nslookup can't find my domain

[Jim Reid]

>>>>> "Francis" == Francis A Vidal <francis at usls.edu> writes:

    Francis> i've also noticed that while running nslookup and just
    Francis> typing my domain, usls.edu, gives me:

    Francis> [03:19pm] [root at atlas /root]# nslookup
    Francis> Default Server:  atlas.usls.edu
    Francis> Address:  192.168.1.1

    Francis> > usls.edu
    Francis> Server:  atlas.usls.edu
    Francis> Address:  192.168.1.1

    Francis> *** atlas.usls.edu can't find usls.edu: Non-existent host/domain

    Francis> but when i specify `set q=any', it spits out all possible
    Francis> information for my domain. is this "normal" for a split
    Francis> DNS environment?

It's normal behaviour but has nothing to do with split DNS. By default
nslookup asks for A records. So if the name being looked up doesn't
have an A record, the name server replies with an NXDOMAIN error code
which nslookup prints as "Non-existent host/domain". [Actually, if the
name exists as a CNAME, the name server will return that RR.] When the
query type is set to any, the name server returns all the RR types
that exist for the name. This explains why a lookup of "any" for your
domain returns its SOA, NS, MX, etc records when a default query
doesn't.

The reason you get an answer when looking up yahoo.com is because this
domain has two A records for that name. Compare an answer for that
lookup with one that set the query type to "any".

BTW, use dig for DNS lookups and troubleshooting. It's far superior to
nslookup.