Shrinking TTL or ??

[Alec H. Peterson]

William Webb wrote:
> 
> In the zone below, ns1.ultradns.net is the master.   In the
> additional section of the master it shows:
> 
> ns1.ultradns.net.       1D IN A         204.69.234.1
> 
> But in the additional section of one of the slaves it shows:
> 
> ns1.ultradns.net.       17h34m16s IN A  204.69.234.1
> 
> Why the lower value, what does this signify?

Hi there,

What's happening here is that the first server you are querying for this
information is authoritative for the cap.gov. zone, but not for
ultradns.net.  However, the UltraDNS servers are obviously authoritative for
ultradns.net., so they are returning authoritative data (with the original
configured TTL).  The first server (209.98.47.196) appears to also be a
recursive server, so since it is not authoritative for the ultradns.net.
records it needs to tell the client how much longer the records are valid
for (hence the decremented TTL).

> 
> Also, what factor determine the order in which the servers are listed
> in the authority or additional section of these dig inquiries?

Authority data is basically data that that says "These are the authoritative
nameservers for this data."  The additional section contains resolutions of
records in the answer and authority sections.  If the server happens to be
recursive, then it should return resolutions for all of the records.  If it
is not recursive then it will only be able to return resolutions to records
that it is authoritative for.

Hope this answers your questions.

Alec

-- 
Alec H. Peterson - ahp at hilander.com
Staff Scientist
CenterGate Research Group - http://www.centergate.com
"Technology so advanced, even _we_ don't understand it!"