Tools for debugging DNS fuckup-ery

If you have a hang-over, and you are trying to show someone who is not a command-line freak, why their web-site is down for DNS reasons, you can do worse than this on-line graphical tool;
http://www.zonecut.net/dns/

Looks to have been setup by Bjorn Isaksson some time in the ancient past internet terms, i.e. before last Tuesday.




(This is a dump of some of my notes)

To see the delegation from the root servers on the console;

$ dig limepepper.co.uk +trace

; <<>> DiG 9.8.2rc2-RedHat-9.8.2-0.4.rc2.fc16 <<>> limepepper.co.uk +trace
;; global options: +cmd
.                       366885  IN      NS      d.root-servers.net.

...
limepepper.co.uk.       172800  IN      NS      ns2.123-reg.co.uk.
;; Received 77 bytes from 194.83.244.131#53(194.83.244.131) in 57 ms

limepepper.co.uk.       86400   IN      A       209.135.157.202
;; Received 50 bytes from 92.51.159.40#53(92.51.159.40) in 36 ms



When you don't recognise some IP address in your log files, find which organisation it is assigned to;

$ whois 209.135.157.202 | grep Name
NetName:        INLINK97
OrgName:        InLink Communications Company
OrgAbuseName:   Primary IP Admin
OrgTechName:   No, Contact Known
RAbuseName:   Primary IP Admin
NetName:        ROSEHOSTING-209-135-157
OrgName:        Rose Web Services LLC

Reverse lookup IP;

$ dig -x 209.135.157.202 +short
vs802.rosehosting.com.