wrong domain name appended

[Kevin Darcy]

When the initial query times out, nslookup's suckiness causes it try to
"search" for the requested name by appending suffixes to it. This "search"
is therefore just a symptom of the problem rather than a cause of it. The
root cause appears to be that your forwarding is broken.

Note that real lookup tools like "dig" don't confuse matters by
implementing "search" algorithms by default, and are therefore preferable
in troubleshooting DNS problems.

Are you sure your forwarder accepts recursive queries? Is there a firewall
or router between you and the forwarder that might be blocking queries? Are
you sure that your forwarder itself can resolve these names? If you have a
whole chain of forwarders, you might need to backtrack from the outermost
one until you hit one that can't resolve external names. Then focus on the
(mis)communication between that nameserver and its upstream forwarder.


- Kevin

Hugo Bouckaert wrote:

> Hi
>
> I have set up a local dns server on a Irix 6.5.8f Silicon Graphics
> machine. I can do local lookups, but for some reason queries outside our
> domain fail.
>
> If I do
>
> #>nslookup some.host.com.au myforwarding.server.com.au
>
> I can get the IP of some.host.com.au
>
> But if I do an nslookup as such, and rely on the forwarder defined in my
> named.boot file, I get the following error (see below). Note that I use
> "set d2" for debugging.
>
> It seems to me our domain name is appended after the query, ie when I am
> looking up the details of a computer called welcome.cs.uwa.edu.au (which
> is outside our domain), nslookup seems to be looking for
> welcome.cs.uwa.edu.au.fractalgraphics.com.au. How do I make sure our
> domain name is not appended - I have placed the . (dot) after the
> hostname I think in all the DNS files where needed. Has anyone come
> acrross this error before? Why would this happen?
>
> Any help much appreciated.
>
> Thanks
>
> Hugo
>
> ---
>
> Here is the output from my nslookup:
>
> #>nslookup
> Default Server: localhost
> Address: 127.0.0.1
>
> >set d2
> >welcome.cs.uwa.edu.au
>
> ------------
> SendRequest(), len 39
>     HEADER:
>         opcode = QUERY, id = 16757, rcode = NOERROR
>         header flags:  query, want recursion
>         questions = 1,  answers = 0,  authority records = 0,  additional
> = 0
>
>     QUESTIONS:
>         welcome.cs.uwa.edu.au, type = A, class = IN
>
> ------------
> timeout
> timeout
> timeout
> timeout
> SendRequest failed
> ------------
> SendRequest(), len 62
>     HEADER:
>         opcode = QUERY, id = 16758, rcode = NOERROR
>         header flags:  query, want recursion
>         questions = 1,  answers = 0,  authority records = 0,  additional
> = 0
>
>     QUESTIONS:
>         welcome.cs.uwa.edu.au.fractalgraphics.com.au, type = A, class =
> IN
>
> ------------
> ------------
> Got answer (129 bytes):
>     HEADER:
>         opcode = QUERY, id = 16758, rcode = NXDOMAIN
>         header flags:  response, auth. answer, want recursion, recursion
> avail.
>         questions = 1,  answers = 0,  authority records = 1,  additional
> = 0
>
>     QUESTIONS:
>         welcome.cs.uwa.edu.au.fractalgraphics.com.au, type = A, class =
> IN
>     AUTHORITY RECORDS:
>     ->  fractalgraphics.com.au
>         type = SOA, class = IN, dlen = 33
>         ttl = 86400 (1 day)
>         origin = godo.fractalgraphics.com.au
>         mail addr = rmw.fractalgraphics.com.au
>         serial = 1998110404
>         refresh = 10800 (3 hours)
>         retry   = 1800 (30 mins)
>         expire  = 3600000 (41 days 16 hours)
>         minimum ttl = 86400 (1 day)
>
> ------------
> ------------
> SendRequest(), len 46
>     HEADER:
>         opcode = QUERY, id = 16759, rcode = NOERROR
>         header flags:  query, want recursion
>         questions = 1,  answers = 0,  authority records = 0,  additional
> = 0
>
>     QUESTIONS:
>         welcome.cs.uwa.edu.au.com.au, type = A, class = IN
>
> ------------
> timeout
>
> --
> Dr Hugo Bouckaert
> R&D Support Engineer, Fractal Graphics
> 39 Fairway, Nedlands Western Australia 6009
> Tel: 9284 8442
> Email:hugo at fractalgraphics.com.au
> Web: http://www.fractalgraphics.com.au