probably simple question

[Vu Pham ( Sivell )]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason Timmons" <Jason at mantamedia.com>
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.dns.bind
To: <comp-protocols-dns-bind at moderators.isc.org>
Sent: Friday, August 04, 2000 6:54 PM
Subject: probably simple question


>
> Here's my situation.  I imagine this is dealt with every day, there
> must be something I am missing about the whole DNS deal.
>
> Let's say I own whatever.com.  I run the primary DNS server for
> whatever.com.  I can add a records all day long for this.whatever.com
> or that.whatever.com, and they resolve, and their hosts can be pinged
> and telnetted to, etc.  What if I just want to be able to
> ping/telnet/etc.  whatever.com.  I want anyone on the net to be able
> to type
>
> telnet whatever.com
>
> and reach a host.  Now, per my understanding of DNS and delegation,
> etc., the authority that holds the record for .com should have an a
> record somewhere with an IP for the host 'whatever' in the zone .com.
> This authority in my case would be NSI.  Now, I've never heard of
> anyone doing that, but I know very well that there are many hosts with
> only one name left of the .com (or .org, etc) that can be reached this
> way.  Any ISP, for example.  So, there must be some aliasing going on.
> You can't just make an a record with a blank hostname, and no dots are
> allowed in the a record either.  Does it have something to do with
> CNAME?
>
> I've read the whole O'Reilly DNS book, but have not found this answer.
> I am assuming its right there in front of me, and I've just missed it.
>
> TIA
>
> -jason timmons
>
>
I am not sure if I fully understand, but IMO, whatever.com can be seen as a
domain if it has an NS record somewhere , whatever.com can also be seen as a
host if it has  an A record for it. And these two types of records ( for one
name ) can exists at the same time. Then, depending on the type of  request
of the client - asking for a host ( type =a ), or asking for a name server
( type=ns) the corresponding record will be chosen to return.

Vu Pham