some DNS servers return IP, some return list of root servers...why?

[Barry Margolin]

In article <9xo65.178$4h2.45605 at news.dbn.net>,
Chris Weiss <chrisweiss at wilsonmfg.com> wrote:
>domain name wilsonmfg.com
>if I do a 'dig @151.164.1.1 wilsonmfg.com' I get a list of root servers.
>if I do a 'dig @209.144.137.6 wilsonmfg.com' or 'dig @64.6.161.2
>wilsonmfg.com' I get the NS and A records of the my domain like I expected.

151.164.1.1 (ns1.swbell.net) has recursion disabled; you can tell this
because the "flags" section of the response doesn't include "ra".  It's not
intended to be used by resolvers, it's just for answering queries about the
domains that swbell.net hosts.

>What propmted me to look for this is that some people are either unable to
>send us email, getting a 'doamin not found' message from thier server, or it
>is taking a long time for us to recieve to the message, the sender getting
>one more 'Warning: could not send message for past 4 hours' messages, while
>most can send enail to us just fine.  The first two DNS server IP's used
>above have nothing to do wilsonmfg.com while 64.6.161.2 is the true primary
>server.  the DNS servers listed at whois.networksolutions.com are both set
>to be secondaries for 64.6.161.2.  I have another domain setup like this on
>another network and it works just fine.

If the people who can't send you mail have 151.164.1.1 in their resolver
configuration, they're misconfigured.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at genuity.net
Genuity, Burlington, MA
*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
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