Environment
Novell Access Management 3 Linux Access Gateway
Novell Access Management 3 Access Administration
Novell Access Management 3 Netware Access Gateway
Situation
Access Manager setup correctly and working file ie. users can access protected resources, authenticate successfully and single sign on to back end Web servers. After 5 minutes, the Access Gateway healthcheck starts reporting that the DNS server is not reachable, when in fact the DNS server is reachable - both ping and dig requests get returned with expected responses.
Resolution
Add a dummy host entry for www.novell.com to the Access Gateway HOSTS file. Alternatively, apply any build newer than Access Manager 3.0 SP3 IR1 and touch the file /var/novell/.ignoreDnsServerHealth. This will not send the periodic healthcheck query to the back end server.
Additional Information
The Access Gateway DNS healthcheck generates DNS A requests for www.novell.com host. If the DNS server pointed at by the Access Gateway is not capable of resolving www.novell.com, it will generate a warning that the DNS server may be unreachable.