A and H root-servers.net giving out bad information?

[Mathias Körber]

Looks like cdr.stanford.edu was registered as a HOST at NSI
(for use as a nameserver one presumes, or potentially to prevent
others to register it as a nameserver w/o a notification being sent
to cdr's owner) and then when stanford.edu changed their addresses
they forgot to update the HOST record at NSI.

This looks like another case where superfluous or 'forgotten' GLUE
data affects more than the NS records, as the root-nameservers
directly reply with this record (in the answer section).
It would be better if they could distinguish A records used for GLUE
reliably from other A records and only return these in the ADDITIONAL
section of the reply...

Mathias

> -----Original Message-----
> From: news at nntp.stanford.edu [mailto:news at nntp.stanford.edu]On Behalf =
Of
> Joe Wagner
> Sent: Monday, September 11, 2000 6:23 PM
> To: comp-protocols-dns-bind at moderators.isc.org
> Subject: A and H root-servers.net giving out bad information?
>=20
>=20
>=20
> Hello,
>     Thanks in advance for your help -- and your patience. For a while
> now I have been having periodic problems getting through to a mail
> server at Stanford University, though no one else complained of any
> difficulties.  A couple weeks ago I finally noticed that when those
> problems occurred, my email program(s) were using an old and now bad =
IP
> address (36.93.0.31) rather than the new one (171.64.48.31) for
> cdr.stanford.edu.=20
>      More than a few moons ago IIRC stanford.edu made the final switch
> from using all of 36.x.x.x to smaller hunk of the IP space in
> 171.x.x.x.  I could not figure out where and why my name servers were
> getting the old IP address -- until tonight:  For some reason
> A.root-servers.net (and H) is giving out the now bogus IP address. =
Thus
> every so often when my DNS server happen to decide to go to A or H
> rather than another root-server,  it caches a bogus value until it
> expires, or I notice and flush the cache. =20
>      Is there something special about A and H that make them cling to
> old records?   For that matter, if this isn't too a dumb question, why
> would A and H give an answer rather than just an Authoritative Record
> like the rest of the root-servers?
>=20
> Thank you again,
>=20
> Joe
>=20
> PS, below are the results of a couple digs.  Note that I think in the
> past cdr.stanford.edu ran a name server though it doesn't anymore.
> --
> dig @a.root-servers.net cdr.stanford.edu
>=20
> ; <<>> DiG 2.2 <<>> @a.root-servers.net cdr.stanford.edu
> ; (1 server found)
> ;; res options: init recurs defnam dnsrch
> ;; got answer:
> ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 10
> ;; flags: qr rd; Ques: 1, Ans: 1, Auth: 3, Addit: 3
> ;; QUESTIONS:
> ;;      cdr.stanford.edu, type =3D A, class =3D IN
>=20
> ;; ANSWERS:
> cdr.stanford.edu.       172800  A       36.93.0.31
>=20
> ;; AUTHORITY RECORDS:
> STANFORD.EDU.   172800  NS      AVALLONE.STANFORD.EDU.
> STANFORD.EDU.   172800  NS      ATALANTE.STANFORD.EDU.
> STANFORD.EDU.   172800  NS      ARGUS.STANFORD.EDU.
>=20
> ;; ADDITIONAL RECORDS:
> AVALLONE.STANFORD.EDU.  172800  A       171.64.2.210
> ATALANTE.STANFORD.EDU.  172800  A       171.64.2.220
> ARGUS.STANFORD.EDU.     172800  A       171.64.2.230
>=20
> ;; Total query time: 76 msec
> ;; FROM: java to SERVER: a.root-servers.net  198.41.0.4
> ;; WHEN: Mon Sep 11 01:56:05 2000
> ;; MSG SIZE  sent: 34  rcvd: 176
> ---
> dig @i.root-servers.net cdr.stanford.edu
>=20
> ; <<>> DiG 2.2 <<>> @i.root-servers.net cdr.stanford.edu
> ; (1 server found)
> ;; res options: init recurs defnam dnsrch
> ;; got answer:
> ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 10
> ;; flags: qr rd; Ques: 1, Ans: 0, Auth: 3, Addit: 3
> ;; QUESTIONS:
> ;;      cdr.stanford.edu, type =3D A, class =3D IN
>=20
> ;; AUTHORITY RECORDS:
> STANFORD.edu.   172800  NS      AVALLONE.STANFORD.edu.
> STANFORD.edu.   172800  NS      ATALANTE.STANFORD.edu.
> STANFORD.edu.   172800  NS      ARGUS.STANFORD.edu.
>=20
> ;; ADDITIONAL RECORDS:
> AVALLONE.STANFORD.edu.  172800  A       171.64.2.210
> ATALANTE.STANFORD.edu.  172800  A       171.64.2.220
> ARGUS.STANFORD.edu.     172800  A       171.64.2.230
>=20
> ;; Total query time: 165 msec
> ;; FROM: java to SERVER: i.root-servers.net  192.36.148.17
> ;; WHEN: Mon Sep 11 02:21:19 2000
> ;; MSG SIZE  sent: 34  rcvd: 160
>=20
> --=20
> James Joseph Wagner, President            Web: =
http://www.hypertouch.com
> Hypertouch(R) Inc.                  Voice/FAX: (650) 367 - 6664
>=20