DNS problem with NASA.gov?

[#1]

I am getting a "Can't find the server" error when trying to get to the NASA site. But access through my phone, on 3G (not Plusnet) is fine, so I'm wondering if there is some DNS problem at your end?

[#2]

working fine here on a PN connection using OpenDNS

[#3]

It's odd - I can reach any other US site. Not a cache problem because it fails on another browser that I don't normally use except for testing.

[#4]

Safari tells me it can't find the site, using Plusnet DNS.

[#5]

Also failing here using Plusnet DNS

[#6]

looks like it's *another* PN DNS issue rather than a routing issue..

[#7]

[tt]dig @212.159.6.9 nasa.gov
; <<>> DiG 9.10.3-RedHat-9.10.3-1.fc23 <<>> @212.159.6.9 nasa.gov
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 13888
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1
;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;nasa.gov. IN A
;; Query time: 694 msec
;; SERVER: 212.159.6.9#53(212.159.6.9)
;; WHEN: Fri Oct 02 21:37:36 BST 2015
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 37[/tt]
Also SERVFAIL responses looking up ns1.nasa.gov, ns2.nasa.gov, ns3.nasa.gov which should be 198.116.4.189, 198.116.4.185, 198.116.4.181 (unfortunately the routing to those three servers looks identical: Plusnet -> BT.net -> Level 3 -> nasa).

[#8]

It's working now.

[#9]

Just tried to get here and failed http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/panoply/

[#10]

I think the whole nasa.gov domain is broken (SERVFAIL responses) on Plusnet again.

$ dig +trace nasa.gov
; <<>> DiG 9.10.3-RedHat-9.10.3-1.fc23 <<>> +trace nasa.gov
;; global options: +cmd
.			513205	IN	NS	h.root-servers.net.
.			513205	IN	NS	b.root-servers.net.
.			513205	IN	NS	l.root-servers.net.
.			513205	IN	NS	k.root-servers.net.
.			513205	IN	NS	e.root-servers.net.
.			513205	IN	NS	j.root-servers.net.
.			513205	IN	NS	f.root-servers.net.
.			513205	IN	NS	i.root-servers.net.
.			513205	IN	NS	c.root-servers.net.
.			513205	IN	NS	g.root-servers.net.
.			513205	IN	NS	a.root-servers.net.
.			513205	IN	NS	d.root-servers.net.
.			513205	IN	NS	m.root-servers.net.
;; Received 397 bytes from 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1) in 113 ms
gov.			172800	IN	NS	b.gov-servers.net.
gov.			172800	IN	NS	a.gov-servers.net.
;; Received 387 bytes from 192.112.36.4#53(g.root-servers.net) in 116 ms
nasa.gov.		86400	IN	NS	ns1.nasa.gov.
nasa.gov.		86400	IN	NS	ns2.nasa.gov.
nasa.gov.		86400	IN	NS	ns3.nasa.gov.
couldn't get address for 'ns1.nasa.gov': not found
couldn't get address for 'ns2.nasa.gov': not found
couldn't get address for 'ns3.nasa.gov': not found
dig: couldn't get address for 'ns1.nasa.gov': no more

I was wondering a little how it's supposed to work. I want to know the IP address for nasa.gov, so I find out the nameservers I need to ask are ns{1,2,3}.nasa.gov, but that doesn't help if I can't find the IP address for ns1.nasa.gov. How do I find the IP address for ns1.nasa.gov? I'd have to ask ns1.nasa.gov, there seems to be a sort of circular dependency.

[#11]

Whether one gets a lookup answer or not seems very intermittent with checks a few seconds apart giving both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses, just the IPv6 or IPv4 address or complete failure.

C:\>nslookup ns1.nasa.gov
Server:  dsldevice.lan
Address:  fe80::9e97:26ff:fe94:acb8
*** dsldevice.lan can't find ns1.nasa.gov: Server failed
C:\>nslookup ns1.nasa.gov
Server:  dsldevice.lan
Address:  fe80::9e97:26ff:fe94:acb8
Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    ns1.nasa.gov
Address:  198.116.4.189

C:\>nslookup ns1.nasa.gov
Server:  dsldevice.lan
Address:  fe80::9e97:26ff:fe94:acb8
Name:    ns1.nasa.gov
Address:  2001:4d0:8300:401::189

C:\>nslookup ns1.nasa.gov
Server:  dsldevice.lan
Address:  fe80::9e97:26ff:fe94:acb8
*** dsldevice.lan can't find ns1.nasa.gov: Server failed
C:\>nslookup ns1.nasa.gov
Server:  dsldevice.lan
Address:  fe80::9e97:26ff:fe94:acb8
Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    ns1.nasa.gov
Addresses:  2001:4d0:8300:401::189
          198.116.4.189,

[#12]

There doesn't seem to be any problem getting the necessary details from a.gov-servers.net and b.gov-servers.net

dig @a.gov-servers.net nasa.gov
; <<>> DiG 9.10.3-RedHat-9.10.3-1.fc23 <<>> @a.gov-servers.net nasa.gov
; (2 servers found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 51445
;; flags: qr rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 3, ADDITIONAL: 7
;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available
;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1472
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;nasa.gov.			IN	A
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
nasa.gov.		86400	IN	NS	ns1.nasa.gov.
nasa.gov.		86400	IN	NS	ns2.nasa.gov.
nasa.gov.		86400	IN	NS	ns3.nasa.gov.
;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns1.nasa.gov.		86400	IN	A	198.116.4.189
ns2.nasa.gov.		86400	IN	A	198.116.4.185
ns3.nasa.gov.		86400	IN	A	198.116.4.181
ns1.nasa.gov.		86400	IN	AAAA	2001:4d0:8300:401::189
ns2.nasa.gov.		86400	IN	AAAA	2001:4d0:2300:401::185
ns3.nasa.gov.		86400	IN	AAAA	2001:4d0:6300:401::181
;; Query time: 84 msec
;; SERVER: 69.36.157.30#53(69.36.157.30)
;; WHEN: Sun Oct 04 19:28:23 BST 2015
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 223

And it appears to have started completely working again for me. I think the BNG gateways may have slightly better Plusnet DNS performance.

[#13]

Now getting the same problem with http://wordpress.org/ except it seems to be a routing problem not a DNS problem - switched to Google DNS and still doesn't wok
Tracing route to wordpress.org [66.155.40.249]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
 1    <1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  home.gateway.home.gateway [192.168.1.254]
 2    13 ms    14 ms    14 ms  205.core.plus.net [195.166.130.205]
 3    14 ms    14 ms    14 ms  irb.12.ptw-cr01.plus.net [84.93.249.33]
 4    14 ms    15 ms    14 ms  195.99.126.138
 5    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  core3-te0-0-0-15.faraday.ukcore.bt.net [213.121.193.164]
 6    15 ms    14 ms    15 ms  peer2-et-8-3-0.faraday.ukcore.bt.net [62.6.201.169]
 7    15 ms    15 ms    15 ms  213.137.183.38
 8    21 ms    22 ms    21 ms  t2c3-xe-1-0-1-0.nl-ams2.eu.bt.net [166.49.208.218]
 9     *        *        *     Request timed out.
10     *        *        *     Request timed out.
11     *        *        *     Request timed out.
12

[#14]

I'm not sure what the issue with wordpress.org is, I got timeouts waiting to load the page, then eventually got it to load, and now get a load of dns lookups for wordpress.org quickly failing with SERVFAIL responses.
Before the SERVFAILs started, the traceroute was:

# traceroute -q 1 -N 1 -T -p 80 wordpress.org
traceroute to wordpress.org (66.155.40.249), 30 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  gateway (192.168.0.1)  7.921 ms
 2  lo0.14.central14.pcl-bng01.plus.net (195.166.130.142)  9.533 ms
 3  irb.14.pcl-cr01.plus.net (84.93.249.145)  11.775 ms
 4  195.99.126.98 (195.99.126.98)  13.291 ms
 5  core4-te-0-12-0-19.faraday.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.249.21)  12.426 ms
 6  peer2-et-10-3-0.faraday.ukcore.bt.net (62.6.201.171)  11.774 ms
 7  213.137.183.32 (213.137.183.32)  22.336 ms
 8  t2c3-xe-1-0-0-0.nl-ams2.eu.bt.net (166.49.208.216)  17.697 ms
 9  *
10  *
11  *
12  *
13  *
14  66.155.40.249 (66.155.40.249)  558.618 ms

[#15]

Seems to be working now, perhaps it was just a temporary issue when the routing was changing, since it's now:
[tt]traceroute to wordpress.org (66.155.40.249), 30 hops max, 52 byte packets
1  gateway (192.168.0.1)  1.359 ms
2  lo0.14.central14.pcl-bng01.plus.net (195.166.130.142)  11.899 ms
3  irb.14.pcl-cr01.plus.net (84.93.249.145)  12.168 ms
4  ae1.ptw-cr01.plus.net (195.166.129.0)  11.653 ms
5  ae1.ptw-cr01.plus.net (195.166.129.0)  12.725 ms
6  10ge.xe-0-0-0.linxb.ldn-teleh-dis-1.peer1.net (195.66.224.156)  11.576 ms
7  *
8  *
9  *
10  *
11  *
12  wordpress.org (66.155.40.249)  176.205 ms[/tt]