Re: Domain oddity - possibly early warning...

[Matt Larson <mlarson () verisign com>]

On Tue, 25 Mar 2003, Rodney Joffe wrote:
> We've noticed something we've never noticed before that became evident
> at 14:00 today...  and which could be an isolated glitch at
> Verisign/Netsol, or it could be a sign of a larger problem looming.

Or perhaps it could be the result of perfectly normal operations.

> The domain utclassifieds.com is answered as NXDOMAIN in the
> gtld-servers.

[dig output deleted]

> However it has a whois record at networksolutions, but it has no
> nameservers in the whois record. And the domain is valid and expires in
> July 2003.

This behavior is normal.  The owning registrar for this domain,
Network Solutions, removed both name servers during the evening (EST)
of 24 March.  A domain with no name servers is a legal state in the
com/net registry database.  In such a case, however, the domain does
not appear in the com/net zones.  (How could it--it has no name
servers.)  The domain was again modified during the evening (EST) of
25 March, when two name servers were added.  It was therefore included
in the com zone with SOA serial 2003032600.

This is a good opportunity to point out the separation between
VeriSign Global Registry Services (VGRS), the registry for com/net,
and the various ICANN-accredited registrars, including Network
Solutions.  VGRS makes whatever changes requested by registrars to
domains they own.  In this case, we just see that the name servers
were removed and re-added a day later.  Presumably Network Solutions
took this action based on customer instructions, but you'd have to ask
them.

Matt
--
Matt Larson <mlarson () verisign com>
VeriSign Global Registry Services