DNS, SOA, and scripts

[Kelly Prescott]

When you lookup SOA records, *** DO NOT USE WWW BEFORE THE NAME***
hospital.com does, in fact, have a SOA record.
The registries use the "www" name on there signup screens, because it is 
what people expect to see...  They actually "strip" www from your queries 
when you check domain availability.
for a more detailed explaination, see the orieley dns book.
Here is the dig query for hospital.com below.


; <<>> DiG 9.2.3 <<>> soa hospital.com
;; global options:  printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 38077
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;hospital.com.			IN	SOA

;; ANSWER SECTION:
hospital.com.		14387	IN	SOA	ns1.medibuy.com. hostmaster.medibuy.com. 2005041401 14400 3600 604800 3600

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
hospital.com.		14387	IN	NS	ns1.medibuy.com.
hospital.com.		14387	IN	NS	ns2.medibuy.com.

;; Query time: 73 msec
;; SERVER: 65.17.128.7#53(65.17.128.7)
;; WHEN: Tue May 24 21:02:52 2005
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 121