non existent host/domain

[R Joseph Wright]

On Thu, 27 Apr 2000, Joseph S D Yao wrote:

> On Thu, Apr 27, 2000 at 11:29:21AM -0700, R Joseph Wright wrote:
> > On 27 Apr 2000, Barry Margolin wrote:
> > 
> > > In article <Pine.BSF.4.21.0004262224050.1183-100000 at manatee.mammalia.org>,
> > > R Joseph Wright  <rjoseph at speakeasy.org> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >I just set up a primary dns server using Bind 8 on FreeBSd 4.0.  I also
> > > >just registered my domain, got my secondaries set up with
> > > >granitecanyon.com, etc.  So, I'm set, sort of.  The main problem that is
> > > >happening is I get this when I do 'nslookup mammalia.org':
> > > >
> > > >Server:  localhost.org
> > > >Address:  127.0.0.1
> > > >
> > > >*** localhost.org can't find mammalia.org: Non-existent host/domain
> > > 
> > > What do you expect this to show?  You don't have an A record for
> > > mammalia.org in db.mammalia.  The only A records you have are for
> > > ns.mammalia.org and manatee.mammalia.org.
> > 
> > You mean I'm supposed to create an A record for my zone?  None of the
> > configurations I've looked at have anything like that.  What if I had more
> > than one nameserver on different machines with different addresses?  Would
> > each of those also have an A record for the zone with its own address?
> > 
> > Since the zone is already implied on the left side of the A record entry,
> > would it look something like this?:
> > 			IN	A	216.231.50.6
> > I'm probably missing something totally obvious, but this just seems a bit
> > weird. 
> 
> A lot of people do, in fact, want to have an IP address associated with
> their domain names.  I'm with you - it seemed a bit weird at first.  I
> guess you pay a bit less for adverts without the "www.".  ;-)
> 
> No, there is nothing requiring you to have an A record for your domain
> in your zone file.  Nothing at all.  Your question, though, would have
> presupposed that you wanted an A record for your domain, if you had
> understood that the default record that 'nslookup' returns is an A
> record.  If you just want any record that the name server might happen
> to know [which, for one of the domain's name servers, should be all],
> then enter:
> 	nslookup -type=any mammalia.org
> 
> The 'nslookup' program wants to do things that look like what "people"
> expect.  Consequently, when debugging BIND entries, it does some things
> that you might not expect.  If you want to see the anatomical details,
> use 'dig'.
> 
> Another problem you have, from my point of view, is that the ".org"
> name servers disavow any knowledge of you or your operations.  ;->
> Have you registered with them or fed them money lately?

Yesterday.  Perhaps I'm just being impatient?
 
> OBTW, HINFO records are nice for your personal reference, but are
> generally easily outdated [when you update the system but forget to
> update the record], and might give crackers ideas.  Your choice whether
> they're worth it to you.
> 
> OBTW 2, ns.mammalia.org has a reverse DNS of rjoseph-0.dsl.speakeasy.net,
> which has no forward DNS.  This is merely disconcerting unless you are
> trying to access a site which requires matching forwards and reverse
> DNS.

That must be the name assigned by my ISP.  Do I need to call them and have
it removed?