"unable to verify existence of nameserver" error

Webcart

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Jan 14, 2004
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I have 2 DA boxes: ns1.webstores.net and ns2.webstores.net.
On the first box, I set up 2 domains via DA control panel and on the 2nd I manually created slave nameserver entries.

If I try for example
nslookup domain.name ns1.webstores.net
I get a correct IP address for domain.name, even though it's preceded by the following
DNS request timed out.
timeout was 2 seconds.
*** Can't find server name for address 66.249.130.7: Timed out
Server: UnKnown
Address: 66.249.130.7

so I guess ns1.webstores.net resolves correctly and DNS is running.

Now, when I try to change nameservers for a domain registered at http://tucows.com/, I get the following error:
Unable to update nameservers: Command failed: unable to verify existence of nameserver ns1.webstores.net
I just had a similar problem with domain registered at http://www.dotster.com, so I guess the problem on my end.

I would appreciate any help on this matter, I am not even sure where to start looking for an answer :confused:.
 
Your nameservers haven't been registered with the registrar who you used to register webstores.net.

webstores.net was registered with bulkregister.com, or one of their resellers. You need to use their interface to register the nameservers (this is NOT the same as assigning nameservers to a domain) before you can assign the nameservers to any domains.

To see what I mean, try the following from your linux prompt:

$ dig @a.gtld-servers.net ns1.ns-one.net

the above will show you what a properly registered nameserver looks like when you do a "dig".

$ dig @a.gtld-servers.net ns1.webstores.net

the above will show you what an unregistered nameserver looks like when you do a dig.

Jeff
 
Thank you very much for your reply, Jeff.

I didn't find anything like "registering nameservers" in the account options, but I found an option of "child nameservers for Webstores.net". Hope it works.

I am a bit confused about the role of that "nameserver registration" thing, though.

If some domain has ns1.webstores.net and ns2.webstores.net as its authorative nameservers and ns1.webstores.net / ns2.webstores.net can be resolved correctly, it looks to me like everything is in place for the whole thing to work :confused: Could you please point me to some good tutorial may be?

Thank you again for all your help.
 
Here's a good thread on the howto:

http://nexusportal.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4823

As for the why...

Look at it this way.

Your domain, conveniently called example.com, uses ns1.example.com and ns2.example.com as it's nameservers.

Now I want to visit example.com, so I type "www.example.com" into my browser.

My browser asks my systems' "resolver" to find the IP# for www.example.com.

The first thing the resolver does is check's it's authoritative nameserver (that's the one I typed in when i setup networking on my machine; it asked me for two nameservers) to see if that nameserver knows.

Since I've no one using that nameserver has ever asked for www.example.com before, it doesn't know. So the nameserver has to find it.

It first queries one of the root servers; in our example, a.root-servers.net.

a.root-servers.net has no idea, either, but it knows that a.gtld-servers.net should know something about www.example.com. So it tells your nameserver to try a.gtld-servers.net.

Your nameserver tries a.gtld-servers.net.

a.gtld-servers.net knows that www.example.com has two nameservers (those are the nameservers that show up when you use the "whois" command. For the purpose of our example they're ns1.example.com and ns2.example.com.

However the gtld-servers.net nameservers don't know the IP#s. They only know the name of the servers, ns1.example.com, and ns2.example.com. So that's what they report to your nameserver.

Now your nameserver starts the whole process again, this time looking for ns1.example.com instead of ns2.example.com.

Of course it has the same problem, so it eventually times out.

BUT...

If you register your nameserver with the registrar who registered your domain, then the gltd-servers nameservers will also have some "glue" records (extra A records) for your nameservers, and can tell them to your nameserver at the same time it tells them the names of the nameservers to use.

Job done!

To keep the problem from occurring, many registrars won't let you use a nameserver that hasn't been registered.

Some will, because it makes registration easier; you can do everything on the same day.

I like the latter, because I know I have to register the nameservers. For people who don't know, such as you, before today, the former is a better model.

Jeff
 
Jeff, thank you very much for the explanation, I feel less confused now.

So, basically, "registering" nameservers simply creates a glue record at the parent servers, right?

I guess I never had to deal with this before because I never use ns1.example.com and ns2.example.com as authorative nameservers for example.com, so I could always live without glue records :rolleyes:

Thanks again!
 
Webcart said:
Jeff, thank you very much for the explanation, I feel less confused now.
Thank you <blush>.
So, basically, "registering" nameservers simply creates a glue record at the parent servers, right?
Yes.
I guess I never had to deal with this before because I never use ns1.example.com and ns2.example.com as authorative nameservers for example.com, so I could always live without glue records :rolleyes:
But hopefully someone did for the nameservers you were using :) .

Jeff
 
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