 |  |
John,
Re: <no subject>
From: KJ
Date: Tuesday, January 26, 1999
Time: 6:14:00 pm
Good news. Probably the errors DNS expert is giving you have nothing to
do with the way you have QDNS set up. It ought to work the way you have
it shown. I'd do it a little different, but it should work anyways.
Here we go --
John Draper wrote
>>ns1.yourdomain.com
>>mail.yourdomain.com
>>www.yourdomain.com
>>
>>If you are a beginner, do it the easy way, not the hard way...
>
>And which way is the "easy way"..... I've gotten a LOT of help
>from people on this list, including the great people at
>menAndMice. But each domain is different. I tried so hard
>to explain my system setup, and tried each person's suggestion,
>and even got DNS Expert, which BTW was very helpful, but
>I'm still getting errors, doing it the simplest way I know how.
>
The easy way is shown above, with a host name everywhere.
>Perhaps its my inability to interpret correctly the messages I get
>back from DNS Expert, but in places where DNS Expert suggests some
>changes, it should also recommend some tried and true examples of
>suggested table entrys.
>
>After gettins some assurances that PBI.NET domain gods have blessed my
>DNS tables (My secondary), I STILL get the following....
>
>No name] (WEBCR4-HST) WEBCRUNCHERS.COM 209.76.146.203
>WebCrunchers (WEBCRUNCHERS-DOM) WEBCRUNCHERS.COM
>
<SNIP>
>DNS Expert reports the following problems... and the interpretation of these
>messages are what is leaving me with gross confusion... So if anyone out
>there
>can explain this to me better then the MenAndMice web site explanations,
>that
>would be much better. Below are the DNS Expert's analysis of my "problem"
>if it is even that.
>
>1) "ns1.pbi.net." refused zone transfer The name server "ns1.pbi.net."
>refused a zone transfer request. This server will not be used to check
>information about the zone.
>
>** What exactly does this mean? Does this mean the PBI.NET has not added
>any of the requested domain names I asked them? Or something else.
That may be the case, but I doubt it. Usually if your domain is not
listed in a nameserver DNS Expert gives a message something more like
"the listed server is not authoritative for domain".
A zone transfer means the data for the whole blessed domain, not any
particular record lookup. All this error means is that NS1.PBI.NET
refused the zone transfer, just like it said. Don't read any more into
it. Maybe they have their DNS configured that way. Try running DNS expert
on THEIR domain and see what you get ;)
>2) There is only one MX record in the zone. The zone contains only one MX
>record. This will cause mail delivery problems if the primary mail server
>becomes unavailable. For safety purposes, there should be two or more mail
>servers for every zone, the extra mail servers being used as backup
>(secondary) servers for the primary server.
>
>** Does this mean that PBI.NET as not added a MX record for their secondary
>name server?
No.
It means there is only one MX record in the zone. Probably what you've
got is something like:
webcrunchers.com MX 10 mail.webcrunchers.com
To get rid of that message you need 2 mailservers & 2 MX records thus:
webcrunchers.com MX 10 mail.webcrunchers.com
webcrunchers.com MX 20 mail2.webcrunchers.com
You may be able to have your ISP provide backup mail service, in which
case:
webcrunchers.com MX 10 mail.webcrunchers.com
webcrunchers.com MX 20 mail.pbi.net
(or whatever their mail server is)
>3) The primary mail server "webcrunchers.com." can possibly be used as a
>mail relay The primary mail server "webcrunchers.com." can possibly be used
>to process a mail message where neither the sender nor the recipient is a
>local user.
>
>** I think I know how to fix this, but haven't looked into it yet. I
>think I can do that
>with IEMS Admin program, right? I would go into "Preferences" then
>'Relay Restrictions'
>section and select "Only relay if for local domains" - I think...
>
Yes. That's the setting, something like what you wrote or else it's
called "route for local domains and the following domains ONLY".
Something like that. Yes.
Note: I'd always assumed that the main domain WAS the local domain, but
it wasn't reliable in whatever version of EIMS I had, so if EIMS starts
showing you any "refused to relay" messages for your own domain, that's
why. Just add webcrunchers.com to the list.
>4) The server "unuson.com." did not reply. The server "unuson.com." did not
>reply when it was queried for the name "203.146.76.209.in-addr.arpa.".
>This indicates that the server is not running, or it is currently
>unreachable.
>
>** A possibility
Unuson.com? Where'd that come from?
>5) There is no PTR record for the host "webcrunchers.com." There is no PTR
>record available for the host "webcrunchers.com." which has the IP address
>209.76.146.203.
>
Unless you get your ISP to delegate reverse mapping of your IP number(s),
what PTR records you make in QDNS is irrelevant outside of your own local
network.
I looked up webcrunchers.com, got this: 209.76.146.203
I looked that up at ARIN and found:
Pacific Bell Internet Services,Inc. (NETBLK-PBI-NET-4) PBI-NET-4
209.76.0.0 - 209.79.255.255
Los Gatos Union School District (NETBLK-PBI-CUSTNET-1655) PBI-CUSTNET-1655
209.76.144.0 - 209.76.147.255
What this means it that PBI was originally issued a BIG block. A couple
class C's were issued from that huge block to the school district. You
got an address in one of those class C's.
As I explained on this list last week, registering a domain gives you the
power to point a domain name to an IP number. Not an IP number at a
domain.
(US) IP numbers are issued to ISP's by ARIN. Unless you have $2500 and
can justify 8192 IP numbers to obtain your own block from ARIN, you have
to use the IP numbers that your ISP loaned to you.
So, anyways, your ISP has this IP number they tell you to use and THEY, I
repeat THEY, are responsible for the reverse record on that IP number.
They do not easily give that up. You have 3 choices:
1) Beg, cry, and sacrifice small animals, and hope your ISP will delegate
reverse DNS to you. This is very rare unless you have a whole class C
address block. It is also really complicated to do reverse on a part of a
class C in QDNS.
2) Give the reverse entries to your ISP for them to enter into their own
DNS.
3) Don't worry about it.
I haven't known many people to have trouble because their reverse was not
set right. I've heard it can mess up telnet, which most Mac servers don't
support. Potentially it could mess up some really strong anti-spam mail
server which compared the sending domain name to a reversed forward
lookup (or is that a forward lookup reversed?).
>computer, and have converged on the following entry in my main DNS file.
>
>webcrunchers.com. NS webcrunchers.com.
>webcrunchers.com. NS NS1.PBI.NET.
>webcrunchers.com. MX 10 webcrunchers.com.
>webcrunchers.com. A 209.76.146.203
>www.webcrunchers.com. CNAME webcrunchers.com.
>
Ought to work. From the errors DNS Expert gave you, I think it does work.
> I was told that I need not bother to add names like
>"mail.webcrunchers.com" and
>"ns1.webcrunchers.com" to my DNS as it complicates things.
>
Complicates for whom? Probably the same people that have their own copy
of DNS & BIND in their pocket too. Sounds like the same folk who don't
comment their software 'cause it makes the files bigger.
> Anyway, thats what I got.... and could use some suggestions on how to
>eliminate
>those 3 errors that DNS Expert reported.
>
#1) I think this is beyond your control.
#2) See if your ISP can do backup mail service and if so add another MX
line. Or don't worry about it.
#3) Ask your ISP to add a reverse DNS entry for you.
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