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From: urlichs@smurf.sub.org (Matthias Urlichs)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains
Subject: BIND problem with "sparse" MX records
Message-ID: <"1f[h2.1$8@smurf.sub.org>
Date: 6 Mar 91 18:00:07 GMT
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, FRG
Lines: 31

I had the following MXes in the primary record for domain sub.org:

foo.bar	MX 90    some.forwarder
*	MX 100   some.other.forwarder

Now I fire up nslookup and do the following:
> set typ=mx
> xyzzy.sub.org
  [ found some.other.forwarder ]
> foo.bar.sub.org
  [ found some.forwarder ]

So far so good. However,

> bar.sub.org
  [ problem - host not found ]
> plugh.bar.sub.org
  [ problem - no information ]

What gives?

NB: The descriptions are from memory, but essentially correct (I think). 
    Since the practical effect of all this is that nobody can send any mail to
    anybody.bar.sub.org (if anybody != foo), it's not a problem with nslookup.

Workaround: Add explicit MXes for bar.sub.org and *.bar.sub.org, pointing to
            some.other.forwarder.

-- 
Matthias Urlichs -- urlichs@smurf.sub.org -- urlichs@smurf.ira.uka.de     /(o\
Humboldtstrasse 7 - 7500 Karlsruhe 1 - FRG -- +49+721+621127(0700-2330)   \o)/