[Eug-lug] Setting up DNS

[Jacob Meuser]

On Sat, Aug 21, 2004 at 08:02:52PM -0700, Garl Grigsby wrote:

> Aug 21 19:42:01.027 no_references: delete from rbt: 0x9774338 
> dbru.br.ns.els-gms.att.NET
> Aug 21 19:42:01.028 no_references: delete from rbt: 0x9774338 
> dmtu.mt.ns.els-gms.att.NET
> Aug 21 19:42:01.028 createfetch: blackbox.com A
> Aug 21 19:42:01.028 createfetch: dbru.br.ns.els-gms.att.net A
> Aug 21 19:42:01.028 createfetch: dmtu.mt.ns.els-gms.att.net A
> Aug 21 19:42:01.030 no_references: delete from rbt: 0x9778170 
> dbru.br.ns.els-gms.att.NET
> Aug 21 19:42:01.030 no_references: delete from rbt: 0x9778170 
> dmtu.mt.ns.els-gms.att.NET
> 
> This particular failure happened when I tried to resolve 
> www.blackbox.com. This problem only seems to happen to lesser known 
> domain names that are not frequently requested. If this happens when 
> using a web browser I typically just get a site not found message. If I 
> hit reload then the site shows up. When using nslookup I get the 
> following behavior:
> 
> H:\>nslookup www.blackbox.com
> Server:  ns1.mydomain.com
> Address:  10.xxx.xxx.xxx
> 
> DNS request timed out.
>    timeout was 2 seconds.
> *** Request to ns1.mydomain.com timed-out

Don't use nslookup, use dig.  dig is a lot more informative, and I
think nslookup is scheduled to be deprecated.

As far as the messages and timeouts, it looks like this comes from a
situation where bind is trying to write to the cache (a red-black tree),
but the cache has a lock on writing.  It might go away after some time
(maybe it's trying to cache too many things at once on startup?).

Check to make sure you're not hitting resource limits.  Possiibly
named's cache is using swap and can't write/release locks fast
enough?

Also, I would suggest not using forwarders (although you don't say
you are, a lot of people do because they think it must be quicker, 
but in my experience, BIND is quicker without.  after all, this is
the software that most of the root servers run ... where are they
going to get info forwarded from?  often ISP nameservers, which would
seem to be sensible forwarders, are swamped with connections to uh,
old Windows installs on dialup.)

-- 
<jakemsr at jakemsr.com>