Understanding SERVFAIL (for google)

[Simon Arlott]

Bill Moseley wrote:
> 9.2.2-P3-1 on Debian Stable.
> 
> I'm trying to understand how to debug this.
> 
>     moseley at mardy:~$ dig  www.google.com.
> 
>     ; <<>> DiG 9.2.2-P3 <<>> www.google.com.
>     ;; global options:  printcmd
>     ;; Got answer:
>     ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 23596
>     ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
> 
>     ;; QUESTION SECTION:
>     ;www.google.com.                        IN      A
> 
>     ;; Query time: 1 msec
>     ;; SERVER: 192.168.1.1#53(192.168.1.1)
>     ;; WHEN: Wed Mar 30 16:57:09 2005
>     ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 32
> 
> Yet a few minutes later the same query works.  This is new in the last
> week, so it seems, and nothing has been changed on that server.  So,
> what I'm looking for is tips on how to debug the SERVFAIL while it's
> happening.
> 
> I am finding other similar posts about intermittent SERVFAIL (at least
> when I can search google...), but I'm not seeing an explanation.
I'm using 9.2.2-P1 and have the same problem, it could be caused by 
c.l.google.com not responding:

$ dnstracer -s ns4.google.com www.l.google.com
Tracing to www.l.google.com via ns4.google.com, timeout 15 seconds
ns4.google.com [google.com] (216.239.38.10)
  |\___ d.l.google.com [l.google.com] (64.233.183.9) Got authoritative 
answer
  |\___ c.l.google.com [l.google.com] (64.233.161.9) * * *
  |\___ b.l.google.com [l.google.com] (64.233.179.9) Got authoritative 
answer
   \___ a.l.google.com [l.google.com] (216.239.53.9) Got authoritative 
answer


-- 
Simon Arlott
(PGP key 89C93563)


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