Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: DNS problems

Author:Jason Levine
Posted:4/29/1999; 10:57:05 PM
Topic:DNS problems
Msg #:5448 (In response to 5439)
Prev/Next:5447 / 5449

The problem is _definitely_ at Network Solutions' end of things. (Note that I said Network Solutions, and not InterNIC -- as of right now, they may be one and the same, but soon, they won't be, and I want to be clear that Network Solutions is the problem here.)

Here's the output of dig, a common DNS tool, when I ask it to resolve discuss.userland.com. (Note that I'm running it from Columbia University, and thus using 128.59.35.88 as my nameserver; if you run it from the link above, be sure to put ANY nameserver into the field BUT Conxion's, since Conxion's nameservers will return the right thing, as they rightly think that they are authoritative for userland.com.)

$ dig discuss.userland.com


; <<>> DiG 2.2 <<>> discuss.userland.com 
;; res options: init recurs defnam dnsrch
;; got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 6
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; Ques: 1, Ans: 0, Auth: 1, Addit: 0
;; QUESTIONS:
;;      discuss.userland.com, type = A, class = IN


;; AUTHORITY RECORDS:
com.    577     SOA     A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. hostmaster.INTERNIC.NET. (
                        1999042800      ; serial
                        1800    ; refresh (30 mins)
                        900     ; retry (15 mins)
                        604800  ; expire (7 days)
                        86400 ) ; minimum (1 day)


;; Total query time: 8 msec
;; FROM: merhaba to SERVER: default -- 128.59.35.88
;; WHEN: Fri Apr 30 01:39:02 1999
;; MSG SIZE  sent: 38  rcvd: 115

Critical here is the line fragment that reads "status: NXDOMAIN".

According to RFC 2308 (section 1), NXDOMAIN is synonymous with an DNS header RCODE of "Name Error"; this is defined in RFC 1035 (section 4.1.1) as meaning that "the domain name referenced in the query does not exist."

Also note that even without knowing that about NXDOMAIN, you can be almost sure about Network Solutions being to blame because the result of the dig shows that the root server is playing authoritative, which it only does for names that aren't defined (and thus don't have authoritative nameservers defined).

Lastly, in my experience with Network Solutions, they will always tell you that their servers are doing the right thing, even when faced with incontrovertible evidence that they are not. They are a terrible company, with terrible customer service, and even worse technical support. But I'll leave that rant for later, as it seems more important now to try to get userland.com up and running.

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