Another Lame Delegation Question :)

Re: Another Lame Delegation Question :)

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On 06/05/01 at 12:26, Brian Doerr wrote:

> I have been reading through the archives but didn't see my exact
> question answered. My company has purchased some domains recently and
> modified the registry to point to our DNS servers.
>
> We in IT were unaware of the purchase and did not update our DNS or
> webserver to handle requests for the domains.

This sounds like a vaguely familiar story -- do any of your bosses have pointy
hair? ;-)

> We are now seeing the
> following errors in the log:

> Jun 5 08:47:29 Lame delegation for "dns02.postdirect.net." from
> "24.43.218.99:53"
> Jun 5 08:47:29 Lame delegation for "dns02.postdirect.net." from
> "63.200.24.150:53"
> Jun 5 08:55:07 Lame delegation for "zband.com." from "24.43.218.99:53"
> Jun 5 08:55:07 Lame delegation for "zband.com." from "63.200.24.150:53"
> Jun 5 09:01:00 Lame delegation for "dns02.postdirect.net." from
> "24.43.218.99:53"
> Jun 5 09:01:00 Lame delegation for "dns02.postdirect.net." from
> "63.200.24.150:53"
> Jun 5 09:01:39 Lame delegation for "www.businessobject.com." from
> "24.43.218.99:53"
> Jun 5 09:01:39 Lame delegation for "www.businessobject.com." from
> "63.200.24.150:53"
> Jun 5 09:07:53 Lame delegation for "dns02.postdirect.net." from
> "24.43.218.99:53"
> Jun 5 09:07:53 Lame delegation for "dns02.postdirect.net." from
> "63.200.24.150:53"
>
> the .150 is our primary DNS and the .99 is our secondary DNS.
>
> Can anyone tell me if this a problem that I need to be worried about.

It's not something to worry about in the sense that it's going to 'break'
anything, but from the outside it does make it look like you haven't quite got
it together, as you've seen from your report from an outside observer.

> Someone emailed us mentioning the following errors they were seeing on
> their end:
>
> May 23 11:05:06 job named[153]: Lame server on 'dns02.postdirect.net'
> (in 'postdirect.NET'?): [128.9.0.107].53 'B.ROOT-SERVERS.NET': learnt
> (A=".",NS=".")
>
> May 23 11:05:06 job named[153]: Lame server on 'dns02.postdirect.net'
> (in 'postdirect.NET'?): [192.203.230.10].53 'E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET': learnt
> (A=".",NS=".")
>
> May 23 11:05:06 job named[153]: Lame server on 'dns02.postdirect.net'
> (in 'postdirect.NET'?): [192.203.230.10].53 'E.ROOT-SERVERS.NET': learnt
> (A=".",NS=".")
>
> And also if I really need to setup each one of the domains we purchase
> in DNS until we actually get a site up that we want people to see. Many
> may just be ideas and never actually used.

IMHO, if you've got a zone delegated to a name server that you control, you
should have at least a minimum zone set up for it so that the server can
answer authoritatively for the zone, and others won't see that ugly 'lame
delegation.' My employer occasionally does much the same thing as your
scenario (only he usually doesn't do it without telling me 8^] ) -- he'll
have me register a domain name that has no immediate purpose, and which he may
or may not want to do something with at some point in the future. In those
cases I'll create the zone on my name server (and notify the admin of the
server that provides secondary for me so that he can do the same). You really
don't need any records beyond an SOA record and an NS record for each name
server listed in the registration, but I usually also include A records for
domain.name. and www.domain.name., pointing to my web server, because while
you and I know that the web is not synonymous with the internet, many people
will automatically assume that if a domain name exists, there must be a web
site for it. I'll also usually create an MX record pointing to my mail server
-- there may not be any mail associated with the domain at the time, but it
doesn't hurt to be prepared for the possibility. On the web server, I don't
have to do anything special because the index file of the default host is a
WebSiphon template that gives a generic 'The web site you've requested
([insert domain name here]) is not currently active' (go to
<http://www.bugballs.com> for an example). The whole thing only takes a few
minutes to set up and an unused domain is going to use almost no resources on
your name server (if there's no traffic for the domain, how many requests are
going to hit the name server for it?). The trade-off for the small set-up
effort is that if someone happens to go to see what the non-existent web site
for the domain looks like, they won't get a 'host does not exist'/'lame
delegation' error, and you look like you know a little something about what
you're doing.

Christopher Bort | cbort@globalhomes.com
Webmaster, Global Homes | webmaster@globalhomes.com
<http://www.globalhomes.com/> | PGP public key available on request

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