TTL's and authority (long post)

[Brad Knowles]

At 6:53 PM -0400 9/4/01, Gareth Hastings wrote:

>  To start with I was given the choice of changing the primary DNS server
>  to one of my choice and let UK2 run a slave for me. I thought this would
>  be best in case my cable line dies. The problem I found here was even
>  though my DNS server was the primary server it seemed like it never got
>  used. I did a rndc stats and checked my server, it had very few queries
>  yet my site had a few thousand hits on it.

	Most nameservers automatically use round-trip times to determine 
which remote nameservers are fastest, and will generally prefer to 
use them over slower nameservers.  So, even though you are the 
primary for your zone, your nameservers may not get used very much.

	However, you can't really be a proper primary if your IP address 
is changing.

>  1. Why do I get this error when using nslookup to check for MX record
>  for my domain
>
>  ]# nslookup
>>  set query=mx
>>  www.gshock.co.uk
>  Server:         194.168.8.100
>  Address:        194.168.8.100#53
>
>  Non-authoritative answer:
>  www.gshock.co.uk        canonical name = gshock.co.uk.
>
>  Authoritative answers can be found from:
>  gshock.co.uk
>          origin = uk2net.com.
>          mail addr = hostmaster.gshock.co.uk.
>          serial = 2001090222
>          refresh = 43200
>          retry = 3600
>          expire = 604800
>          minimum = 86400

	You've got some delegation problems with your zone:

% doc -v gshock.co.uk.
Doc-2.2.3: doc -v gshock.co.uk.
Doc-2.2.3: Starting test of gshock.co.uk.   parent is co.uk.
Doc-2.2.3: Test date - Tue Sep  4 19:34:46 EDT 2001
soa @ns-nom.pipex.net. for co.uk. has serial: 2001090401
soa @ns1.nic.uk. for co.uk. has serial: 2001090401
soa @ns2.kpnqwest.net. for co.uk. has serial: 2001090401
soa @sec-nom.dns.uk.psi.net. for co.uk. has serial: 2001090401
SOA serial #'s agree for co.uk. domain
Found 2 NS and 0 glue records for gshock.co.uk. @ns-nom.pipex.net. (non-AUTH)
Found 2 NS and 0 glue records for gshock.co.uk. @ns1.nic.uk. (non-AUTH)
Found 2 NS and 0 glue records for gshock.co.uk. @ns2.kpnqwest.net. (non-AUTH)
Found 2 NS and 0 glue records for gshock.co.uk. 
@sec-nom.dns.uk.psi.net. (non-AUTH)
DNServers for co.uk.
    === 0 were also authoritatve for gshock.co.uk.
    === 4 were non-authoritative for gshock.co.uk.
Servers for co.uk. (not also authoritative for gshock.co.uk.)
    === agree on NS records for gshock.co.uk.
NS list summary for gshock.co.uk. from parent (co.uk.) servers
   == asmod.d2g.com. asmod3.d2g.com.
soa @asmod.d2g.com. for gshock.co.uk. serial:
ERROR: no SOA record for gshock.co.uk. from asmod.d2g.com.
soa @asmod3.d2g.com. for gshock.co.uk. serial: 1
NS list from gshock.co.uk. authoritative servers matches list from
   === parent (co.uk.) servers not authoritative for gshock.co.uk.
Checking 0 potential addresses for hosts at gshock.co.uk.
   ==
Summary:
    ERRORS found for gshock.co.uk. (count: 1)
Done testing gshock.co.uk.  Tue Sep  4 19:34:59 EDT 2001


	You really want to get the machine asmod.d2g.com fixed, so that 
it answers properly for your zone.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles at skynet.be>

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