comp.os.linux.networking

Bennett Haselton wrote:
> DNSStuff.com has a tool called DNSReport that automatically walks
> through all the steps of looking up a hostname, and if something goes
> wrong, tells you exactly where it's going wrong [...]

> The problem is that DNSStuff.com is now charging $80/year for
> DNSReport. Are there any online utilities that do the same thing but
> are still free?

I don't know about online utilities (have you tried spade?), but isn't
this something that dnstracer or dnswalk could do for you?

$ dnstracer -4 www.peacefire.org
Tracing to www.peacefire.org[a] via 127.0.0.1, maximum of 3 retries
127.0.0.1 (127.0.0.1)
|\___ TLD2.ULTRADNS.NET [org] (204.74.113.1)
| |\___ ns1.65537.net [peacefire.org] (69.72.159.12) Got auth ans
| \___ ns2.65537.net [peacefire.org] (65.98.98.152) Got auth ans
|\___ D0.ORG.AFILIAS-NST.org [org] (2001:0500:000f:::::0001) Not queried
|\___ D0.ORG.AFILIAS-NST.org [org] (199.19.57.1)
| |\___ ns2.65537.net [peacefire.org] (65.98.98.152) Got auth ans
| \___ ns1.65537.net [peacefire.org] (69.72.159.12) Got auth ans
|\___ C0.ORG.AFILIAS-NST.INFO [org]
[...]

$ dnswalk -r peacefire.org.
Checking peacefire.org.
Getting zone transfer of peacefire.org. from ns1.65537.net...failed
FAIL: Zone transfer of peacefire.org. from ns1.65537.net failed:
Response code from server: REFUSED
Getting zone transfer of peacefire.org. from ns2.65537.net...done.
SOA=ns1.65535.net contact=rghf.65535.net
WARN: peacefire.org MX backupmx.65537.net: unknown host
WARN: banner.peacefire.org A 65.98.31.174: no PTR record
1 failures, 2 warnings, 0 errors.

Uh, why does ns1 refuse a zone transfer request but ns2 honours it?

Regards,
Chris