Re: [44net] Bad MX records in the ampr.org DNS

We allow complex hostnames in the left hand side of the master AMPR.ORG DNS servers, so it's quite possible to have names like those above as the LHS of A or CNAME or MX records. Because you can do this and because callsigns are unique worldwide, we usually don't need subdomains and delegated name service. One reason we don't allow arbitrary NS records is the issue of reverse lookups - the corresponding PTR records. When you register a name such as 'yt9tp' as an 'A' record in the AMPR.ORG domain, we automatically generate the corresponding PTR record in the 44.in-addr reverse domain. If we delegated e.g., yt9tp to another nameserver, we would not be able to generate the proper PTR record, and neither would they. I don't like the idea of there not being a corresponding PTR record for each A record; I believe that is poor networking practice and strongly discourage it. It would require delegating arbitrary parts of the 44.in-addr domain, which is a whole bag of worms I don't like to do without a really good reason. Depending on delegation width, it can be a painful process requiring significant manual intervention in the DNS database so I do it only for exceptional cases involving directly-routed subnets. There are seven AMPR.ORG and 44.in-addr DNS servers located around the world. The chance that all of them will be down at once is close to zero. We allow people to AXFR their content so it is perfectly possible to have a redundant DNS server on your local net which can answer queries regarding those zones even if you are partitioned from the Internet somehow. (Although if you really need your DNS resolution to work in the face of disconnection from the rest of the Internet, you'll possibly need to supply your own cache of the root and .ORG servers as well - depends on how your DNS server does its lookups.) - Brian