lynx failure....

[Michael Powell]

Gary Kline wrote:

> Guys, this is what I see both here on my desktop, and on a
> remote server, magnesium.net.  Using lynx:
> 
> 
> Looking up www.thought.org
> Unable to locate remote host www.thought.org.
> Alert!: Unable to connect to remote host.
> 
> lynx: Can't access startfile http://www.thought.org/
> p6 0:03 <toxic>
> [3]
> 
> 
> Obviously, something is wrong with how my new DBS, mAil, and
> web server, ethic, is configurated.  Can anybody help me here?
> 

A Dig output from my location: Your DNS is somewhat screwed up.

; <<>> DiG 9.6.1-P1 <<>> www.thought.org
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 21126
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.thought.org.               IN      A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.thought.org.        38299   IN      CNAME   aristotle.thought.org.

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
thought.org.            10700   IN      SOA     ethic.thought.org. 
hostmaster.thought.org. 2009120801 10800 3600 604800 38400

;; Query time: 1 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.10.1#53(192.168.10.1)
;; WHEN: Sat Dec 12 03:32:48 2009
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 110

I'm certainly no DNS expert. I also have no clue as to how you are 
configuring your DNS. So any comments will be along the lines of text 
editing zone files for BIND. Here is an example of a zone file for my 
internal LAN (a public zone will have different information, but the 
structure should be similar enough for example purposes.


--------------------------------------------------------------------
$TTL	3600
test.zip.	IN	SOA	server.test.zip. testuser at test.zip.  (
				20090614; Serial
				10800	; Refresh
				3600	; Retry
				604800	; Expire
				86400 )	; Minimum
;DNS Servers

	IN	NS	server.test.zip.

;MX Records

	IN	MX	1	server.test.zip.


;Hosts

server			IN	A	192.168.10.1
workstation		IN	A	192.168.10.2
testbed			IN	A	192.168.10.3


;nicknames
static			IN	A	192.168.10.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Notice the SOA starts with the domain, here it would be thought.org. See the 
"test.zip." in the above? Period included. Try and use an "A" record instead 
of CNAME. In any case, you will need an "A" record which contains the IP 
address of your server. In the Dig above there is nothing to indicate any IP 
address for the hostname you are trying to resolve.

This is just a quickie to get you looking in maybe the right direction; 
there are others on the list who have much more smarts about DNS than 
myself. I'm just around at odd hours, so take a look and wait a bit for the 
smarter people. Also remember when you make changes update the Serial number 
so zone transfers will propagate, and remember the TTL, refresh, retry, etc 
parameters will mean any change will take time to propagate.

-Mike