[H-GEN] [ADMIN BOUNCE] DNS setup Help and assistance sought.

Jason Henry Parker jasonp at uq.net.au
Mon May 28 09:32:21 EDT 2001


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Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 05:55:52 -0700
To: general at lists.humbug.org.au
Subject: Re: [H-GEN] DNS setup Help and assistance sought.
From: Martin Pool <mbp at valinux.com>

On Tue, May 22, 2001 at 08:49:16PM +1000, Raymond Smith wrote:
> > /var/named/byronconcerts.com.hosts
> > byronconcerts.com.      IN      SOA     server1.Veruska.net.
> > gwhite.star.brisnet.org.au. (
> >                         990326074
> >                         10800
> >                         3600
> >                         432000
> >                         38400 )
> > byronconcerts.com.      IN      NS      server1.Veruska.net.
> > byronconcerts.com.      IN      NS      ns2.byronconcerts.com.
> > byronconcerts.com.      IN      A       209.61.188.146
> > ns1.byronconcerts.com.  IN      A       209.61.188.146
> > ns2.byronconcerts.com.  IN      A       209.61.188.146

This is kind of pointless, isn't it?   The reason to have more than one NS
record is so that if one of the nameservers is unreachable, your domain does
not go off the air altogether.  Putting them both on the same network is
sadly common.  Putting them both pointing to the same machine is just plain
silly.  Ask your friend or ISP to set up a slave nameserver for this domain,
and make that the second nameserver.

> > www.byronconcerts.com.  IN      CNAME   byronconcerts.com.
> > ns.byronconcerts.com.   IN      NS      byronconcerts.com

As Raymond noted, this is valid but bogus.

> > // Probably one to many NS here. Help here would be good. Please!
> 
> This file does look a little confused to me. First, you have no MX (Mail
> eXchange) records. You probably do want at least one so you can have mail
> for the domain spooled by one host.

Many MTAs will deliver by default to the address named in the A record(s),
if there is no MX.  Being too lazy to check the RFC, I don't know whether
this is actually standard or just over-friendliness.  Still it's better to 
have it in there. 

> Second, the NS records seem a bit dodgy. The final line above says that
> hosts in the domain ns.byronconcerts.com. may be found at the nameserver
> byronconcerts.com which is not what you want methinks. I'd expect you to
> have something like:
> 
> 	byronconcerts.com.	IN	NS	ns1.byronconcerts.com.
> 	byronconcerts.com.	IN	NS	ns.isp.net.au.
> 	byronconcerts.com.	IN	MX	mail.byronconcerts.com.
> 	byronconcerts.com.	IN	MX	mx.isp.net.au.
> 	byronconcerts.com.	IN	A	10.1.1.1
> 	www.byronconcerts.com.	IN	CNAME	byronconcerts.com.

You need the MX records to be 

@		IN	MX 10	byronconcerts.com.
		IN	MX 20	mail.isp.net.au.

Otherwise messages will be randomly delivered to both machines.

@ is shorthand for the origin of the current zonefile.  If the first column 
is blank, then it defaults to the same value as the previous line.

This message brought to you by vi, mutt, and the cynical pap of the Australian 
budget.

-- 
		Martin
-- 
||----|---|------------|--|-------|------|-----------|-#---|-|--|------||
| When I get out, there's no doubt                     jasonp at uq.net.au |
| I'll be sex offensive to you         Nooks on #soc.bi on OpenProjects |
||--|--------|--------------|----|-------------|------|---------|-----|-|

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