RE: [cobalt-users] dns and nameservers

[flash22@xxxxxxx]

On Sun, 15 Apr 2001, Jim Carey wrote:

> Bill Feldman wrote:
> >  HOWEVER by practice most commonly
> > used browsers will only look for the primary, and if it fails to respond
> > then the browser will send  to the user an error response rather than look
> > further for the secondary, etc name servers.
> 
> 
> so if the first nameserver it tries isn't available then it gives up ? not
> good !

um, no, browsers are supposed to be asking local nameservers...
assuming it asks
the user's ISP's nameserver, that nameserver should be following RFC'c and
making multiple queries as necessary...bind certainly will, in addition it
should cache the result, so if your server is down for 30 seconds it won't
matter. However, there is a slight perverse case, and that's email,
often email arrives out of the blue from a machine that has not made a
query to your machine lately, and requires a dns response from your
nameserver, in which case , yes, it's important you exist...even at that
mail asks the local nameserver(s) via the local resolver...so
secondary,tertiary nameservers ahould be included in the queries.

gsh