Question about the ADDITIONAL SECTION

[Mark Andrews]

> Mark Andrews wrote:
> >> Barry Margolin wrote:
> >>> In article <f5c1g3$2839$1 at sf1.isc.org>,
> >>> "Clenna Lumina" <savagebeaste at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I have a question. I am using ZoneEdit.com to slave some zones I
> >>>> have, and I noticed their servers never return the ADDITIONAL
> >>>> SECTION which should contain the A records for the NS servers that
> >>>> were returned in the AUTHORITY SECTION.
> >>>>
> >>>> Naturally, my local master Bind server return that section, like a
> >>>> good DNS server.
> >>>>
> >>>> I'm assuming they are using "minimal-responses: yes" in their
> >>>> named.conf.
> >>>
> >>> Or maybe "fetch-glue no", if the nameservers are in domains that
> >>> ZoneEdit.com doesn't manage.
> >>>
> >>>> So my question is, isn't it going against how DNS is supposed to
> >>>> work, in regards to authoritative lookups, to NOT return A records
> >>>> for the NS's listed in the AUTHORITY section?
> >>>
> >>> If it's the fetch-glue option, this simply shifts the responsibility
> >>> to the client nameserver to look them up.
> >>>
> >>>> To my knowledge, "minimal-responses: yes" should only be used for
> >>>> caching (resolving) servers only, right?
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks for any help clearing this up.
> >>
> >> I don't think it's fetch-glue, or if it is I don't think they should
> >> be usign that either. In my situation, I use tw oof their servers for
> >> slaving a couple domains, and my master server from which they get
> >> their info is not listed with na NS record; the two ZoneEdit slaves
> >> are the ones listed in my domains's parent zones. The reason for
> >> this setup is so the network the master server on doesn't get so
> >> much traffic from all the queries. The only traffic is from updates
> >> and checks of the master zones by the slaves.
> >>
> >> It works well, but I really think that ZoneEdit's slave servers
> >> shoudl be returning the ADDITIONAL SECTION with the A records of the
> >> two NS's, should it not? Isn't it against the specifications/RFCs to
> >> not do so if you'ree authoritative for the zone being queried???
> >
> > The only time the additional data is required is when you
> > are returning a referral and even then only when you have it.
> 
> 
> Exactly, ZoneEdit's server have all that info (NS's, and their A 
> records - well the entire zone for that matter, which slaves the zone 
> data from my master.)
> 
> Remember, in both the zone itself and in the parent zone (.com in this 
> case) only list the two ZoneEdit slaves as NS's for the zone. Therefore 
> those two servers are the ones getting all the queries for that zone, so 
> shouldn't they be giving the A records for the NS's?
> 
> -- 
> CL 

	The key word above was "referral".  They are not returning
	referrals so there is no RFC requirement to return anything
	in the additional section.

-- 
Mark Andrews, ISC
1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742                 INTERNET: Mark_Andrews at isc.org