unexpected RCODE (SERVFAIL) : who does what ?

[Kevin Darcy]

SERVFAIL is kind of the catch-all error code, it can mean many things. 
That error code may have come directly from the authoritative 
nameservers for the relevant zone, because of some unspecified internal 
error. Or, as one among many other possibilities, the 192.168.160.3 or 
192.168.160.5 resolver timed out trying to get an answer from all of the 
authoritative nameservers for the zone, basically that means the answer 
was unresolvable.

                                                                         
                        - Kevin

P.S. Name server atoll? Are your nameservers made out of coral? That 
would be cool. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atoll


cmic wrote:
> Hello
>
> My name server (BIND 9.3.1) forwards Internet requests to an external
> DNS server at 192.168.160.3
> (and .5). I do have many errors like these in the logs :
>
> I just want to know if the error is from *my* name server atoll or if
> the error is from a problem on
> the servers at 192.168.160.3 (and .5). For me, documentation doesn't
> seem clear about that.
>
> ...
> Oct 11 06:38:47 atoll named[173]: unexpected RCODE (SERVFAIL)
> resolving 'a1767.g.akamai.net/A/IN': 192.168.160.3#53
> Oct 11 06:39:23 atoll named[173]: unexpected RCODE (SERVFAIL)
> resolving 'maps.l.google.com/A/IN': 192.168.160.5#53
> Oct 11 06:39:23 atoll named[173]: unexpected RCODE (SERVFAIL)
> resolving 'maps.l.google.com/A/IN': 192.168.160.3#53
> Oct 11 06:39:36 atoll named[173]: unexpected RCODE (SERVFAIL)
> resolving 'www.selogerneuf.com/A/IN': 192.168.160.5#53
> Oct 11 06:39:36 atoll named[173]: unexpected RCODE (SERVFAIL)
> resolving 'www.selogerneuf.com/A/IN': 192.168.160.3#53
> ...
>
> TYA
> --
> michel Marcon SysAdmin (aka cmic)
> MEDAD, Cetu
>
>
>
>
>