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Tuesday 12 May 2009

How to set your DNS search list in OSX

Here's how to set your DNS search path in OSX, which is something you'll want to do if you're getting redirected to eBay when you try to go to Google, or are experiencing other odd behaviour from your browser.
  1. Open System Preferences.
  2. Open Network settings.
  3. Your active network connection should be selected on the left. Select it if it is not. Click the "Advanced" button towards the bottom right hand corner.
  4. Select the DNS tab.
  5. On the right hand side is a column "Search Domains." It will probably already have your domain name listed, but it will be "greyed" out so that you can't remove it. That's OK. Click the "+" sign at the bottom of the column, and type the domain name again.
  6. You should now have the domain name listed twice. One will be grey, the other black. This is good, believe it or not. :-)
  7. Click OK.
  8. Click Apply.
Here's a screen capture that steps through it.

5 comments:

charliemerl said...

I just had a look at this, thanks, Hissohathair. The only weird thing is, when I get into Network/advanced settings, there is no DNS tab. The tabs are: Airport, TCP/IP, PPPoE, AppleTalk and Proxies. No DNS.

Arrrrgh, and now it does the .com.com.au thing when I go to YouTube. Is this some awful virus that's going to crash my computer in a day or two?

hissohathair said...

No, it shouldn't crash your computer. Although I'm surprised you're getting the issue this badly. What ISP are you with?

Sounds like you're using OSX 10.4. I've got an older Mac at home running that version. Will cross-check and update the instructions here for that version if they're different.

charliemerl said...

I'm using OS 10.4.11. I have Leopard but when my computer's hard drive crashed about 6 months ago, i accidentally reinstalled 10.4.11 instead of leopard. Now i'm worried that if i update to Leopard i will lose everything (i did actually ring up the Apple helpline to ask if that would happen, but the dude wasn't really sure ...).

Um, the problem with the diverting facebook has been pretty quiet over the last few days, but i'll be annoyed if it comes back. What causes it?

Real Tears said...

Hi,
I am having this problem too. I have 10.4.11. However every time I go to Network in system prefreneces I get a pop up that says the setting have been changed by another application and I cannot do anything.

Please help!

Elissa

PJD said...

Thanks for the info, it fixed problem and I no longer get this annoying com.com.au page that redirects to ebay.

I use two apple computers and Optus is the ISP, one computer is OS 10.5.7 and the other is OS 10.4.11
For the people that can't find the DNS Servers & Search Domains boxes with OS 10.4.11 you'll see them when you click on the TCP/IP tab.

The OS 10.4.11 computer that I use had nothing typed in the DNS Servers & Search Domains boxes. After I typed the DNS #'s in the DNS Servers box and optusnet.com.au in the Search Domains box and clicked apply this computer now works fine.

The OS 10.5.7 computer that I use had the ISP #'s typed in the DNS Servers box and had nsw.optushome.com.au typed in the Search Domains box. After I typed the DNS #'s in the DNS Servers box and optusnet.com.au into the Search Domains box and clicked apply this computer now works fine too.