NSlookup command-line question

[Barry Margolin]

In article <80fja0$ada$1 at news.aros.net>,
Steve Wolfe <telomere at take.this.out.inconnect.com> wrote:
> and it works.  On the command line, I can say:
>
>nslookup -type=NS domain.com ns.our.company.com
>
> and it works.  But, if I try:
>
>nslookup -type=NS domain.com a.root-servers.net
>
>  It doesn't.  Can some kindly soul enlighten me as to what I'm doing wrong?

The problem is that the root servers don't do recursion, and they're also
not authoritative for their own reverse domains, so when nslookup tries to
translate the server's address to a name by doing a reverse query, it
fails.

DNS wizards know that nslookup is the worst debugging tool there is.  Use
dig for serious debugging, and host for simple queries.

% host -t ns near.net a.root-servers.net
Using domain server:
Name: a.root-servers.net
Address: 198.41.0.4
Aliases:

near.net NS DNSAUTH1.SYS.GTEI.NET
near.net NS DNSAUTH2.SYS.GTEI.NET
near.net NS DNSAUTH3.SYS.GTEI.NET

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at bbnplanet.com
GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA
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