Strange / Frustrating Caching Problems

Mark Andrews Mark_Andrews at isc.org
Thu Jul 13 17:55:07 UTC 2006


> For the past few months, I have been trying to resolve (unsuccessfully to thi
> s point) with a  trio of caching only name servers that we have in place.  Th
> e general nature of the problem is as follows.  A dhcp client originally gets
>  an IP address on subnet A but at some point prior to lease expiration moves 
> to subnet B, where they obtain a new IP address successfully.  The problem th
> at I am seeing is that after the move to subnet B, one or more of our caching
>  only name servers are still returning the old IP address when a lookup of th
> e hostname occurs.  This behavior seems reasonable at first glance since cach
> ing only servers should retain the information they have in cache until the T
> TL expires and/or the cache is flushed.  After digging into this further, I'm
>  finding that that the TTL for the hosts whose forward lookups are returning 
> the wrong IP are set to 604800 seconds or 168 hours.  I've determined this by
>  dumping / viewing the cache.   In addition, I've also discovered 
>  that the TTL for the reverse record for the same client is also set to this 
> high value.  This behavior would seem reasonable if this high value was the T
> TL value configured for the domain, which is not the case here.  We have the 
> default TTL in our environment set for 10800 seconds or 4 hours.  Thus, I'm a
>  little baffled as to why the TTL for some of these DHCP clients are being se
> t to such a high value when other clients have their TTL's set to the 10800 v
> alue configured at the domain level.  I've checked the registration at the ob
> ject level (in our IP management application) and the TTL field is blank, thu
> s implying the default TTL is in place.  
> Aside from the above details, I can also note that the problematic lookups se
> em to involve the same DHCP clients.  The only reason I know about these clie
> nts is that they are unable to SSH to some Unix boxes in a DMZ that restrict 
> access to hosts that they can perform both forward and reverse lookups for.  
> In this scenario, the forward lookup is failing since it's returning the old 
> IP address of the client.  When this problem occurs, it tends to affect one o
> r two of the caching servers but not all three.  Furthermore, it is somewhat 
> random as to which of the 3 servers are affected.
> 
> The caching servers in question are all Solaris 9 running BIND 9.3.2
> 
> If anyone can provide some insight here, it would be much appreciated.  I can
>  provide additional information and/or elaborate on something as needed.
> 
> Bill Smith 
> <mailto:bill.smith at jhuapl.edu> 
> ISS Server Systems Group 
> Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory 
> 11100 Johns Hopkins Road 
> Laurel, MD 20723 
> Phone:  443-778-5523 
> Web:  http://www.jhuapl.edu <http://www.jhuapl.edu/>     

	Nameservers do what the dhcp servers tell them to do.  The TTL
	is set by the DHCP server.  Try lowering the dhcp lease time as
	that influences the DNS TTL.

	Mark
--
Mark Andrews, ISC
1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742                 INTERNET: Mark_Andrews at isc.org



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