In article <1182108559.900968.188510@j4g2000prf.googlegroups. com>,
Binba <drorworld@yahoo.com> wrote:

> What do you mean by "aren't authoritative for the domain"? Servers
> without the domain, do you refer to yns[x].yahoo.com? I control these
> from Yahoo, not Mabus.

I don't see any yahoo.com servers listed at all. The domain you're
hosting is mabushosting.net, right? Here's the list of nameservers I
see:

$ dig mabushosting.net ns @a.gtld-servers.net

; <<>> DiG 9.3.4 <<>> mabushosting.net ns @a.gtld-servers.net
; (1 server found)
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 20596
;; flags: qr rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 4, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 4

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;mabushosting.net. IN NS

;; ANSWER SECTION:
mabushosting.net. 172800 IN NS ns1.mabushosting.net.
mabushosting.net. 172800 IN NS ns2.mabushosting.net.
mabushosting.net. 172800 IN NS ns3.mabushosting.net.
mabushosting.net. 172800 IN NS ns4.mabushosting.net.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns1.mabushosting.net. 172800 IN A 75.126.135.236
ns2.mabushosting.net. 172800 IN A 216.240.154.121
ns3.mabushosting.net. 172800 IN A 216.240.154.121
ns4.mabushosting.net. 172800 IN A 75.126.135.236

Then when I query ns2, I get this:

$ dig mabushosting.net any @ns2.mabushosting.net +norec

; <<>> DiG 9.3.4 <<>> mabushosting.net any @ns2.mabushosting.net +norec
; (1 server found)
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 3944
;; flags: qr ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 7, AUTHORITY: 4, ADDITIONAL: 4

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;mabushosting.net. IN ANY

;; ANSWER SECTION:
mabushosting.net. 14384 IN MX 18 mail.backup.internetsecure.org.
mabushosting.net. 14384 IN MX 10 mail.internetsecure.org.
mabushosting.net. 7448 IN A 75.126.135.238
mabushosting.net. 7448 IN NS ns2.mabushosting.net.
mabushosting.net. 7448 IN NS ns3.mabushosting.net.
mabushosting.net. 7448 IN NS ns4.mabushosting.net.
mabushosting.net. 7448 IN NS ns1.mabushosting.net.

Notice that the flags don't include "aa" (Authoritative Answer); the
server is answering from cache, not by performing zone transfers.


> How do "additional name servers" even work? It's a common practice,
> but an explanation is nowhere to be found... I thought that they're
> accessed *only* if the primary and secondary lookups fail.

There's no preference level specified in NS records, so there's no way
to say "only use this nameserver if the others fail." Clients may use
any of them, and will generally prefer the ones that respond fastest.

>
> But since you mentioned ns3... maybe I'm completely off?

Either ns2/ns3 isn't configured as a slave server, or it's getting
errors when trying to perform zone transfers from the master.

--
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***
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