Hello,

I apologize for my ignorance, but I've been having some trouble setting up my DNS records correctly. Here's what I did:

1. I created a new DNS zone and named it mydomain.org (well, my actual domain). This was automatically appended with an extra dot at the end which was a little bit confusing at the beginning but I guess that's just how it works.
2. I created a new "A" record (for that zone) and used mydomain.org for the name field, and my Slice's IP address for the data field.
3. I created two "NS" records, one for ns1.slicehost.net and the other for ns2.slicehost.net (with the name field being mydomain.org for each of the two records).
4. I went to my registrar and set my domain's nameservers to ns1.slicehost.net and ns2.slicehost.net.

I suppose that at this point any DNS lookup for mydomain.org should return my slice's IP address. I know that it may take a couple of days for these records to "propagate" across the Internet, but that's irrelevant here because I queried ns1.slicehost.net (63.97.250.222) and ns2.slicehost.net (63.76.232.20) directly (query type: A records), and I was expecting to get my slice's IP address. However, the query response suggested that "domain does not exist".

The interesting thing is that I've also created a CNAME record for "www" to "point to" mydomain.org, and it works correctly (that is, if I query ns1.slicehost.net for www.mydomain.org, it would return mydomain.org[1]).

So, why would my CNAME (and NS) records work just fine, but not my A records? I tried appending a dot to the end of my domain name (i.e. mydomain.org.) but that didn't fix the problem.

Your help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Yousef

[1] This has been incosistent. Sometimes it returns "mydomain.org.mydomain.org", and sometimes it returns the correct answer, "mydomain.org"

Why add NS records (step #3)?

Chizzy

Posted By: chizzyWhy add NS records (step #3)?

Chizzy

Mainly because it's the correct (recognised) way of creating dns records.

As for any perceptual performance/uasge gain, there isn't any. You can leave it out if you wish.

Practically speaking, though, doesn't the whois record already contain the authoritative list of name servers, thus making any other list (e.g. in DNS records) redundant?

No, not at all. The DNS does not use whois (they are completely separate protocols).

So, if example.com is delegated to someone, this person has to put NS records in the zone file.

You can also use it specify a namerserver to handle resolving a more deeply nested sub-domain.

Arrrgh!! Nevermind, I can see it now (I needed a trailing dot for "babypc.org" in the "A" record). Sorry for being stupid :-(

-Yousef

I still don't understand why it would be necessary (or even advantageous) to have more than one copy of the list of name servers for a domain. I'll try reading the RFC and see if that helps. :-)

Warning, reading the RFC 1034 and 1035 is not for the faint of heart.

The reason you have two lists, one in the delegating domain and one in the delegated domain, is because the authoritative source of data is the delegated domain (by definition, it is always right about itself) but the delegating domain needs a way to direct the DNS clients.

So, for bortzmeyer.fr, I have the NS records in the zone file of bortzmeyer.fr but the ".fr" servers need them, too, otherwise you would never find, starting from the root, the NS records of my domain.

And, yes, the two lists have to be manually kept in synch.

Here is the delegation for slicehost.com, seen by ".com" nameservers:


% dig @a.gtld-servers.net NS slicehost.com

; <<>> DiG 9.3.4 <<>> @a.gtld-servers.net NS slicehost.com
; (2 servers found)
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 40351
;; flags: qr rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 4, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 4

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;slicehost.com. IN NS

;; ANSWER SECTION:
slicehost.com. 172800 IN NS ns0.dnsmadeeasy.com.
slicehost.com. 172800 IN NS ns1.dnsmadeeasy.com.
slicehost.com. 172800 IN NS ns2.dnsmadeeasy.com.
slicehost.com. 172800 IN NS ns3.dnsmadeeasy.com.


And here is the real data, from the authoritative name servers (note there is one more NS, slicehost.com is not perfect) :


% dig @ns0.dnsmadeeasy.com NS slicehost.com

; <<>> DiG 9.3.4 <<>> @ns0.dnsmadeeasy.com NS slicehost.com
; (1 server found)
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 35076
;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 5, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;slicehost.com. IN NS

;; ANSWER SECTION:
slicehost.com. 86400 IN NS ns0.dnsmadeeasy.com.
slicehost.com. 86400 IN NS ns1.dnsmadeeasy.com.
slicehost.com. 86400 IN NS ns2.dnsmadeeasy.com.
slicehost.com. 86400 IN NS ns3.dnsmadeeasy.com.
slicehost.com. 86400 IN NS ns4.dnsmadeeasy.com.