[ale] Finding your name server?

[oloryn at mindspring.com (Ben Coleman)]

Ken Nagorski wrote:
> 
> Hi there,
> 
>         As far as nameservers go it doens't really matter. Any nameserver
> will do.

Not really.  If a nameserver has recursion turned off (which is a good
idea for a nameserver that exists solely to resolve a site's zones for
the rest of the world), your resolver won't be able to use it.

> I just went and did a whois on bellsouth.com and I got these two
> nameserver.
> 
>    Name Server: IOCEXTDNS1.BLS.COM
>    Name Server: IOCEXTDNS2.BLS.COM

These happen to work (they do recursion), but I wouldn't depend on being
able to point my resolver to nameservers obtained from whois or from
nslookup.  The servers that whois tells you about are the ones that may
very well have recursion turned off (or may have a sysadmin turn off
recursion on them if heavy outside usage is noticed).  It's better to
call your ISP's tech support and get the addresses from them, or to get
them via pppd's 'usepeerdns' option.  Or just to run your own local
caching-only nameserver (or two).

Ben
-- 
Ben Coleman oloryn at mindspring.com    | The attempt to legislatively
http://oloryn.home.mindspring.com/   | micromanage equality results, at
Amateur Radio NJ8J                   | best, in equal misery for all.
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