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- The following the list of error messages that dnswalk will
- return if it sees a potential problem with the database.
- Duplicate messages will be suppressed automatically for each
- zone.
- X PTR Y: unknown host
- X is a PTR record to Y, but Y is not a valid host (no A
- record). These are often left over from when someone
- deleted a host from the DNS and forgot to delete the
- PTR record. These records should be removed.
- X PTR Y: A record not found
- X is a PTR record to Y, but the IP address associated
- with the PTR record is not listed as an address for Y.
- There should be an A record for every valid IP address
- for a host. Many Internet services will not talk to
- you if you have mismatched PTR records.
- X PTR Y: CNAME (to Z)
- X is a PTR record to Y, but Y is a CNAME to Z. PTR
- records should point to the real name of a host, not an
- alias.
- X CNAME Y: unknown host
- X is aliased to Y, but Y is not a valid host (no A
- record). This is a stale entry and should be removed.
- X CNAME Y: CNAME (to Z)
- X is aliased to Y, but Y is aliased to Z. CNAMEs
- should not be chained together. It has been known to
- cause problems with some software.
- X MX Y: unknown host
- X is an MX to Y, but Y is not a valid host (no A
- record). This is a stale entry and should be removed.
- X MX Y: CNAME (to Z)
- X is an MX to Y, but Y is an alias for Z. MX records
- must point to the canonical name, not an alias.
- X A Y: no PTR record
- X has an IP address Y, but there is no PTR record to
- map the IP address Y back to a hostname (usually X).
- Many Internet servers (such as anonymous FTP servers)
- will not talk to addresses that don't have PTR records.
- warning: X has only one authoritative nameserver
- Zones should have more than one authoritative name-
- server, in case one is down or unreachable. Preferably
- one should be off-site. Make sure the parent and child
- nameservers list all authoritative nameservers for a
- zone in the NS list.
- X: invalid character(s) in name
- Allowable characters in a domain name are the ASCII
- letters a through Z the digits 0 through 9, and the "-"
- character. A "." may be used only as a domain separa-
- tor. Using non-standard characters can cause unexpected
- software problems.
- X: domain occurred twice, forgot trailing '.'?
- A sanity check which looks for "dom.ain.dom.ain." in a
- name. This is often caused by forgetting to put a
- trailing '.' on the end of a name.
- X A Y: points to Z
- X has Y for an IP address, but the PTR record associ-
- ated with Y returns "Z" as the name associated with
- that host. This is not necessarily an error (for exam-
- ple if you have an A record for your domain name), but
- may be an indication of an A record which points to the
- wrong host, or a PTR record that points to the wrong
- host. You will get this error if you are trying to
- alias one host to another with an A record. You should
- use a CNAME instead.
- X NS Y: lame NS delegation
- Y is a listed nameserver for zone X, but Y is not
- returning authoritative data for zone X. This is usu-
- ally the result of a lack of communication on the part
- of the respective hostmasters. Lame delegations are
- not fatal problems except in severe cases, they just
- tend to create significant increases in DNS traffic.
- NS records for the parent and child domains should be
- consistent, and each server listed in the NS record
- MUST be able to answer with authoritative data, by
- being explicitly configured as a primary or secondary
- for the zone.
- X NS Y: nameserver error (lame?)
- These are any errors returned while contacting other
- nameservers (like connection refused or timeout) This
- could mean a lame delegation (the host is not running
- a nameserver or is misconfigured), or simply that the
- nameserver is temporarily unreachable.
- Cannot check X: no available nameservers!
- The X zone was delegated with NS records but all the
- nameservers for the zone are either unavailable or say
- that they have no data for the zone (are lame). Verify
- that the X zone isn't a typo, and if not make sure that
- all the listed nameservers are configured to answer
- with data for the zone.
-
- SEE ALSO
- RFC 1034 - "DOMAIN NAMES - CONCEPTS AND FACILITIES"
- RFC 1035 - "DOMAIN NAMES - IMPLEMENTATION AND SPECIFICATION"
- RFC 1123 - "Requirements for Internet Hosts -- Application and Support"
- Paul Albitz, Cricket Liu: "DNS and BIND" O'Reilly & Associates.
- RFC 1912 - "Common DNS Operational and Configuration Errors"
- http://www.dns.net/dnsrd/ - DNS Resources Directory
-