Glue records (was Re: ATTN GARY KLINE)

[Jonathan McKeown]

On Friday 05 November 2010 22:51:01 Robert Bonomi wrote:
> > From owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org  Fri Nov  5 02:26:31 2010
> > From: Jonathan McKeown <j.mckeown at ru.ac.za>
> > To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> > Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2010 10:27:38 +0200
> > Subject: Glue records (was Re: ATTN GARY KLINE)
> >
> > When a nameserver delegates a zone, it's not responsible for any of that
> > zone's records any more, with two exceptions. It provides NS records to
> > indicate which nameservers /are/ responsible, and it retains
> > responsibility for the A records of nameservers inside the zone - and
> > only those nameservers. (That's glue.)
> >
> > There's no way a .com nameserver should be providing A records for hosts
> > in the .au zone.
>
> sure there is.
>
>    Domain:  foo.com  (an aussie company)
>       nameservers   ns1.alicesprings.au, ns2.umelbourneatperth.au

I think we're agreeing violently ;) The nameservers for the .com zone, when 
asked about foo.com, should reply with the hostnames of the two nameservers. 
It shouldn't reply with their IP addresses; the only nameservers that can do 
that are the ones serving the .au zone or the alicesprings.au and 
umelbourneatperth.au zones.

> They're still wrong to bw whinging about a lack o glue records.
> glue is needed _only_ when the nameserver is _in_ the domain it is the
> authoritative servr for.
>
> So, in the above frivolous example, foo.com does *NOT* need any glue
> records, but if ns1.alicesprings.au is an authoritative server for
> alicesprings.au, then *it* needs a glue record for that domain.

Well, the glue record will be ``above the cut'': if .au delegates 
alicesprings.au, it's the .au nameserver that provides the A record for 
ns1.alicesprings.au; but, yes.