Proper CNAME interpretation

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

Last night, it appeared to me that nslookup was resolving the name
"graphiteops.com" to IP address 72.52.4.95.

Today however it is no longer doing that, reporting instead:

%   127.0.0.1
Address:        127.0.0.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
graphiteops.com canonical name = graphiteops.com.


Given what I see in the dig output (see below) I think that today's
results are more ``correct'', but frankly, I'm not at all sure.

Is there a rule that says how a resolver should behave in cases where
there is both an A record and also a CNAME record for the same FQDN?
Which one should take precedence, the A or the CNAME?


=========================================================================
% dig graphiteops.com any

; <<>> DiG 9.5.0-P2 <<>> graphiteops.com any
;; global options:  printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 52447
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 10, AUTHORITY: 6, ADDITIONAL: 4

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;graphiteops.com.               IN      ANY

;; ANSWER SECTION:
graphiteops.com.        21600   IN      MX      0 mx.graphiteops.com.cust.b.hostedemail.com.
graphiteops.com.        3600    IN      SOA     pdns1.ultradns.net. tech.synthasite.com. 2011060500 10800 3600 2592000 86400
graphiteops.com.        21600   IN      A       72.52.4.95
graphiteops.com.        3600    IN      CNAME   graphiteops.com.
graphiteops.com.        86400   IN      NS      pdns2.ultradns.net.
graphiteops.com.        86400   IN      NS      pdns1.ultradns.net.
graphiteops.com.        86400   IN      NS      pdns5.ultradns.info.
graphiteops.com.        86400   IN      NS      pdns3.ultradns.org.
graphiteops.com.        86400   IN      NS      pdns4.ultradns.org.
graphiteops.com.        86400   IN      NS      pdns6.ultradns.co.uk.

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
graphiteops.com.        86400   IN      NS      pdns5.ultradns.info.
graphiteops.com.        86400   IN      NS      pdns1.ultradns.net.
graphiteops.com.        86400   IN      NS      pdns6.ultradns.co.uk.
graphiteops.com.        86400   IN      NS      pdns4.ultradns.org.
graphiteops.com.        86400   IN      NS      pdns2.ultradns.net.
graphiteops.com.        86400   IN      NS      pdns3.ultradns.org.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
pdns1.ultradns.net.     81556   IN      A       204.74.108.1
pdns1.ultradns.net.     81556   IN      AAAA    2001:502:f3ff::1
pdns2.ultradns.net.     81556   IN      A       204.74.109.1
pdns3.ultradns.org.     81556   IN      A       199.7.68.1

;; Query time: 106 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
;; WHEN: Wed Sep 14 13:28:22 2011
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 500

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