[thelist] Arguing with my ISP over DNS problem

Bob Haroche spambait at onpointsolutions.com
Tue Aug 10 23:03:04 CDT 2004


I'm having an issue with my development server which I host myself. In
a nutshell, anyone who's not a customer of my local ISP (Sonic.net)
can see my web site. Any customer who is a Sonic.net customer can not.
Everything worked fine only 7-10 days ago, then this issue started. I
think it's a Sonic DNS cache issue; they say it's not. Here are the
details:

URL: www.onpointsolutions.net
OS: Win2k Pro
Web Server: Apache 1.3.29
DNS Server: SimpleDNS
IP: 208.201.246.18

When connected through my Sonic ISP (using dial up outside my LAN), I
can ping and tracert my IP, and view my web site via
http://208.201.246.18. However, I cannot view, ping or tracert my
domain name. I get no response whatsoever.

I host my own DNS record. When I run a whois on onpointsolutions.net,
I receive the following from
Gandi.net, the registrar:

 Domain Name: ONPOINTSOLUTIONS.NET
   Registrar: GANDI
   Whois Server: whois.gandi.net
   Referral URL: http://www.gandi.net
   Name Server: NS1.ONPOINTSOLUTIONS.NET
   Name Server: NS2.ONPOINTSOLUTIONS.NET

When I login to my Gandi.net account and look at my DNS record, it
shows:

ns1.onpointsolutions.net  208.201.246.18
ns2.onpointsolutions.net  208.201.246.18

(both those numbers correctly identify my office computer which also
runs the web server -- I know it's not good practice to use the same
box for both nameservers but this is only a testing web server).

Similarly I check my dns here:

www.dnsreport.com/tools/dnsreport.ch?domain=onpointsolutions.net

and among other things, it reports:

<quote>

ns1.onpointsolutions.net. [208.201.246.18] [TTL=172800] [US]
ns2.onpointsolutions.net. [208.201.246.18] [TTL=172800] [US]
[These were obtained from a.gtld-servers.net]

</quote>

Now, Sonic feels "confident" that the issue is either my DNS record or
my ipcop firewall. I don't think it's my firewall because non-Sonic
customers can view www.onpointsolutions.net just fine, and I'm not
blocking any IP's at the firewall. PLUS, Sonic's own tech support can
see another domain I host behind the same firewall. As for a problem
with the DNS record, here that is:

@ 7200 IN SOA ns1 hostmaster.onpointsolutions.com. (
     2004081003    ; Serial number
     7200          ; Refresh
     3600          ; Retry
     777600        ; Expire
     3600        ) ; Minimum TTL
  NS ns1
  A 208.201.246.18
  NS ns2
ns1  A 208.201.246.18
www  CNAME @
ftp  A 208.201.246.18
ns2  A 208.201.246.18

A query of dnsreport.com doesn't indicate any problem having a bearing
on this issue.

Finally, if you query two of Sonic's DNS servers, ns1.sonic.net or
ns2.sonic.net, for onpointsolutions.net
you get an error message about it not being found.

Now I'm not claiming to be a DNS guru by any means, but all of the
above seems to me at least to indicate that it's that the ISP's DNS
cache or routing tables that are in error. This would not be the first
time that would be the case. Yet they are apparently unwilling to
consider that possibility.

Is there anything else I can do to test whether the problem is on my
end or on the ISP's? Thanks in advance.

-------------
Regards,
Bob Haroche
O n P o i n t  S o l u t i o n s
www.OnPointSolutions.com





More information about the thelist mailing list