Will abandoned SOA records eventually be deleted automatically?

[Simon Waters]

Cameron Pitcairn wrote:
> 
> Situation:
> 
> On Monday we switched mitchellcenter.info to a new host.  To accomplish
> this, we changed the nameservers listed by the registrar (VeriSign).  The
> original nameservers were:
> 
>     NS1.NETAXS.COM
>     NS2.NETAXS.COM
> 
> The new nameservers are:
> 
>     NS1.INFOQUESTHOSTING.NET
>     NS2.INFOQUESTHOSTING.NET

These servers have differing NS entries currently. You might
like to make sure everything is okay.

11:48:43 srw doc-2.2.3 $ dig +short  @ns1.infoquesthosting.net
mitchellcenter.info ns ns1.infoquesthosting.net. 
11:48:48 srw doc-2.2.3 $ dig +short  @ns2.infoquesthosting.net
mitchellcenter.info ns ns2.infoquesthosting.net. 
ns1.infoquesthosting.net. 

11:49:36 srw doc-2.2.3 $ dig +short  @ns1.infoquesthosting.net
mitchellcenter.info soa
ns1.infoquesthosting.net. admin.infoquesthosting.net. 5 900 600
86400 3600
11:49:42 srw doc-2.2.3 $ dig +short  @ns2.infoquesthosting.net
mitchellcenter.info soa
ns2.infoquesthosting.net. admin.infoquesthosting.net. 8 900 600
86400 3600
  
Hmm ns2 is getting ahead of ns1

> By now, the change has propagated and most everyone who tries to go to
> www.mitchellcenter.info goes to the new site, EXCEPT for the woman
> responsible for maintaining the site.  She gets sent to the old site.  On
> investigation, it turns out that her primary DNS server is -- NS1.NETAXS.COM
> (!!)
> 
> I conjecture (and some playing around with nslookup seems to confirm) that
> since this particular server considers itself authoritative for
> mitchellcenter.info, it never queries a root server when queried about that
> domain, and consequently does not know about the change in nameservers.
> 
> Questions:
> 
> 1.  Is my conjecture correct?

Yes, it is easier using "dig".

> 2.  If so, will the NETAXS server eventually "figure out" that it is no
> longer authoritative for mitchellcenter.info, or should we make a specific
> request to Netaxs to delete the SOA records?  (We want to make sure
> everything is working correctly before actually closing our account with
> Netaxs.)

You'll need to request it.

If companies used seperate servers for recursive resolution, and
authoritative, then this would never happen.