Given #1: I'm quite ignorant as to how to be my own nameserver. Given #2: I want to do it anyway. Given #3: I am learning, slowly. Given #4: My goal is a custom Dynamic DNS service that I control completely (changing coolaj86.com to use my DNS service is just part of the testing process).
First problem that I see is that coolaj86.com uses NS records that are > not in-bailiwick (e.g. ns1.redirect-www.org; and yes, I realize this is > common practice, but it doesn't mean it's best practice) which adds > latency to first time lookup of your domain. I don't understand what *in-bailiwick* means. >From context and a little bit of googling I think that means "If you're running a .org, everything in the chain should be .org and not bounce between .com, .org, .net, etc". > Second, the NS delgations > are in the .org domain which is notoriously slow for a resolver to look > up (primarily because it also uses a lot of not in-bailiwick NS > delegations). I like using ns1.redirect-www.org because it's a junk domain that won't have any dynamic domains dangling from it. I also have foobar3000.com, helloworld3000.com, hellabit.com, and a few others, but I plan to use them with dynamic subdomains. This raises another question: dig ns1.google.com @ns1.google.com dig google.com @ns1.google.com How is it that google.com claims authority for itself? Could I host the records for ns1.hellabit.com on hellabit.com? On name.com (my registrar) I don't seem to have the option of putting in an IP address. It looks like I *must* use ns1.hellabit.com - but that would mean that I couldn't serve the record for ns1.hellabit.com from ns1.hellabit.com. Is this a limitation of name.com? Or am I supposed to seed out ns1.hellabit.com using name.com's nameservers and then switch my nameserver for my nameserver to be itself after it has propagated? Third, lookup for ns1.redirect-www.org requires yet more > delegations to .com to resolve (e.g. to resolve ns1.redirect-www.org, a > resolver must start over again and lookup ns1.name.com). I think I need to understand better the 1st two points and then I'll understand what to do here. > And fourth, > name.com apparently uses another not in-bailiwick to .net via Akamai > (e.g. NS delegations for name.com have usw1.akam.net; which is again not > in-bailiwick), another service notorious for messing with DNS in ways > that make unfriendly gestures to DNS resolvers. So a DNS resolvers is > crossing all kinds of zone boundaries (.org, .net, .com, and .info) just > to lookup A coolaj86.com. > Sounds like bad-news-bears all the way around. It sounds like if I could do what google does and be my own authority, this problem would go away, yes? > > Keep in mind that the more delegations that happen, the more things that > have to be cached by the DNS resolver (and consquently, the more things > that could potentially get out of sync due to various TTLs on records). > For example, you have a small TTL on coolaj86.com, which might make it > nice for the hosting provider if they move your domain around a lot on > their infrastructure, but it does mean that if their DNS servers have a > hiccup, folks who visited the website just 301 seconds ago, will > suddenly get an error that the host cannot be found. If it had a larger > TTL, it could be cached longer by DNS resolvers. > The TTL for coolaj86.com could be much longer without issue, but I will be using dyndns for other domains and subdomains, so I'll just have to accept the risk here, I think. AJ ONeal /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
