[plug] DNS resolution

[John Summerfield]

On Fri, 13 Nov 1998, Shackleton, Kevin wrote:

> I wonder if someone could come up with the authoritative reference for
> this:
> 
> I've just had a domain registered and hosted through an ISP.  The ISP
> said that the domain was set up, but it was not generally visible - only
> from the ISP's domain.
> 
> Eventually it was fixed.  They said that Telstra (presumably as the root
> nameserver for .org.au) was responsible for the delay.  Other reports
> were that the problem was in the nameserver operation at the ISP.
> 


depends. Good chance it's the ISP - if he doesn't arrange the DNS for you,
nobody will find you.

Somewhere in the IS there are the root DNS servers. They point to whoever's
responsible for the .gov. .com. .org. .at, .au etc domains.

if someone invents a new top level domain, it won't work untill the root
servers are updated.

Doubtless they point of to someone who looks after .au for us, and it all
starts again. The .au servers point off to com.au, .org.au etc - pretty
much a clone of the US conventions.

If you have a new domain, Shackleton.org.au perhaps, you (or your ISP) has
to set up two DNSs for it and they have to be pointed to from .org.au.

If either of those steps is not done, nobody can find you. if it was
visible from the ISP's domain (without specifying which DNS to use), then I
suspect your ISP's done something trick and isn't using the root servers
properly.

It's possible to set up a DNS and to not tell the world about it; I use one
at home to resolve my local LAN hosts and to look up addresses for external
hosts (and to resolve IP addresses). If someone configures their resolver
to use my IP address for DNS lookups it will work and they'll be able to
lookup IP addresses for my home computers.


Cheers
John Summerfield
http://os2.ami.com.au/os2/ for OS/2 support.
Configuration, networking, combined IBM ftpsites index.