Re: RIPE DNS Hostcount February 1993

[Marten Terpstra <Marten.Terpstra@localhost]

 Willi Huber huber@localhost writes:
 * Marten wrote:
 * 
 * according to the ch.error file the reason for the lost 3000 host in CH is:
 * 
 * >>>>>>>>  No nameservers for epfl.CH responded
 * 
 * 
 * When looking into this error file I also see a lot of entries like:
 * 
 *  !!! extraneous glue record for scsnms.switch.ch within dial-switch.CH
 * 
 * But I can't find the corresponding glue records at all, at least in the 
 * hostfiles I am responsible for. In fact I recently gave the same advice
 * (to remove unnecessary glue records) to a customer of SWITCH, we are
 * running a secondary DNS server for. In the transfered zone file there were
 * entries like:
 * 
 * $ORIGIN ch.
 * isburg          IN      NS      scsnms.switch.ch.
 * ; Ignoring info about scsnms.switch.ch, not in zone isburg.ch.
 * ; $ORIGIN switch.ch.
 * ; scsnms        512565  IN      A       130.59.1.30
 * 
 * But I had to learn, that these entries are NOT caused by unnecessary
 * glue records, they are just generated for what ever reasons by BIND.
 * So are the glue records, the RIPE DNS job detects, also not real? I
 * guess so.

When I do a zone transfer for dial-switch.ch I get back something that starts
with:

dial-switch.ch          86400   IN      SOA     nova.dial-switch.ch
ch-zone-contact.switch.ch (
                        37      ;serial (version)
                        28800   ;refresh period
                        7200    ;retry refresh time
                        604800  ;expiration period
                        86400   ;default ttl
                        )
dial-switch.ch          86400   IN      NS      nova.dial-switch.ch
nova.dial-switch.ch     86400   IN      A       192.86.166.254
dial-switch.ch          86400   IN      NS      scsnms.switch.ch
scsnms.switch.ch        514618  IN      A       130.59.1.30
 !!! extraneous glue record for scsnms.switch.ch within dial-switch.ch

You see that the A record for scsnms.switch.ch should not be returned in this
zone. A zone transfer should ONLY return data for that zone. This is a BIND
bug. If however I do the same for nikhef.nl :

nikhef.nl               86400   IN      SOA     nikhefh.nikhef.nl
hostmaster.nikhef.nl (
                        930208  ;serial (version)
                        14400   ;refresh period
                        3600    ;retry refresh time
                        604800  ;expiration period
                        86400   ;default ttl
                        )
nikhef.nl               86400   IN      NS      nikhefh.nikhef.nl
nikhefh.nikhef.nl       86400   IN      A       192.16.199.1
nikhef.nl               86400   IN      NS      nikhapo.nikhef.nl
nikhapo.nikhef.nl       86400   IN      A       192.16.199.4
nikhapo.nikhef.nl       86400   IN      A       192.16.186.42
nikhef.nl               86400   IN      NS      sering.cwi.nl
nikhef.nl               86400   IN      MX      10 nikhefh.nikhef.nl
nikhef.nl               86400   IN      MX      20 nikhapo.nikhef.nl
nikhef.nl               86400   IN      MX      30 sun4nl.nluug.nl

There could have been records for sun4nl.nluug.nl and sering.cwi.nl but
there are not, because nikhef.nl is using a patched BIND, which will not
return these records. They are not necessarily glue records, but there is no
means to see the difference. Point is that they should not be in the zone
output. I'd suggest you patch your BIND for this.

-Marten