REPOST: Bad Referral to net. from symantec.com. for www.symantec.com.

[Kevin Darcy]

I'm not sure why BIND would flag this as a "bad referral". Seems like the remote nameserver is answering correctly, given that it is non-recursive and the closest ancestor to the CNAME target that it knows about is the "net" TLD. How should it answer differently?

                                                                                                                                    - Kevin

Stanley Liu wrote:

> BIND 8.3.1 for NT.
>
> My BIND log has been littered with the following message (sets of 13 in a row):
>
> 05-Feb-2002 17:01:11.000 bad referral (net !< symantec.com) from [198.6.49.111].53
>
> And I can reproduce it by pointing a browser to URL www.symantec.com.  I noticed that (see the dig at the end of this post) www.symantec.com. is CNAME to www.symantec.d4p.net (and in turn CNAME to 1568.g.akamai.net).  So I roughly understand why it refers my nameserver to net.  But why there is an error in the log?  How do I stop logging this error?  Or is it something wrong with my nameserver?
>
> Stanley Liu
> stanley.liu at toyota.com.au
>
> dig in a  www.symantec.com. @198.6.49.5
> ; <<>> DiG 8.3 <<>> in a www.symantec.com. @198.6.49.5
> ; (1 server found)
> ;; res options: init recurs defnam dnsrch
> ;; got answer:
> ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 6
> ;; flags: qr rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 13, ADDITIONAL: 13
> ;; QUERY SECTION:
> ;; www.symantec.com, type = A, class = IN
>
> ;; ANSWER SECTION:
> www.symantec.com. 1M IN CNAME www.symantec.d4p.net.
>
> ;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
> net.   1d22h27m46s IN NS  A.GTLD-SERVERS.net.
> net.   1d22h27m46s IN NS  G.GTLD-SERVERS.net.
> net.   1d22h27m46s IN NS  H.GTLD-SERVERS.net.
> net.   1d22h27m46s IN NS  C.GTLD-SERVERS.net.
> net.   1d22h27m46s IN NS  I.GTLD-SERVERS.net.
> net.   1d22h27m46s IN NS  B.GTLD-SERVERS.net.
> net.   1d22h27m46s IN NS  D.GTLD-SERVERS.net.
> net.   1d22h27m46s IN NS  L.GTLD-SERVERS.net.
> net.   1d22h27m46s IN NS  F.GTLD-SERVERS.net.
> net.   1d22h27m46s IN NS  J.GTLD-SERVERS.net.
> net.   1d22h27m46s IN NS  K.GTLD-SERVERS.net.
> net.   1d22h27m46s IN NS  E.GTLD-SERVERS.net.
> net.   1d22h27m46s IN NS  M.GTLD-SERVERS.net.
>
> ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
> A.GTLD-SERVERS.net. 1d22h27m46s IN A  192.5.6.30
> G.GTLD-SERVERS.net. 1d22h27m46s IN A  192.42.93.30
> H.GTLD-SERVERS.net. 1d22h27m46s IN A  192.54.112.30
> C.GTLD-SERVERS.net. 1d22h27m46s IN A  192.26.92.30
> I.GTLD-SERVERS.net. 1d22h27m46s IN A  192.43.172.30
> B.GTLD-SERVERS.net. 1d22h27m46s IN A  192.33.14.30
> D.GTLD-SERVERS.net. 1d22h27m46s IN A  192.31.80.30
> L.GTLD-SERVERS.net. 1d22h27m46s IN A  192.41.162.30
> F.GTLD-SERVERS.net. 1d22h27m46s IN A  192.35.51.30
> J.GTLD-SERVERS.net. 1d22h27m46s IN A  210.132.100.101
> K.GTLD-SERVERS.net. 1d22h27m46s IN A  213.177.194.5
> E.GTLD-SERVERS.net. 1d22h27m46s IN A  192.12.94.30
> M.GTLD-SERVERS.net. 1d22h27m46s IN A  202.153.114.101
>
> ;; Total query time: 1000 msec
> ;; FROM: igsm038625 to SERVER: 198.6.49.5
> ;; WHEN: Tue Feb 05 17:23:14 2002
> ;; MSG SIZE  sent: 34  rcvd: 497