I had intermittent failures to resolve whois.arin.net today, and haven't bothered to investigate this until now: someone please forward this to an after-hours person at ARIN, hostmaster@arin.net will probably not be read for a while. Reason: BUCHU.arin.net. 3H IN A 192.100.59.110 arrowroot.arin.net. 3H IN A 198.133.199.110 are both not returning any A record for 'whois.arin.net' $ dig +norec @a.gtld-servers.net arin.net ns ;; ANSWER SECTION: arin.net. 2D IN NS l3.nstld.com. arin.net. 2D IN NS a3.nstld.com. arin.net. 2D IN NS c3.nstld.com. arin.net. 2D IN NS f3.nstld.com. arin.net. 2D IN NS g3.nstld.com. arin.net. 2D IN NS buchu.arin.net. arin.net. 2D IN NS arrowroot.arin.net. All *.nstld.com servers respond with: whois.arin.net. 3H IN A 192.149.252.43 The zone serials are consistent: ;; ANSWER SECTION: arin.net. 3H IN SOA arrowroot.arin.net. bind.arin.net. ( 2003061812 ; serial 3H ; refresh 10M ; retry 2W ; expiry 1H ) ; minimum However, buchu and arrowroot.arin.net BOTH answer very oddly when queried for an SOA: they are returning an A record for arin.net - not quite what was asked for! $ dig +norec @198.133.199.110 arin.net soa ; <<>> DiG 8.2 <<>> +norec @198.133.199.110 arin.net soa ; (1 server found) ;; res options: init defnam dnsrch ;; got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 1426 ;; flags: qr aa; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 10, ADDITIONAL: 2 ;; QUERY SECTION: ;; arin.net, type = SOA, class = IN ;; ANSWER SECTION: arin.net. 3H IN A 192.149.252.17 ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: arin.net. 3H IN NS L3.NSTLD.COM. arin.net. 3H IN NS G3.NSTLD.COM. arin.net. 3H IN NS F3.NSTLD.COM. arin.net. 3H IN NS E3.NSTLD.COM. arin.net. 3H IN NS D3.NSTLD.COM. arin.net. 3H IN NS C3.NSTLD.COM. arin.net. 3H IN NS BUCHU.arin.net. arin.net. 3H IN NS B3.NSTLD.COM. arin.net. 3H IN NS arrowroot.arin.net. arin.net. 3H IN NS A3.NSTLD.COM. ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION: arrowroot.arin.net. 3H IN A 198.133.199.110 BUCHU.arin.net. 3H IN A 192.100.59.110 ;; Total query time: 17 msec ;; FROM: sonet.conti.nu to SERVER: 198.133.199.110 ;; WHEN: Mon Sep 8 18:34:11 2003 ;; MSG SIZE sent: 26 rcvd: 263 However, an 'any' query yields: $ dig +norec @198.133.199.110 arin.net any ; <<>> DiG 8.2 <<>> +norec @198.133.199.110 arin.net any ; (1 server found) ;; res options: init defnam dnsrch ;; got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 55882 ;; flags: qr aa; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 16, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 4 ;; QUERY SECTION: ;; arin.net, type = ANY, class = IN ;; ANSWER SECTION: arin.net. 3H IN SOA arrowroot.arin.net. bind.arin.net. ( 2003061812 ; serial 3H ; refresh 10M ; retry 2W ; expiry 1H ) ; minimum arin.net. 3H IN A 192.149.252.17 arin.net. 3H IN MX 10 smtp2.arin.net. arin.net. 3H IN MX 20 smtp1.arin.net. arin.net. 3H IN NS L3.NSTLD.COM. arin.net. 3H IN NS G3.NSTLD.COM. arin.net. 3H IN NS F3.NSTLD.COM. arin.net. 3H IN NS E3.NSTLD.COM. arin.net. 3H IN NS D3.NSTLD.COM. arin.net. 3H IN MX 40 cumin.apnic.net. arin.net. 3H IN NS C3.NSTLD.COM. arin.net. 3H IN NS BUCHU.arin.net. arin.net. 3H IN NS B3.NSTLD.COM. arin.net. 3H IN MX 30 aso.icann.org. arin.net. 3H IN NS arrowroot.arin.net. arin.net. 3H IN NS A3.NSTLD.COM. ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION: smtp2.arin.net. 3H IN A 192.149.252.32 smtp1.arin.net. 3H IN A 192.149.252.33 arrowroot.arin.net. 3H IN A 198.133.199.110 BUCHU.arin.net. 3H IN A 192.100.59.110 ;; Total query time: 117 msec ;; FROM: sonet.conti.nu to SERVER: 198.133.199.110 ;; WHEN: Mon Sep 8 18:36:01 2003 ;; MSG SIZE sent: 26 rcvd: 437 The *.nstld.com servers are answering to these queries in normal fashion. bye,Kai -- "Just say No" to Spam Kai Schlichting New York, Palo Alto, You name it Sophisticated Technical Peon Kai's SpamShield <tm> is FREE! http://www.SpamShield.org | | LeasedLines-FrameRelay-IPLs-ISDN-PPP-Cisco-Consulting-VoiceFax-Data-Muxes WorldWideWebAnything-Intranets-NetAdmin-UnixAdmin-Security-ReallyHardMath