nslookup and reverse lookup failure of nameserver under 5.2-RELEASE

[Matthew Fremont]

While doing some post-install config on a new
5.2-RELEASE system, I encountered a problem where
nslookup fails because it isn't able to perform a
successful reverse lookup of the DNS server's IP.

For example:

$ nslookup www.freebsd.org
*** Can't find server name for address 172.16.0.1:
Non-existent host/domain
*** Can't find server name for address ::: No response
from server
*** Default servers are not available
$

An attempt to use nslookup in interactive mode also
fails, producing the same error messages.

172.16.0.1 is Netgear WGR614 router/firewall that, by
default, runs a DNS server (not sure whether it is
caching or just forwarding). There is no apparent way
to add records to the DNS on the WGR614, so the lookup
of the nameserver's IP will always fail.

The nameserver is working properly, and commands like
dig(1), host(1), telnet(1), and ftp(1), are able to
sucessfully resolve names. The problem appears to be
isolated to nslookup(8).

If memory serves me correctly, at some time in the
past nslookup handled a reverse lookup failure of the
server more gracefully, identifying the server as
"Unknown", and continuing with the query.

Is the behavior in 5.2-RELEASE a bug or a feature?


Matthew

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