TLD Parent Check

D

daverj

New Member
Two questions regarding a recently set up VPS. I ran intoDNS and got a couple of warnings that I am curious about.

When I run it on the base domain name (lets call it mydomain.com) I get no warnings

When I run it on ns1.mydomain.com, or ns2.mydomain.com, or servername.mydomain.com I get the following two warnings:

1 - "NOTE: You also need to know that you have a country code second-level domain (ccSLD) that may require an extra NS lookup and may delay a little the visitors to your website!"

-- the domain is a .com so why is it saying that it has a country code second level domain?


2 - "WARNING: Looks like the parent servers do not have information for your TLD when asked. This is ok but can be confusing."

-- Why is this warning here, and why for the ns1, ns2, and servername lookups, but not for the main name lookup (mydomain.com)? How can this be fixed. The only comments I find on the web are talking about this in reference to sites like .co.uk domains, but this is a straight .com domain
 
Hi Daverej,

First of all, welcome to Knownhost!

I'll try to answer your questions now.

The 'note' from IntoDNS is most likely a false-positivie, if it's definitely a '.com' domain then you wouldn't/shouldn't receive that message at all. My guess is that when you checked it from your nameservers or your hostname, it though because it was a three-part FQDN that it was a second-level domain. -- out of curiosity, how did you get IntoDNS to check those domains? Whenever you enter anything other than the basic domain name, it's supposed to throw an error letting you know it doesn't check 'subdomains'.

The 'warning' that you're getting is normally given when the root servers (example of root server is 'a.gtld-servers.net') are not able to be queried for records against your domain. This can happen with all domains if the DNS change was recent, all domains have root servers they check against.

If you query your domain now, do you still get these two errors?
 
I simply went to http://www.intodns.com/ and typed in ns1.mydomain.com and it didn't throw any kind of error talking about subdomains. The same when I entered my myservername.mydomain.com

The VPS went live last Wednesday, so still fairly new. It's still doing it today. I get those messages for the ns1, ns2, and server hostname, but I don't get them if I just enter the domain name by itself. So maybe they are just because it's a 3-part name and it was a warning for 2-part TLDs?

Hmmm... Interesting... I just tried another nameserver from a different host and got the warning that "I do domains, not subdomains" from intoDNS. Now that makes me wonder if there is something odd about my DNS configuration that made it see my nameservers and hostname as domains instead of subdomains. Maybe a wrong record in one of the zone files for either the main domain or in each of the zone files for the name servers or the server hostname?

Where would I find good examples of what the zone files should ideally look like for a new VPS, for:

ns1.mydomain.com
ns2.mydomain.com
servername.mydomain.com
mydomain.com

Then I could compare those examples with what records are in my zone files to see if perhaps I have extra records or something not right.
 
intodns.com only checks the health of a domain not a nameserver/subdomain. They need to reprogram their site so it's like mxtoolbox.com, when you search a domain (even if it has a subdomain) it just strips out the subdomain to give you the correct report. About all you really need to do to test your nameservers is ping each and make sure they're going to your server's IP. Then it's up to your DNS server on what happens from there. Whatever your domain name is, intodns must have thought it had a ccSLD. Unless you have uk.com or something that appears as a ccSLD intoDNS just had it very wrong.
 
My domain is a .com

I tried it with other name servers from some old accounts I have elsewhere and with those I get the message "Can't get nameservers at parent server!<br>I only check domains not subdomains!"

But with mine it runs the test as if it was a domain. Now the other one I tested is a standalone nameserver, not an all-in-one setup like mine.

I'm suspecting that my nameserver's zone file has an extra record or two that aren't normally in a nameserver's zone, or the main domain's zone has something extra in it, either one is fooling intoDNS into thinking the nameserver is a domain instead of a subdomain.
 
Wow! a.com ?!?!? Glad to meet the owner of the very first alphabetized domain.
You said earlier...
ns1.mydomain.com
ns2.mydomain.com
servername.mydomain.com
Click to expand...
Those are all subdomains and intoDNs, as it said to you earlier, only does "domains, not subdomains" .
When you tested just a.com and got that same response, I think intoDNS is just programmed in such a way that a.com is messing it up. It, like many sites, programs for the majority of people that have domains longer than 1 character.
If pinging ns1.a.com and ns2.a.com shows you your server's IP address then your nameservers are fine. I wouldn't waste any more time testing a.com at intoDNS if I were you. Try mxtoolbox, I tested a.com there and got the correct report for your domain.
 
LOL! Sorry to disappoint you. You missed the space between "a" and ".com". I was saying that my domain is a ".com" as opposed to a two part TLD, so that wouldn't be why I got the message about the ccSLD.

I did some nslookups of a couple of nameservers and compared them to mine and I see a difference, and why intoDNS is probably confused. The other name servers return what look like just NS or NS and A records. Mine returns those plus SOA and MX records. When I go into WHM and go to the DNS FUNCTIONS > EDIT DNS ZONE and look at the zones for ns1.mydomain.com, ns2.mydomain.com and servername.mydomain.com all three of them show an SOA, two NS records, an A record, an MX, and three CNAME records (for mail, www, and ftp). That doesn't seem right.
 
Yea there's a problem there. You shouldn't even have ns1.mydomain.com, ns2.mydomain.com or servername.mydomain.com in the list on the "Edit DNS Zone" page.
 
phpAddict said:
Yea there's a problem there. You shouldn't even have ns1.mydomain.com, ns2.mydomain.com or servername.mydomain.com in the list on the "Edit DNS Zone" page.
Click to expand...

This isn't a correct statement. You should create A records for your nameservers and if I'm not mistaken there has to be a record for your host name as well else it would not be able to be looked up. To create A records for your namservers go to WHM | Server Configuration | Basic cPanel & WHM Setup you'll find it at the bottom of the page. To create an A record for your host name go to WHM | DNS Functions | Add an A Entry for Your Host Name.

daverj said:
I did some nslookups of a couple of nameservers and compared them to mine and I see a difference, and why intoDNS is probably confused. The other name servers return what look like just NS or NS and A records. Mine returns those plus SOA and MX records. When I go into WHM and go to the DNS FUNCTIONS > EDIT DNS ZONE and look at the zones for ns1.mydomain.com, ns2.mydomain.com and servername.mydomain.com all three of them show an SOA, two NS records, an A record, an MX, and three CNAME records (for mail, www, and ftp). That doesn't seem right.
Click to expand...

You are correct, this is not right for nameservers or your host name, it would appear that a full DNS zone has been incorrectly created for all three.

For the nameservers you should have an SOA, two NS, and two A records (one for 127.0.0.1).

nameserver.jpg


For your host name you should have an SOA, two NS, an A record, and an MX record.

server.jpg
 
Yes, A Records for the nameservers under the primary domain, but unless I misunderstood him, he's seeing ns1.mydomain.com, ns2.mydomain.com and servername.mydomain.com as individual options under "Edit DNS Zone", which sounds like they've been set up as entirely new/separate domains or accounts on his server.

Edit: Hmmm... after checking cpanel's demo I see they have it set up that way too. I just have it all under the primary domain and have no issues with my nameservers. I'll have to look into that more deeply. Must be something with how I have the domain set up over at GoDaddy.
 
In the cPanel demo for WHM they show the nameservers and hostname in the Edit DNS Zone list. So I would guess that's normal. I can't actually open them in the demo, so can't see what they have theirs set as.

I submitted a ticket and was told that the nameservers don't need MX and CNAME records, but it's part of the standard template (?) the server uses and won't cause issues. That was before Dan posted his post above. I pointed to that in the ticket to get a response, since I don't see the localhost record in my nameserver zones. Haven't heard back yet.
 
Well, the tech basically said it's fine as it is. Don't worry about it. He said that yes, the extra records aren't normally there, but they don't hurt. He also said that the localhost record isn't really needed.

I kind of feel like I should straighten them out to look like they are "supposed" to look. But on the other hand there's the old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
 
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