pacbell.net to sbcglobal.net, but it seems there is no serious conflict using pacbell.net Jack -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines