Problems with DNS...

[Ben Scott]

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 11:18 PM, Bruce Dawson <jbd at codemeta.com> wrote:
> Well, with lots of help from MV and lots of reading of dig(1) and
> host(1) manual pages, we finally saw that there were trailing dots on
> the IP addresses in the NS RR's.

  Or, more generally, there were IP addresses in the NS RRs.  ;-)

  (The right-hand-side of an NS record must be a name, not an IP address.)

> The IP addresses don't appear in the output below, but they do appear
> when I use host's -r and -v options

  Tip: When diagnosing DNS, I always use "dig".  I use "host" when I
believe DNS is correct and what I'm actually interested in is the
answer.  I use "dig" when I want to see what DNS itself is doing.

  In particular, the "+trace" option to "dig" is hugely useful for
following the delegation chain from the root down to an authoritative
server:

	dig +trace loudonag.org. @a.root-servers.net.

> Can you imagine trying to diagnose this on a commercial operating
> system?

  Yes.  ISC BIND (which provides "dig" and "host") is available for
Win32.  I recommend them often when talking to other 'doze admins
about DNS issues.  ;-)

-- Ben