Master is unreachable (cached)

Thu Jul 9 12:04:08 UTC 2009

Hi,

I've moved our primary nameserver from windows server 2008 to windows 
server 2003, hoping that the problems with listening to TCP queries will 
  go away. Then I'll see what I can do to reproduce if I get the time.

My question is:
When a slave server deems that a master is unreachable, how/when will it 
(re)try to establish contact. Can I set a timeout or so somewhere?

I have this log file snippet, where you can see
1) a notify that is "up to date"
2) several "retry limit for master xxx exceeded" as well as a "failed to 
connect: timed out" (time frame of ~10 min)
3) several "skipping zone transfer as master xxx is unreachable 
(cached)" Note that this is almost 2 DAYS later.

So, it seems like the server is experiencing problems which makes it 
believe that the master is unreachable. It might have been, I don't know 
- I was reconfiguring from server 2008 to server 2003, but had very 
little downtime as I moved the IP when the new master was ready. Almost 
2 days later the slave writes "unreachable (cached)" which I assume 
indicates that it *believes* the master is unreachable because this 
information is cached. I would like it to re-check, as the master was 
actually online. Any ideas or hints?

Best regards,

Jan Hansen

The log file:

------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Things are working
------------------------------------------------------------------
06-jul-2009 16:17:06.419 notify: info: client 213.173.250.146#26635: 
received notify for zone 'xn--vikkels-w1a.dk'
06-jul-2009 16:17:06.419 general: info: zone xn--vikkels-w1a.dk/IN: 
notify from 213.173.250.146#26635: zone is up to date
------------------------------------------------------------------
2) multiple "retry limit exceeded"
------------------------------------------------------------------
07-jul-2009 17:27:29.060 general: info: zone univision.dk/IN: refresh: 
retry limit for master 213.173.250.146#53 exceeded (source 0.0.0.0#0)
07-jul-2009 17:27:29.060 general: info: zone univision.dk/IN: Transfer 
started.
07-jul-2009 17:27:50.138 xfer-in: error: transfer of 'univision.dk/IN' 
from 213.173.250.146#53: failed to connect: timed out
07-jul-2009 17:27:50.138 xfer-in: info: transfer of 'univision.dk/IN' 
from 213.173.250.146#53: Transfer completed: 0 messages, 0 records, 0 
bytes, 21.078 secs (0 bytes/sec)
07-jul-2009 17:28:01.528 general: info: zone effektiv.dk/IN: refresh: 
retry limit for master 213.173.250.146#53 exceeded (source 0.0.0.0#0)
07-jul-2009 17:29:32.450 general: info: zone aotransport.dk/IN: refresh: 
retry limit for master 213.173.250.146#53 exceeded (source 0.0.0.0#0)
07-jul-2009 17:29:40.216 general: info: zone kjmc.se/IN: refresh: retry 
limit for master 213.173.250.146#53 exceeded (source 0.0.0.0#0)
07-jul-2009 17:30:10.950 general: info: zone telepriser.dk/IN: refresh: 
retry limit for master 213.173.250.146#53 exceeded (source 0.0.0.0#0)
07-jul-2009 17:33:33.669 general: info: zone iankerandersen.dk/IN: 
refresh: retry limit for master 213.173.250.146#53 exceeded (source 
0.0.0.0#0)
07-jul-2009 17:33:49.013 general: info: zone tiku.dk/IN: refresh: retry 
limit for master 213.173.250.146#53 exceeded (source 0.0.0.0#0)
07-jul-2009 17:33:55.810 general: info: zone sdvr.dk/IN: refresh: retry 
limit for master 213.173.250.146#53 exceeded (source 0.0.0.0#0)
07-jul-2009 17:34:01.544 general: info: zone egrupper.dk/IN: refresh: 
retry limit for master 213.173.250.146#53 exceeded (source 0.0.0.0#0)
07-jul-2009 17:36:40.716 general: info: zone kkr-net.dk/IN: refresh: 
retry limit for master 213.173.250.146#53 exceeded (source 0.0.0.0#0)
07-jul-2009 17:36:43.794 general: info: zone mend.dk/IN: refresh: retry 
limit for master 213.173.250.146#53 exceeded (source 0.0.0.0#0)
07-jul-2009 17:37:26.591 general: info: zone fitdk.dk/IN: refresh: retry 
limit for master 213.173.250.146#53 exceeded (source 0.0.0.0#0)
------------------------------------------------------------------
3) two days later, master is unreachable (cached)
------------------------------------------------------------------
09-jul-2009 11:54:29.685 notify: info: client 213.173.250.146#65090: 
received notify for zone 'nhl-data.dk'
09-jul-2009 11:54:29.701 general: info: zone nhl-data.dk/IN: refresh: 
skipping zone transfer as master 213.173.250.146#53 (source 0.0.0.0#0) 
is unreachable (cached)
09-jul-2009 12:44:36.685 general: info: zone nhl-data.dk/IN: refresh: 
skipping zone transfer as master 213.173.250.146#53 (source 0.0.0.0#0) 
is unreachable (cached)
09-jul-2009 13:31:35.685 general: info: zone nhl-data.dk/IN: refresh: 
skipping zone transfer as master 213.173.250.146#53 (source 0.0.0.0#0) 
is unreachable (cached)
09-jul-2009 13:32:29.810 notify: notice: client 213.173.250.146#46455: 
received notify for zone 'cityklinikken.dk': not authoritative
09-jul-2009 13:33:09.498 general: info: received control channel command 
'reconfig'
09-jul-2009 13:33:09.498 general: info: loading configuration from 
'C:\WINDOWS\system32\dns\etc\named.conf'
09-jul-2009 13:33:09.513 general: info: using default UDP/IPv4 port 
range: [1024, 65535]
09-jul-2009 13:33:09.513 general: info: using default UDP/IPv6 port 
range: [1024, 65535]
09-jul-2009 13:33:09.513 network: info: no IPv6 interfaces found
09-jul-2009 13:33:09.576 general: info: reloading configuration succeeded
09-jul-2009 13:33:09.576 general: info: any newly configured zones are 
now loaded
09-jul-2009 13:33:09.592 general: info: zone cityklinikken.dk/IN: 
refresh: skipping zone transfer as master 213.173.250.146#53 (source 
0.0.0.0#0) is unreachable (cached)
09-jul-2009 13:33:10.076 general: info: zone fynbedandbreakfast.dk/IN: 
refresh: unexpected rcode (SERVFAIL) from master 213.173.250.146#53 
(source 0.0.0.0#0)
09-jul-2009 13:33:10.076 general: info: zone mermaidradio.dk/IN: 
refresh: unexpected rcode (SERVFAIL) from master 213.173.250.146#53 
(source 0.0.0.0#0)
09-jul-2009 13:33:58.576 general: info: zone mermaidradio.dk/IN: 
refresh: unexpected rcode (SERVFAIL) from master 213.173.250.146#53 
(source 0.0.0.0#0)
09-jul-2009 13:34:07.576 general: info: zone cityklinikken.dk/IN: 
refresh: skipping zone transfer as master 213.173.250.146#53 (source 
0.0.0.0#0) is unreachable (cached)
09-jul-2009 13:34:09.576 general: info: zone fynbedandbreakfast.dk/IN: 
refresh: unexpected rcode (SERVFAIL) from master 213.173.250.146#53 
(source 0.0.0.0#0)
09-jul-2009 13:35:48.576 general: info: zone mermaidradio.dk/IN: 
refresh: unexpected rcode (SERVFAIL) from master 213.173.250.146#53 
(source 0.0.0.0#0)
09-jul-2009 13:35:49.076 general: info: zone cityklinikken.dk/IN: 
refresh: skipping zone transfer as master 213.173.250.146#53 (source 
0.0.0.0#0) is unreachable (cached)
09-jul-2009 13:35:56.576 general: info: zone fynbedandbreakfast.dk/IN: 
refresh: unexpected rcode (SERVFAIL) from master 213.173.250.146#53 
(source 0.0.0.0#0)
09-jul-2009 13:38:57.576 general: info: zone mermaidradio.dk/IN: 
refresh: unexpected rcode (SERVFAIL) from master 213.173.250.146#53 
(source 0.0.0.0#0)
09-jul-2009 13:39:21.576 general: info: zone fynbedandbreakfast.dk/IN: 
refresh: unexpected rcode (SERVFAIL) from master 213.173.250.146#53 
(source 0.0.0.0#0)
09-jul-2009 13:39:22.576 general: info: zone cityklinikken.dk/IN: 
refresh: skipping zone transfer as master 213.173.250.146#53 (source 
0.0.0.0#0) is unreachable (cached)
09-jul-2009 13:40:09.170 general: info: shutting down: flushing changes