Eight guides following a query's path: resolution, authority, replication between servers, DNSSEC, time to live, monitoring and delegation troubleshooting. Every statement points to an RFC or to a vendor's documentation.
2026-10-20
From the resolver on the workstation to the root servers, resolving a name follows a path laid out by RFC 1034 and 1035. The role of each player, the difference between recursive and iterative, where the cache fits, and when TCP comes into play.
2026-10-20
SOA, NS, glue records and delegation at the parent: the parts of an authoritative DNS zone, their respective roles and the checks to run before putting the server into service.
2026-10-20
Primary, secondary, full and incremental transfers, change notification: how a zone replicates between servers, how to authorise it and how to verify that the copy is up to date.
2026-10-20
What a secondary protects and what it propagates, the recommendations of RFC 2182 on the number and placement of servers, and the operational points to watch so that a copy stays useful.
2026-10-20
Keys, signatures and DS records: how DNSSEC guarantees the integrity of a response, how the chain of trust is built, and what an administrator must watch in order not to break resolution.
2026-10-20
The TTL is a lifetime, not a propagation delay. Who keeps a copy, how to prepare a change without downtime, and why resolvers can sometimes serve expired data.
2026-10-20
Which traces to produce, how to enable them without filling the disk, which metrics to watch, and what a query log implies in terms of personal data.
2026-10-20
Lame delegation, missing glue, diverging NS sets, CNAME forbidden at the apex: the most common errors described by RFC 1912, and the verification sequence that isolates them.
Check a domain name live: the DNS test tool. DNS server operations: managed DNS operations.