Secondary server not being used when primary is down ?

[Simon Waters]

Terry Paterson wrote:
> 
> a whois query shows the following :

whois is nothing to do with DNS - honest.

Any resembalence between whois data and DNS data is purely
coincidental ;)

> Anyone got any tips for me ?

Okay one of the name servers is claiming that the name servers
are "actual-america.com".

Parent says 
NS1.ACTUAL-AMERICA.com. 172800  IN      A       12.42.65.180
NS0.actual-systems.com. 172800  IN      A      
212.67.201.196                  

12.42.65.180 says
ns0.actual-america.com. 86400   IN      A       212.67.201.196
ns1.actual-america.com. 86400   IN      A       12.42.65.180 

212.67.201.196
ns0.actual-america.com. 86400   IN      A       212.67.201.196
ns1.actual-america.com. 86400   IN      A      
12.42.65.180                    

So how is actual-america.com delegated...

parent says
NS1.actual-america.com. 172800  IN      A       12.42.65.180
NS0.actual-america.com. 172800  IN      A       212.67.201.197

Hold it - 197 for ns0 - are we sure on that? 12.42.65.180 just
said it was 196 and he is authoritative for the zone......

Querying for VERSION.BIND shows 212.67.201.196 is 8.2.2-p7 (ouch
that is fairly old - I'd replace it with 9.2.1).

Neither of the other servers is responding at the moment......
12.42.65.180 seems to be intermittent.

 Switch off recursion on authoritative servers, read your CERT
announcements, practice safe hex.

 Simon