Just today at 12:30 a certain domain I am in need of using for my university stopped working. I didn't think much of it as universities usually are awfully bad at managing downtimes and servers but as the time was (and still is) approaching my online test this evening I became more and more certain that my university wasn't the issue. I then asked and found that little to no one is having my issue.
The domain I need to access is called "moodle.ruhr-uni-bochum.de"
It's the moodle page of my uni. I'm sure that you're currently able to access it, however, I am not.
I did some DIGs and found that this CNAME record, or the managing DNS server behind it, reroutes me to:
"vmits0237.vm.ruhr-uni-bochum.de"
Which is an A record that brings me to:
"134.147.230.132"
Here are some dig results I'd like for you to look at:
dig moodle.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
; <<>> DiG 9.16.6 <<>> moodle.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 23946
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1
;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 512
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;moodle.ruhr-uni-bochum.de. IN A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
moodle.ruhr-uni-bochum.de. 37096 IN CNAME vmits0237.vm.ruhr-uni-bochum.de.
vmits0237.vm.ruhr-uni-bochum.de. 34421 IN A 134.147.230.132
;; Query time: 1 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.178.1#53(192.168.178.1)
;; WHEN: Tue Apr 13 15:19:18 W. Europe Summer Time 2021
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 97
As you can see, I am using my router's DNS. I used to use a Pi Hole, but obviously turned that one off as that's usually the problem.
I live in northern Germany, so the closest IPv4 DNS is CloudFlare's center in Amsterdam. Obviously, my Pi Hole was using that to get its data whenever a domain was not on the blocklist, however, this was one of the results:
Which is super weird, right? Usually this is something Pi Hole's gravity system does, however, as you can see, that one forwarded perfectly fine, but CloudFlare itself returned nothing.
So I thought it must be an issue with the domain and tried the IP, which does not work.
However, trying the domain or the IP using a VPN / different network perfectly works and loads the page.
Moodle's loaded webpage as an IP whilst using a VPN
Even better, this is what dig returns when connected to a VPN
dig moodle.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
; <<>> DiG 9.16.6 <<>> moodle.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 38987
;; flags: qr rd ra ad; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 13, ADDITIONAL: 1
;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096
; COOKIE: d4e00feae11b6317e964911560759f58b5e9a3702c4b26ec (good)
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;moodle.ruhr-uni-bochum.de. IN A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
moodle.ruhr-uni-bochum.de. 3499 IN CNAME vmits0237.vm.ruhr-uni-bochum.de.
vmits0237.vm.ruhr-uni-bochum.de. 3499 IN A 134.147.230.132
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
. 2120 IN NS i.root-servers.net.
. 2120 IN NS j.root-servers.net.
. 2120 IN NS g.root-servers.net.
. 2120 IN NS m.root-servers.net.
. 2120 IN NS a.root-servers.net.
. 2120 IN NS k.root-servers.net.
. 2120 IN NS c.root-servers.net.
. 2120 IN NS l.root-servers.net.
. 2120 IN NS h.root-servers.net.
. 2120 IN NS b.root-servers.net.
. 2120 IN NS e.root-servers.net.
. 2120 IN NS d.root-servers.net.
. 2120 IN NS f.root-servers.net.
;; Query time: 28 msec
;; SERVER: 103.86.99.99#53(103.86.99.99)
;; WHEN: Tue Apr 13 15:40:37 W. Europe Summer Time 2021
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 336
As you can see here, the DNS Server is something that isn't my router, so it works, I think. However, why would an IP address only work when I am connected to a VPN? I get the domain not working, there might be a DNS issue or cache or whatever, but the IP should always work, unless they've specifically denied my own network access, right?
Thank you for any help in advance. My test will be in 1.5 hours, and I am already using a VPN as my "solution" but any other solutions you might come up with I would appreciate highly.
The IP I was trying to access blocked my network. I do not know why they did that, however, if your dig results look similar to mine contact the server admins of the site you wish to access and ask them why they blacklisted your network.