bind returns empty record first time

[Ronan Flood]

On Mon, 11 Apr 2005 09:20:53 -0700,
Captain Dondo <yan at NsOeSiPnAeMr.com> wrote:

> Sometimes, the first time sendmail asks for an MX record, it gets back 
> an empty record, resulting in email getting bounced with a 'no data 
> known' error, or it gets back a NXDOMAIN.
> 
> The second time around, everything works fine.
> 
> I've captured this in two files I've put on my website,
> http://www.seiner.com/dns.prob and http://www.seiner.com/named.prob; the
> first one is a capture of a dig and the second is the corresponding
> debug output of bind running with -d 255.
> 
> Notice that the empty response comes from my ISP's name server, while 
> the correct, second response comes from local cache....

> [root at tooth html]# cat /etc/resolv.conf
> domain seiner.lan
> options timeout:1 attempts:6
> nameserver 192.168.128.2
> nameserver 66.178.167.27
> nameserver 66.178.152.14
> order hosts,bind

Your ISP's nameservers (66.178.167.27 and 66.178.152.14) do not accept
recursive queries; you should not have them in your resolv.conf.

Your ISP might have other nameservers which will accept recursive
queries, which you should use instead; ask them.

-- 
                      Ronan Flood <R.Flood at noc.ulcc.ac.uk>
                        working for but not speaking for
             Network Services, University of London Computer Centre
     (which means: don't bother ULCC if I've said something you don't like)