[AusNOG] Strange DNS issue

Mon Oct 29 11:05:56 EST 2012

Hi Gary,

The short answer is 'Talk to your Registrar'. If they can't update the namservers IP's or glue it through their web portal, they definitely have an interface with AusRegistry to do it manually, so don't take any cr*p from them.

You can verify for yourself once its complete from the http://whois.ausregistry.com.au/whois/whois_local.jsp? Page.

Nameservers are one of the hardest things on the Internet to get a handle on, primarily because they are  one of the few things you HAVE to be shown how to do to do it properly, unlike most other things that you can learn yourself. If you're never told, you don't even know that you don't know.

(And for those of you who have had a beer with me in person and heard me talk about the fifteen 'secrets', this is one of them.)

This is also the only way to delegate a domain name to nameservers of its own subdomain.

We had huge problems years ago being able to maintain things through our registrar to the point where one of our sister companies had to become a registrar just so we could keep our own domains under control. ( Yes, it was a bit of overkill, but it was the only sure way we could maintain control as  the .au space was juvenile and in a state of flux at that time).

We did consider challenging AusRegistry at one point if it became necessary, but, the AusReg management and day to day team do such a fantastic job with the .au namespace that it really isn't necessary, you really can't get any better in my opinion.

Here's an article from one of the AusReg guys showing that he actually gives a bit of a damn:
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/it-pro/business-it/groundswell-must-continue-to-oppose-greater-internet-control-20121023-282q7.html

One thing there is a giant call for, and a giant resistance from AuDA and the .au aristocracy is domain privacy .au namespace. I personally think that domain 'monetisation' of .au which effectively allows anyone to put anything and sit on domain names, and trade the names themselves rather than trade on websites using the names was a bit of a wrong thing to do, but, it did generate a lot more revenue to keep the Administration of .au running smoothly.

I think part of the challenge with domain privacy on .au would be the increased amount of end customers that registrars and AuDA itself would have to put up with calling up to find out who owned a domain name, for whatever reason.

I think this is why AuDA are silently resisting allowing domain privacy on .au, but, it's a double edged sword, they are happy to keep the increased revenue from allowing domain hoarders to renew each year, but are failing to deliver the features to protect the legitimate end users of .au domains privacy.

.Au however has come a very long way.

Disclaimer: these are my personal opinions and not the opinions of my employer.

From: CAS Netlink Support [mailto:support at cbl.com.au]
Sent: Monday, October 29, 2012 9:38 AM
To: Sean K. Finn
Cc: 'ausnog at lists.ausnog.net'
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Strange DNS issue

Hi Sean,

It did eventually sort itself out on Sunday with the big T's DNS servers falling in to line, but the question does make me want to answer it with another question that may help me prevent this situation in the future. :)

I did the TLD nameserver glue query and it returned a Host ID and hostname but no IP. To be honest, I didn't think the .au TLDs had/used glue records that I could alter. With .com, .net etc I've always kept those up to date but I've never really heard anything about .au glue or seen anywhere they can be maintained. The nameservers for the .net domain that had problems are .com.au hosts so I guess my next question is how do I fix the glue?

Regards,

Gary

On 29/10/2012 10:01 AM, Sean K. Finn wrote:
Gary,

I'll pose some obvious question, do the nameservers have appropriate glue records in the root, (or CC root) and are the domain's NS Records matching the nameservers they are actually delegated to?

You can check TLD nameserver glue here:

http://www.internic.net/whois.html

Or, if the nameservers are .au nameservers, here

http://whois.ausregistry.com.au/whois/whois_local.jsp?

With the query string being "HOST ns1.domain.com.au"

Glue (HOST RECORD) response example for  "HOST NS1.net.au"

Whois response for HOST ns1.net.au:
Host ID

H0041281-AR

Host Name

ns1.net.au

IP Address

202.125.32.4

Sometimes when the glue isn't correct, and when the NS records don't match where the domain name is delegated to, 'strange' things happen, where the domain works from some places, but not others.

Sean.
From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net<mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net> [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of CAS Netlink Support
Sent: Sunday, October 28, 2012 12:41 PM
To: ausnog at lists.ausnog.net<mailto:ausnog at lists.ausnog.net>
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Strange DNS issue

Thanks Heinz. I lowered the refresh time yesterday and I've just seriously increased the serial. It has become a bit curiouser though. Telstra's lon-resolver.telstra.net appears to be returning the correct record when queried from a USA server:

# dig @203.50.2.71 xxxxx.net any

; <<>> DiG 9.3.6-P1-RedHat-9.3.6-20.P1.el5_8.5 <<>> @203.50.2.71 xxxxx.net any
; (1 server found)
;; global options:  printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 19922
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 6, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 4

However, when I query the same server from my client's firewall which is connected to Bigpond ADSL, it fails:

t# dig @203.50.2.71 xxxxx.net any

; <<>> DiG 9.5.1-P2 <<>> @203.50.2.71 xxxxx.net any
; (1 server found)
;; global options:  printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 40361
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

I've never seen this sort of weirdness before. DNS seemed so much easier when Robert Elz was running the show :).

Gary

On 28/10/2012 1:12 PM, Heinz N wrote:
Am I right in thinking it is probably that the domain had a long expire time? The refresh was set to 86400, but it seems like it is being ignored or it doesn't figure in how long DNS servers will wait before refreshing the domain.

A few years ago I hade a similar problem when redelegating domains where telstra was the secondary. I had a too long refresh time and it seemed that their DNS only updated according to the longest number: refresh or retry (this is just my opinion). Everyone else's DNSs queried my authorative host and got the redelegations but the secondary (telstra) didn't for quite some time. This problem was my fault and now I have everything set at 1hr (except expire which is set much longer).

I resorted to adding new host A records into those domains and doing a dig @nsX.telstra.XXXX on those host.domain in order to force their DNS to re-query the zone records. This didn't trigger a zone transfer unfortunately, but the new hosts did then appear. I used them until the full zone transfer finally happened. (This is a bit difficult if your "www" A record is the one not updating).

PS. Don't forget to update your Zone record serial number. You might even try increasing it in order to try to trigger a full refresh.

Regards,
Heinz N.

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