FAQs

[Will Yardley]

In article <a5t0t6$k1o at pub3.rc.vix.com>, Doug Barton wrote:
> 
> Well, it took longer than I thought to get to this, but I have the
> first draft ready to go. It's not complete, but there is enough there
> to give y'all an idea of where I'm going with it. I'm interested in
> comments, suggestions, expansion on answers, additional URL's, etc. I
> currentely have the following:

looks good so far.  a couple comments (sorry for the delayed response;
i've been out of town):

1)

  q. I'm having problems BIND on Windows

  a. As they say on TV, "I don't do windows." Sorry, you'll have to find
  help elsewhere.

probably not the most helpful answer, since the scope of the newsgroup
DOES include BIND on windoze.  since this faq purports to be the faq for
the bind-users newsgroup, this answer should be more accurate (even if
you / i dislike windows).

2)

  q. Why is nslookup evil?

  a. Ok . . . technically nslookup is not evil. In fact, if you're
  working on a problem involving the local system resolver, it's a good
  tool to use since it uses the resolver in all its glory.......

perhaps someone can point out the articles in the archives that point
out some of the actual problems that can result from using nslookup as
opposed to host or dig.  there are a few cases where nslookup actually
reports inaccurate or misleading information.

i can't find the article, but here is the text:
http://veggiechinese.net/nslookup_sucks.txt

attribution is gone, and i didn't write any of it, but it provides some
comments as to why nslookup shouldn't be used.

3)

you might want to flesh out the "CNAME and other data" errors section,
and there should probably be a mention of the fact that an MX record
must point to a canonical hostname (ie it can't point to a CNAME).

4)
  q. How do I point www.example.com to example.com?

  a. This question is usually asked the other way around. "How do I
  point my domain to www.mydomain?" The correct answer (and the only way
  that works) is to do it the other way around. Set up your A, MX, etc.
  records for your domain, then set up a CNAME for www, like this:

  www		CNAME	example.com.

it's also correct to do:

  www		IN  A	10.3.32.4

how you do it is really a matter of style, so i don't know if it's quite
correct to say that's the ONLY way to do it.  while CNAME records can be
useful if you know how to use them correctly, i've found it's better to
encourage people not to use them (if they don't know how to use them
correctly, or if they don't completely understand the implications),
since errors involving CNAMEs are some of the most common errors you see
around.

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