[Techtalk] dns issue

[Wim De Smet]

Hi Tracey,

Are you sure ns1 needs an A-record for dns.shadlen.org? After all, it
reports dns.shadlen.org as authorative for dns.shadlen.org, with the
correct IP (see the authority section).

That the nameservers from mydomain.com don't know about the dns server
on shadlen.org is an error of course, but I don't think it's the
underlying problem. Rather, I think the problem is the root servers
somehow got passed the wrong address for dns.shadlen.org at some point
(a configuration issue with the registrar perhaps?). See, for
instance:
$ dig @a0.org.afilias-nst.info dns.shadlen.org
[snip]

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;dns.shadlen.org.		IN	A

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
shadlen.org.		86400	IN	NS	dns.shadlen.org.
shadlen.org.		86400	IN	NS	ns1.mydomain.com.
shadlen.org.		86400	IN	NS	ns2.mydomain.com.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
dns.shadlen.org.	86400	IN	A	128.95.153.89

I don't know where that IP would have come from though. I thought that
got passed up from the next level down somehow (my DNS knowledge is a
bit rusty I admit).

cheers,
Wim

On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 2:54 PM, TraceyC <grrliegeek at elenari.net> wrote:
> Hi Maria,
>
> I did a lookup of your domain's DNS on this site, which I use at work quite
> often:
> http://www.dnssy.com/report.php?q=shadlen.org
>
> What it's telling me is that there are 3 nameservers listed with your
> registrar, but only 2 are listed in the NS records at the DNS servers for
> the domain.
>
> Using whois you can see these listed at the registrar:
>
> Name Server:NS1.MYDOMAIN.COM
> Name Server:NS2.MYDOMAIN.COM
> Name Server:DNS.SHADLEN.ORG
>
> You can see on the report I sent that there is a lookup failure for
> dns.shadlen.org, which matches what you saw on diwebinterface.com. It says
> there is no A record for this host. That is the problem right there. You can
> confirm this yourself using dig (which is what the report you copied used).
>
> The following query says "I'm asking about the A record for dns.shadlen.org
> and I am asking the server ns1.mydomain.com."
>
> $ dig a dns.shadlen.org @NS1.MYDOMAIN.COM +short
> $
>
> You can see there is no output. This means the server does not have an A
> record for the host.
>
> In addition, there is a mismatch between what your registrar has listed as
> your nameservers and the answers your nameservers provide. This needs to be
> corrected. This is what your nameservers tell me are the NS records for your
> domain:
>
> $ dig ns shadlen.org +short
> ns3.mydomain.com.
> ns1.mydomain.com.
> ns2.mydomain.com.
> ns4.mydomain.com.
>
> I can't tell you how this happened, but I can tell you how to fix it. You
> need to determine which are the correct nameservers for your domain. Then,
> make sure that they are all listed with your domain registrar and that they
> all have A records. If you would like me to clarify, I'd be happy to.
>
> There's an excellent website that explains the basics of DNS in an easy to
> understand way. It's a gem because a lot of documentation on DNS goes into
> long mind numbing detail on running DNS servers, building DNS records from
> scratch etc. This link is useful for people manage their domain records,
> website maintainers, and anyone with a hosting account:
>
> http://rscott.org/dns/
>
> If you have access to created / edit the DNS zones on the nameservers listed
> above, you can correct the NS and A records yourself. If not, whoever
> controls those nameservers needs to correct the NS and A records. If you'd
> like me to help with that, I'd be happy to, it's what I do for a living :)
>
> --
> TraceyC
>
>
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