newB: confusion about whois & DNS

[Barry Margolin]

In article <bmffnm$1hbo$1 at sf1.isc.org>,
forrest gump <forrestgump at yahoo.com> wrote:
>Hello all,
>
>Forgive me for being ignant... (and long winded)
>
>I have recently been asked to administer a site that someone else has set up
>and I'm really confused about some things:
>
>background:
>Cobalt Raq3 server
>previously set up on an IP stack that is 208.155.xxx.xxx
>domains are all set up a name-based virtual host
>DNS server is local (I think) and run by the Raq3
>hosting company recently changed its IPs to 66.84.xxx.xxx
>All sites and dns entries in the Raq3 control panel were changed to new IPs
>None of the domain's that the site hosts were updated through their domain
>registrant (they all still point to ns2.lostmtn.com   208.155.79.150 and
>ns3.lostmtn.com   208.155.79.151.  note that the IPs are the old IPs)
>
>BUT, all the sites resolve properly!
>
>I don't get it.  When I do a dig of any number of dns servers they all
>respond
>
>;; ANSWER SECTION:
>www.lostmtn.com.        23h21m3s IN A   66.84.79.150
>
>;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
>lostmtn.com.            23h21m3s IN NS  www.lostmtn.com.
>
>am I am surprised that they all have the right IP address.

Why are you surprised?  That's the answer that comes back from
208.155.79.150 and 208.155.79.151?

>Does this mean the whois server looks up the ns2.lostmtn.com and not the IP
>address?

Whois servers are not involved when you're doing DNS queries.  The data
that the whois server displays is used to populate the TLD nameservers.  So
in the .com domain there are entries:

lostmtn.com. IN NS ns2.lostmtn.com.
             IN NS ns3.lostmtn.com.
ns2.lostmtn.com. IN A 208.155.79.150  ; glue record
ns3.lostmtn.com. IN A 208.155.79.151  ; glue record

>What am I looking at when I dig a certain ns server? (for example when I get
>a response from ns1.bellatlantic.net, am I seeing their dns table? and if so
>how are they getting the right IP address when the whois server lists the
>wrong IP?  Does that mean they followed the ns2.lostmtn.com and updated
>their tables from the Raq3s DNS entries?  Why is the sky blue?  Where do
>babies come from?

Yes.  When they queries ns2.lostmtn.com or ns3.lostmtn.com, they got back a
response that has the following in the Authority section:

lostmtn.com.	IN	NS	www.lostmtn.com.

They update their cache with this information.

>I assume that the hosting company is going to stop paying for the old IP
>stack in the near future.  Does that mean I am living on borrowed time?  At
>that point will the domains stop resolving if I haven't updated their whois
>entries by that time.

Yes, when they remove the zone from their configuration, resolution will
fail.

My guess is that they've configured their servers as slaves to your server,
to make the transition smooth.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barry.margolin at level3.com
Level(3), Woburn, MA
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