Re: DNS question

[Jens Knoell <jens@surefoot.com>]

On Tuesday 10 May 2005 09:23, Chuck Campbell <CC> wrote:
> On Tue, May 10, 2005 at 09:14:50AM -0600, Jens Knoell wrote:
> > Hi Chuck,
> >
> > On Tuesday 10 May 2005 09:01, Chuck Campbell <CC> wrote:
> > > I've managed to completely confuse myself.
> > >
> > > I have a domain registered at a registrar and hosted at a provider.
> > >
> > > The provider has given me primary and secondary DNS names and ip
> > > addresses.
> > >
> > > I have entered those at the registrar's site. All whois queries work
> > > and email is configured and working properly.  I can find the web site
> > > from anyone's browser.
> > >
> > > I now have a new company which has built commercial web pages for me,
> > > and I need to make them active.  This company says I need to change my
> > > DNS addresses with my registrar to make this work.  Is this correct? 
> > > They will then take over hosting the domain (become my NEW provider)?
> > >
> > > They do NOT do any email, so if I make the DNS server changes at my
> > > registrar, will my email break?
> > >
> > > If not, then I'm not sure I understand how any of this works.
> > >
> > > I thought that my provider (ISP) puts up A and MX DNS records which
> > > allow resolution of my web pages and my email addresses.  If I switch
> > > to a new provider that claims to not do email, who will make my email
> > > work?
> >
> > That provider is probably giving you a load of BS. I've seen providers
> > who actually "need" the DNS resolvers on their servers, but in each case
> > it's just a matter of total utter BS on their side. The only thing you
> > need to do is point the www entry to the providers webserver.
>
> Who (in my current situation) needs to point the www entry?  I assume you
> mean my current provider needs to change something to point web resolution
> to a different address?  What (so I can speak intelligently with them)
> needs to be changed?
>
> > Alternatively if you'd rather play along and transfer the domains
> > nameservice to them, you can still add an MX entry pointing elsewhere if
> > they don't provide email services.
>
> I can't add an MX for email, the (new) provider would have to do that,
> correct?
>
> Are there some tools which let me see what A and MX records exist now, and
> where they actually are living?

Depends on the DNS setup. You can look up individual records with dig (like 
in: dig yahoo.com NS) or you can use the regular "host" command like so:

host -t NS yahoo.com
host -t MX yahoo.com
or plain:
host yahoo.com

in rare cases you can also grab the whole DNS table by using:
dig @ns.yahoo.com yahoo.com AXFR
where you put in any of the nameservers which are authoritative for the 
yahoo.com domain. Most DNS servers have this disabled though.

Hope this helps
J