Problem with nameserver

[Barry Margolin]

In article <9oajig$e8c at pub3.rc.vix.com>, Jeroen <stekkel at dds.nl> wrote:
>Hello,
>
>as I am completely new to this group, I don't know if it is the right one to
>post this. Anyway: for the last 4 hours the nameservers on
>www.hostnederland.nl (ns1.hostnederland.nl and ns2.hostnederland.nl) stopped
>working (without any reason, I did not change anything in the configuration
>of the nameserver). An nslookup at the local nameserver gives the following
>result:
>
>nslookup www.hostnederland.nl 212.204.236.241
>*** Can't find server name for address 212.204.236.241: Non-existent
>host/domain
>*** Default servers are not available
>
>which means that servers are up and running but are not giving the right
>result. When I shutdown the nameservers the following result is given:

It means that the server is unable to perform a reverse lookup of its own
address.

The servers for the reverse domain 236.204.212.in-addr.arpa don't have a
PTR record for 241.236.204.212.in-addr.arpa.  The primary server for this
reverse domain is ns1.widexs.nl.

>nslookup www.hostnederland.nl 212.204.236.241
>*** Can't find server name for address 212.204.236.241: No response from
>server
>*** Default servers are not available
>
>"No response from server" instead of "Non-existent host/domain". Can
>somebody tell me why this happens and what the meaning of "Default servers
>are not available" is?

"Default servers are not available" means that nslookup got an error when
it asked the nameserver to translate its own address to a name.  This is a
requirement imposed by nslookup, not the DNS protocol or any other DNS
query mechanism.  Use dig to test your nameserver instead:

dig www.hostnederland.nl a @212.204.236.241

; <<>> DiG 8.3 <<>> www.hostnederland.nl a @212.204.236.241 
; (1 server found)
;; res options: init recurs defnam dnsrch
;; got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 6
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 3, ADDITIONAL: 3
;; QUERY SECTION:
;;	www.hostnederland.nl, type = A, class = IN

;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.hostnederland.nl.	1D IN A		212.204.236.241

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
hostnederland.nl.	1D IN NS	ns2.widexs.net.
hostnederland.nl.	1D IN NS	ns1.widexs.nl.
hostnederland.nl.	1D IN NS	ns3.widexs.nl.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns2.widexs.net.		1D IN A		212.204.207.192
ns1.widexs.nl.		1D IN A		212.204.192.252
ns3.widexs.nl.		1D IN A		62.250.7.3

;; Total query time: 99 msec
;; FROM: tools.genuity.com to SERVER: 212.204.236.241
;; WHEN: Wed Sep 19 14:01:28 2001
;; MSG SIZE  sent: 38  rcvd: 173

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at genuity.net
Genuity, Woburn, MA
*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
Please DON'T copy followups to me -- I'll assume it wasn't posted to the group.