[Smaug] (forw) Re: Fixes needed in Smaug of Santa Cruz's DNS (domain = scruz.org)

[Rick Moen]

----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick> -----

Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 02:56:15 -0800
From: Rick Moen <rick>
To: crawford.rainwater at linux-etc.net
Subject: Re: Fixes needed in Smaug of Santa Cruz's DNS (domain = scruz.org)

Hi, again.

Hate to have to bother you about updating the domain record, but I've 
figured out why there were no glue records for any of the three
nameservers:  They were all in .NET/.COM, and scruz.org's parent 
zone (.ORG) simply isn't authoritative for either of those.  Therefore,
its nameserver cannot legitimately have "glue records" in them.
Therefore, one cannot make Domain Discover (your registrar) have "A"
records for them (glue records), only NS ones.

That situation isn't dire:  The DNS still works -- but performance is
suboptimal, because each NS lookup has to be followed by an "A" one to
get the nameserver's IP, exactly the information that glue records
supply.

So, since one cannot add glue records the straightforward way, one 
uses different tactics:  add an _in-domain_ NS record (and matching "A"
record) for each nameserver, inside the scruz.org zonefile.  Revised
zonefile is at the end of this message, for your information.


So....

Please _drop_ NS1.LINUXMAFIA.COM, NS1.PHOSPHOR.NET, and
NS.INFINITELOOPFILMS.COM from your registrar's list of nameservers for
the domain.  Please add, instead, their replacement names:

NS1.SCRUZ.ORG
NS2.SCRUZ.ORG
NS3.SCRUZ.ORG

That will, finally, generate the needed glue records, which will improve
our DNS performance.


Aside:  The second of those nameservers, David A. Gatwood's
ns.infiniteloopfilms.com, seems to be currently offline.  {sigh}  
I hope this is temporary, but will re-check on this later.


Thank you, again, on behalf of Smaug!  Current zonefile follows:

TTL 86400
$ORIGIN scruz.ORG.
@       IN      SOA     ns1.scruz.ORG.     rick.deirdre.NET. (
                        2005112304              ; serial
                        10800                   ; refresh 3 hours
                        3600                    ; retry 1 hour
                        2419200                 ; expire 672 hours
                        86400                   ; minimum 24 hours
                        )
;
                IN      TXT     "v=spf1 a mx ~all"
                IN      A       198.144.195.186
                IN      MX      10      linuxmafia.COM.
                IN      NS      ns1.scruz.org.
                IN      NS      ns2.scruz.org.
                IN      NS      ns3.scruz.org.
; ns1 is aka ns1.linuxmafia.com, Rick Moen's box
ns1             IN      A       198.144.195.186
; ns2 is aka ns1.phosphor.net, Eric Cain's box.
ns2             IN      A       207.7.137.130
; ns3 is aka ns.infiniteloopfilms.com, David A. Gatwood's box.
ns3             IN      A       68.165.1.187
www             IN      CNAME   smaug.got.net.
ftp             IN      CNAME   smaug.got.net.
cvs             IN      CNAME   cvs.sourceforge.net.


----- End forwarded message -----