Reverse address entries
Sam Wilson
Sam.Wilson at ed.ac.uk
Fri Jul 12 15:22:41 UTC 2013
In article <mailman.736.1372773195.20661.bind-users at lists.isc.org>,
Steven Carr <sjcarr at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2 July 2013 14:42, Sam Wilson <Sam.Wilson at ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> > Can anyone here give examples of the types of various software that will
> > not operate without a PTR record?
>
> There have already been numerous listings of software that require
> reverse lookups. SMTP being the main one. Other services like IRC and
> some databases (Oracle/MySQL) can also be configured to require
> properly working reverse lookups.
"... can also be configured ..." - see below.
> > I agree that if PTR records exist then they should match an A record.
> > My experience (and IIRC correctly the word of several RFCs) is that PTRs
> > are not required for most things to work.
>
> RFC1912 [http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1912] section 2.1...
>
> Every Internet-reachable host should have a name... Make sure your PTR
> and A records match. For every IP address, there should be a matching
> PTR record in the in-addr.arpa domain. If a host is multi-homed,
> (more than one IP address) make sure that all IP addresses have a
> corresponding PTR record (not just the first one). Failure to have
> matching PTR and A records can cause loss of Internet services similar
> to not being registered in the DNS at all. Also, PTR records must
> point back to a valid A record, not a alias defined by a CNAME.
Sorry for the delay in returning to this. RFC 1912 says:
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo
does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. ...
To make myself clear, I'm a big fan of correct PTR records and we try to
make sure that our reverse DNS is fully populated. I do not regard lack
of a valid PTR record to be a reason to refuse connection except,
perhaps, in very particular circumstances, for instance where it might
be part of a trust stance. That would be by agreement between
consenting adults, not the law of Internetland in general.
Sam
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