bad referral errors scrolling across the screen

[Barry Margolin]

In article <8ciprh$goe$1 at nnrp1.deja.com>,  <fred at usd253.kansas.net> wrote:
>I am having a terrible time with bad referral errors. I have read
>through the posts and can not find a problem like mine. I am running
>Bind 4.97 on Linux. My box is: mybox.myisp.net

Please, why do you insist on making up names?

% host mybox.myisp.net
Host not found.

How are we supposed to help you troubleshoot if we can't send queries to
your server?

>I have errors scrolling off my screen constantly:
>
>Apr 6 15:19:57 named[2854]: bad referral (net !<)
>Apr 6 15:19:57 named[2854]: bad referral (NET !<)
>Apr 6 15:19:57 named[2854]: bad referral (MYISP.NET !<)

Those messages seem backwards.  In a "bad referral" message, the first name
should always be shorter than the second one.  The message is supposed to
tell you that you were referred to a server for a subdomain, but when you
asked it about something in that subdomain, it referred you back to a
parent domain server.  But the above messages say just the opposite: you
asked a root server for something, and it referred you to a server for
..net, which is what is expected (well, since most of the root servers are
also .net servers, you would usually get a referral to the myisp.net
server).

>I get all 3 of these scrolling off my screen nonstop. My ISP is at a
>loss why and I don't have a great grasp of Bind. I do know based on the
>posts that I read that I should have something after the !<.
>Like (com !< msnbc.COM)

The empty domain is the root domain (notice that there's no "." at the end
of "MYISP.NET" -- if you display the root domain without the trailing dot,
what do you think you'll get?).

In any case, my suspicion is that there's something wrong with your root
cache file.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at genuity.com
Genuity, Burlington, 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.