Variations on lame delegations (terminology question)

[Barry Margolin]

In article <bnal1a$2tnu$1 at sf1.isc.org>,  <Mark_Andrews at isc.org> wrote:
>
>> 
>> My understanding of a "lame delegation" is that a listed nameserver for 
>> a zone is not authoritative for that zone.
>> 
>> What terminology is/should be used if the listed nameserver isn't 
>> a nameserver?  I.e. if it isn't and never does run a DNS nameserver?
>> 
>> And what if the NSDNAME of the NS record points to either a completely 
>> non-existant node, or that node has no address records (A or AAAA)?
>
>	They are all lame delegations.

Right.  It's not really important to distinguish between all the flavors of
lameness.  Either a delegation works or it doesn't.

The case where a server answers but is non-authoritative is slightly worse
than the others, though.  In the cases where no nameserver answers, clients
will remember this and use one of the other servers.  But if the server
answers non-authoritatively, they may just report an error back to the
resolver.

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