Nameservers Occasionally Not Responding
I have a WHM VPS server whose nameservers occasionally don't respond from what I can tell. What ends up happening is that most people can access the site just fine, but people accessing the site while on networks that host their own DNS servers occasionally can't get on, and in that case no one on that network can get on.
Particularly this seems to be happening with College networks that host their own DNS. I assume their DNS servers are either less robust or change more quickly or don't cache or something, so if my nameservers stop responding, they have issues immediately? That's just my theory...
Either way, I have no idea how to troubleshoot why they would sometimes not respond, beyond simply rebooting the system (which I did).
Here is a quote from an email a member of the IT staff at a college that had trouble accessing the site sent me. It might help determine the issue.
Any ideas on where to go from here? Should I update some software versions or something?
We run our own DNS servers locally, but it
looks like the problem might be something
with your DNS backend? I ran a couple dig
queries against our servers, then against
a Google DNS server to compare - and I see
the nameservers for the example.org domain
are not always responding?
workbox:tmp xyz$ dig @144.118.xx.xx www.example.org
; <<>> DiG 9.8.5-P1 <<>> @144.118.xx.xx www.example.org
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 44083
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.example.org. IN A
;; Query time: 84 msec
;; SERVER: 144.118.xx.xx#53(144.118.xx.xx)
;; WHEN: Thu Oct 29 16:46:03 EDT 2015
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 31
workbox:tmp xyz$ dig @144.118.xx.x www.example.org
; <<>> DiG 9.8.5-P1 <<>> @144.118.xx.x www.example.org
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 17664
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.example.org. IN A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.example.org. 14237 IN CNAME example.org.
example.org. 14249 IN A 166.62.xx.xxx
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
example.org. 86237 IN NS ns2.domain.org.
example.org. 86237 IN NS ns1.domain.org.
;; Query time: 51 msec
;; SERVER: 144.118.xx.xx#53(144.118.xx.xx)
;; WHEN: Thu Oct 29 16:46:07 EDT 2015
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 101
workbox:tmp xyz$ dig @144.118.xx.xx ns1.domain.org
; <<>> DiG 9.8.5-P1 <<>> @144.118.xx.xx ns1.domain.org
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 32961
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;ns1.domain.org. IN A
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
domain.org. 3457 IN SOA ns1.example.net. hostmaster.somename.no. 1427403258 14400 3600 777600 3600
;; Query time: 82 msec
;; SERVER: 144.118.xx.xx#53(144.118.xx.xx)
;; WHEN: Thu Oct 29 16:46:21 EDT 2015
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 100
workbox:tmp xyz$ dig @144.118.xx.xx ns2.domain.org
; <<>> DiG 9.8.5-P1 <<>> @144.118.xx.xx ns2.domain.org
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 19063
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;ns2.domain.org. IN A
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
domain.org. 3462 IN SOA ns1.example.net. hostmaster.somename.no. 1427403258 14400 3600 777600 3600
;; Query time: 81 msec
;; SERVER: 144.118.xx.xx#53(144.118.xx.xx)
;; WHEN: Thu Oct 29 16:46:28 EDT 2015
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 100
workbox:tmp xyz$
::: And now those last two lookups going
to one of Google's public DNS servers :::
workbox:tmp xyz$ dig @8.8.8.8 ns1.domain.org
; <<>> DiG 9.8.5-P1 <<>> @8.8.8.8 ns1.domain.org
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 20093
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;ns1.domain.org. IN A
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
domain.org. 1799 IN SOA ns1.example.net. hostmaster.somename.no. 1427403258 14400 3600 777600 3600
;; Query time: 148 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Thu Oct 29 16:49:39 EDT 2015
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 100
workbox:tmp xyz$ dig @8.8.8.8 any ns1.domain.org
; <<>> DiG 9.8.5-P1 <<>> @8.8.8.8 any ns1.domain.org
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 44033
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;ns1.domain.org. IN ANY
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
domain.org. 1799 IN SOA ns1.example.net. hostmaster.somename.no. 1427403258 14400 3600 777600 3600
;; Query time: 111 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Thu Oct 29 16:49:43 EDT 2015
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 100
workbox:tmp xyz$ dig @8.8.8.8 any ns2.domain.org
; <<>> DiG 9.8.5-P1 <<>> @8.8.8.8 any ns2.domain.org
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 16819
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;ns2.domain.org. IN ANY
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
domain.org. 1799 IN SOA ns1.example.net. hostmaster.somename.no. 1427403258 14400 3600 777600 3600
;; Query time: 156 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Thu Oct 29 16:49:46 EDT 2015
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 100
workbox:tmp xyz$Any ideas on where to go from here? Should I update some software versions or something?
-
I am seeing the same thing. intodns.com ns1.example.org [] (NO GLUE) [TTL=86400] ns2.example.org [] (NO GLUE) [TTL=86400] The name servers appear to be registered and set correctly at the registrar but are set to ns1.example.org/ns2.example.org on your server. Simply changing them to ns1.domain.org ns2.domain.org Should resolve it as it doesn't appear that ns1.domain.org ns2.domain.org are actual name servers. 0 -
Ah! Great observation. That definitely sounds like it should do the trick. You are right, ns1.domain.org and ns2.domain.org are definitely not the correct nameservers. I'm going to take a look tomorrow and change them on the server and hopefully get them all set up and see if that fixes the problem. Thanks for your help! I'll let you know how it goes. 0 -
Okay, I believe I was able to get that resolved. Now I'm just waiting to hear if anyone still has problems! 0 -
Hello :) I am happy to see you were able to resolve the issue. Thank you for updating us with the outcome. 0
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