Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Programming Discussion : Programming Tutorials : Error: No username in SOA

[XinXang]

Hi,

I'm setting up my webhosting company to be able to take Dutch registrations, that's .nl but the Netherlands has pretty strict rules regarding domain requests (every name has it's own individual request which has to be hand signed by the host for example.)

Also I can't request the name unless it's already completely setup in my server. Ok, so this is a good exercise for my knowledge of the server setup, since all my other TLDs are running through ModernBill and I don't have to make the setup manually in Web Host Manager which is the software that's running on my servers.

Now I get this error back from the registrar saying I've got some kind of no contact username error in my SOA and I can't go any further with requesting the domain until this DNS error is resolved. does anyone know how and where do I fix that in Web Host Manager?

I went into my WHM into edit DNS zones and found some reference to SOA and also the possiblity to add contact username (or something.) I did and tried my application again but it still didn't work.

How does this with contact username SOA thing work?

[XinXang]

anyone using Web Host Manager who knows how I add the contact name in SOA? It's a DNS issue.

[giraffedata]

Unfortunately, I don't know Web Host Manager, but I think anyone who does would want to see what the SOA record looks like now -- i.e. what the registrar is rejecting.

For that, you should tell us the host name of your DNS server and the domain name you're trying to register. Then we can do a DNS query and see what it gets.

[XinXang]

my nameserver is ns1.dinkuhosting.com
the domain is shivrenvanbraak.nl

[giraffedata]

Though I still don't have the least ability to tell you how to fix this in Web Host Manager, I can at least confirm that your name server lists root@localhost as the contact address for shivrenvanbraak.nl. And I too would call that an invalid email address. (It would probably work for mail sent from within your server, but that's hardly adequate!)

[XinXang]

ok, i'll make some adjustments and come back when i've got something new, then you can tell me if you see the changes.

What are you using to check the domain?

[giraffedata]

I used the 'dig' program from a Linux command shell.

But there are also web services for this. I just found http://www.kloth.net/services/nslookup.php. It looks great.

Warning: in a raw SOA record (which is what Kloth displays), the email address has a period where you would normally have an @ sign. (It's a limitation of DNS that you can't have an @ sign there).

As this domain is not yet in the root name servers, be sure to direct any query explicitly to your name server. No other name server will know anything about it.

[XinXang]

Ok, so here's where i editted the dns zone for shivrenvanbraak.nl

Does this look right now?



By they way I notice that ALL my domains, even the .com and .net and .org ones that work have root.localhost. as the administrator contact email in this field of the SOA

[giraffedata]

That looks great to me. But I see that's not what's actually in the name server at the moment (nor is it root.localhost like it was before). I guess you've been playing with it.

All your domains are this way because it's apparently the default that this tool uses. You said before that the Dutch registry is more picky than others, so that explains why they insist you have your SOA record right and the others don't. A good contact address in the SOA record has nothing to do with whether name lookups work -- it's just a good idea. And apparently enforced by this particular registry.

You should fix the others, just to be a good citizen.

[XinXang]

thanks giraffedata, well i've learned something here thanks to your help and a little investigative work. i'll update the rest, try to learn more about this, and spread the word to those that come after me...

Cheers!

But oh,yeah - how are you checking it? Where are you looking this info up exactly?

[giraffedata]

I guess you missed my post from March 6 16:13. I think I answered that question.

[XinXang]

(weird, didn't see that post there earlier.) Kloth.net's pretty cool.

This is what I get from Kloth.net when i do an nslookup and type in the IP address of my nameserver. If I type in ns1.dinkuhosting.com kloth.net can't find my nameserver.

DNS server handling your query: 209.59.140.178
DNS server's address: 209.59.140.178#53

shivrenvanbraak.nl mail exchanger = 0 shivrenvanbraak.nl.
shivrenvanbraak.nl
origin = ns1.dinkuhosting.com.
mail addr = shivren.shivrenvanbraak.nl.shivrenvanbraak.nl.
serial = 2005030203
refresh = 14400
retry = 7200
expire = 3600000
minimum = 86400
shivrenvanbraak.nl nameserver = ns2.dinkuhosting.com.
shivrenvanbraak.nl nameserver = ns1.dinkuhosting.com.
Name: shivrenvanbraak.nl
Address: 209.59.140.178


And this is the result of a 'dig'



; <<>> DiG 9.1.3 <<>> @209.59.140.178 shivrenvanbraak.nl ANY
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 11169
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 5, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;shivrenvanbraak.nl. IN ANY

;; ANSWER SECTION:
shivrenvanbraak.nl. 14400 IN MX 0 shivrenvanbraak.nl.
shivrenvanbraak.nl. 14440 IN SOA ns1.dinkuhosting.com. shivren.shivrenvanbraak.nl.shivrenvanbraak.nl. 2005030203 14400 7200 3600000 86400
shivrenvanbraak.nl. 14400 IN NS ns1.dinkuhosting.com.
shivrenvanbraak.nl. 14400 IN NS ns2.dinkuhosting.com.
shivrenvanbraak.nl. 14400 IN A 209.59.140.178

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
shivrenvanbraak.nl. 14400 IN A 209.59.140.178

;; Query time: 133 msec
;; SERVER: 209.59.140.178#53(209.59.140.178)
;; WHEN: Sun Mar 6 23:03:27 2005
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 199

by the way the domain has gone through successfully with the Dutch registrar, but i'm still a bit suspicious of the mail address...

[giraffedata]

Kloth.net can't find ns1.dinkuhosting.com for me either. But it can find my name server and I can find ns1.dinkuhosting.com just fine. I guess DNS is broken somewhere.

The SOA contact name is wrong. I guess it looks good enough to fool the registrar, but no one would be able to contact the administrator with it.

There's a trick here. Name servers add the domain name to the end of everything. So what you want to fill in for contact address is just "shivren". Sorry I didn't see that before.

When you have to have an address not in your domain, (like the old root@localhost), you can add a period to the end of the name and that tells the name server not to add the domain name to it.