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The Internet

More .us Domain Problems? 39

Posted by Cliff from the tee-el-dee-needs-tee-el-cee dept.
possible asks: "My .us domain registrations supposedly went through on April 27th 2002. However, even though register.com's .us FAQ states that you can use their Domain Manager to edit addresses, aliases, MX records, and SOA's for your .us domain, I have not been able to do ANYTHING yet. When I called their technical support on May 1st, they basically said "This is Neustar's fault, in the meantime we have to do everything manually." So I had them set up my MX and name records over the phone. 6 days later, I'm still unable to resolve my domains. Today I called register.com again they told me 'Somehow your zone file got corrupted, you have to realize that .us domains are a new thing and it's not going smoothly for many people.' Some of my friends are having similar .us problems with different registrars. Is anyone else having problems with their .us domains? Does anyone know what the underlying problem is?"
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More .us Domain Problems? More

More .us Domain Problems?

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  • Do you need to ask? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 15, 2002 @02:19AM (#3522115)
    Does anyone know what the underlying problem is?

    Capitalism.

    • Does anyone know what the underlying problem is?

      Capitalism.

      Amen. There was NO REASON to dismantle .us - the last bastion of The Good Old Internet Community and make it into another corporate annex. It's like demolishing the old vacant lot that was at the 280/101 interchange in San Francisco to put up a mall. There is no reason to have a mall - it's the same shit in that mall that's in every other mall. At the vacant lot there were swap meets every week where hundreds of one of a kind items traded hands. To HELL with verisign, neustar, and most egregious, ICANN.

      -Lx?

  • Sounds rough (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Any reason you went with the .us domain instead of the old faithful .com?

    On a completely side note, why does each article get posted only to its server? This one is on ask.slashdot.org, but normally it would be available from both ask./.org and slashdot.org (no prefix).

    Considering that one can't get back to the real /. homepage from any particular server, it seems like quite a bad interface design. It started right after /. came back from its 2 hour hiatus earlier. Perhaps some bad code went in?

    • Any reason you went with the .us domain instead of the old faithful .com?

      I'm not him, but I can think of several good reasons, starting with the fact that practically all the useful .com namespace is either in use or being squatted, by Network Associates if by no one else.

      onsidering that one can't get back to the real /. homepage from any particular server, it seems like quite a bad interface design. It started right after /. came back from its 2 hour hiatus earlier. Perhaps some bad code went in?

      Actually it's been doing that on and off for several weeks now. No idea what the problem is.

  • .us Zone Configuration (Score:2, Insightful)

    by saveth ( 416302 )
    Shouldn't configuring zones for .us domains be as simple as cloning the methods for configuring other zones and doing a giant `s/.com/.us/g`? I suspect there are other changes also involved in the process, but I'm sure they are trivial.

    What is Neustar's problem?

    • It's not Neustar having problems. My changes put in at Verisign (I have one .us domain there) go through quickly just fine. But the changes at register.com (also one .us domain there) are not going through at all. I think register.com is having problesm deploying their software. They did offer to update manually, but so far it hasn't been done correctly.

    • Re:.us Zone Configuration (Score:2, Informative)

      by iiii ( 541004 )
      Hey, you should know better than to post bad regex around here. :-)

      You'll need to escape your dots, like this: :s/\.com/\.us/g Otherwise you might replace somethings you didn't want to, like "thecommons.com" -> "th.usmons.us". Also, you'll probably want to do it on every line, so something like this :%s/\.com/\.us/g or g/\.com/s/\.com/\.us/g would be better.

  • Poor planning and implementation. As .us zone records are formated the same as any record, sounds like their backend blew up.

  • a new thing? (Score:4, Informative)

    by emag ( 4640 ) <slashdot@nosPAm.gurski.org> on Wednesday May 15, 2002 @03:39AM (#3522293) Homepage
    [register.com] told me 'Somehow your zone file got corrupted, you have to realize that .us domains are a new thing and it's not going smoothly for many people.'

    Maybe what the should have said is "a new thing for us". I remember several years ago registering a .us back when it was run by someone competent [isi.edu]. Once VeriSign/NSI took it over, I knew there'd be problems. I moved across the country after this took place, tried to register a new .us domain using the same application I'd used, substituting for the new state and locality, and was rejected because they couldn't read plain English. They suggested some assinine, misspelled name which was only tangentially related to what I'd requested, even though the domain I was requesting was available.

    I can't imagine that things have gotten any better since then, even with a new company handling .us registrations. Since I was rejected, I've gone with a .org domain through joker [joker.com], and haven't looked back since.

    In their attempt to monopolize as much domain registration as possible, VeriSign/NSI has managed to cause a lot more damage for .us than there have been benefits.
    • Too bad it was NeuStar [www.nic.us] that took over, not Verisign.
      • No, it was originally VeriSign who took over, as the following email I received to both admin@ and hostmaster@ for my .us domain on 2000/11/21 shows:

        To all administrative and technical contacts:

        Effective November 28, 2000, VeriSign Global Registry Services ("VeriSign GRS"), a division of Network Solutions, Inc., will assume direct administration of the .US domain. This transition will not result in any technical service-level change. VeriSign GRS services will be available
        to domain name registrants for whom VeriSign GRS maintains the .US domain name registration record subject to the terms of its interim service agreement, a copy of which appears below for your review.

        Your continued registration of a .US domain name beyond November 27, 2000, and the use of our .US domain name registration services constitutes your acceptance of the terms of the Agreement below.

        Best regards,

        United States Domain Registry
        VeriSign Global Registry Services
        www.verisign-grs.com
        usdomhelp@verisign -grs.com


        Plus, according to this site [doc.gov] on November 2, 2000 Amendment 21 [doc.gov] was added to the NSI Cooperative Agreement. It wasn't unter October, 2001 [slashdot.org] that Neustar was granted control of US-DOM, with the transition completed in [slashdot.org] November, 2001 [neustar.com].

        Although, the arguably worst part of the time VeriSign/NSI was controlling .us directly was, IMHO, the requirement to sign and fax in a copy of the agreement--in 2000, when at least a year and a half earlier everything was handled in email by ISI--in order to activate a new .us domain. I wonder how many people decided to just forget about getting a .us domain when they got to that part...

  • not really new (Score:2, Informative)

    by dirvish ( 574948 )
    you have to realize that .us domains are a new thing and it's not going smoothly for many people

    .us [www.nic.us] isn't new, it has been around as long as any of the country code domains, it is just new to the registrars. You used to be able to get them for free, although they had fit a specific format (ie name.city.county.state.us or something like that).
  • First there was the problem with neustar not putting aside some domain names for public use, and now this crap. Its all to do with the dollar sign being flashed first and service coming a distance second. The .us domain has been around for a while AFAIK. Its just that these compaines are new to handling it. Their incompetence, nothing to do with it being new.

    But what can we expect on the domain-registering front nowadays? Look at verisign and bulkregister. Instead of spending money upgrading quality and customer service, they're going to use it to run sleazy campaigns and sue the living daylights out of each other.

    Its got to go back to the non-profit organization model. This sorta stuff really stinks.
  • Toys"R"Us [r.us] isn't live either, and I'm sure they're scammed that name right off the bat.
    .

  • Excuse me, but what do problems with your DNS have to do with the .US registry?

    Once your nameserver records are in place, how well your DNS works is dependant on whoever provides your DNS, not the registry.

    I have a number of .US domains I registered through eNom that work fine thank you very much. I have edited the DNS that eNom provides without issue.

    Justin

    • The root servers delegate the .us zone to the Neustar servers, which are:

      • a.gtld.biz - 209.173.53.162
      • b.gtld.biz - 209.173.57.162
      • c.gtld.biz - 209.173.60.65

      Recursive lookup starts a one of the servers in root-servers.net, and goes to the above, then finally to your registered DNS servers (yours, or you ISP's, or the registrar's).

      Now there are still some problems:

      • There are only 3 servers handling .us whereas there are 13 for .com, etc.
      • All 3 servers are in the same netblock, and this suggests maybe even the same physical location.
      • The TTL (time to live) is set to only 15 minutes at the 3 servers (compared to 2 days at the .com servers ... a ratio of 1:192).
      • If you don't use a .us domain as your DNS servers, then there's an extra lookup because the A-records with the server IPs don't get added in the response (this is how DNS is supposed to work).

      I registered 2 domains in .us, one via register.com [register.com] and the other via Verisign/Netsol [netsol.com]. I, too, had trouble getting my DNS servers set up via register.com. They finally said they could do it manually, but then they goofed that up by entering them wrong after giving me an excuse that some of them had no IPs (they did ... but they weren't the ones I wanted used, though). OTOH, with Verisign, I was able to change my DNS servers just fine, and it went through in 6 hours (while everyone says it can take 24-72 hours). My only beef with Verisign is the limit of 4 DNS servers. I've had another person also tell me eNom is working OK for them.

      • All 3 servers are in the same netblock, and this suggests maybe even the same physical location.

        That doesn't appear to be the case. All three of the IP addresses you listed are in separate /24 netblocks. A traceroute to each reveals a different path for me (UUNet vs SprintLink vs Qwest).

        Some of your other points appear to be quite valid, though.

        • That can be done by simple BGP trickery. I know, because I've done it before. What they have is redundant paths through those 3 upstreams, which is certainly better than none. But it just doesn't say one way or the other what locations these are in. Can one fire take out all of .us because 3 pipes converge in the same building? The thing is, we don't know.

      • There are only 3 servers handling .us whereas there are 13 for .com, etc.

        Yeah, but there are about 10 people a month looking up .us domains, vs 10,000,000 a day looking up .com domains.

        All 3 servers are in the same netblock, and this suggests maybe even the same physical location.

        Suggests, to the naïve, but certainly does not require. Traceroute to 4.2.49.1 and then to 4.2.49.2. Same subnet (unless you use mask 255.255.255.255), and yet they're 3000 miles apart.

  • I've only had troubles with changing name servers with .us - every name that I registered (through an OpenSRS affiliate) is working fine. The only problem I have seen is that I can't change the name servers from the ones listed on the initial application form.

    Still, they're working great as long as I set up the records on the name servers I originally used...
  • I registered several .us domains (though I got neither calcul.us nor allyourbasearebelongto.us) and was able to update DNS information, etc. the day after .us went live. My registrar is GoDaddy. Only a satisfied customer, no other affiliation, yadda yadda yadda.
    • I have to report the exact same experience with GoDaddy. Everything there worked just fine. I had my own DNS servers configured beforehand and by the 25th, the root servers were pointing to my servers to resolve bump.us.

      I really don't understand why the poster thinks that the registrar has anything to do with zone files and MX records. Those things are the responsibility of your DNS provider. Since people other than register.com are able to successfully provide DNS service for .us domains I'd be inclined to blame register.com rather than Neustar or some vast unnamed internet conspiracy.

  • I'll take a hack at this one. Having been a .us registrar (aurora.il.us) for 7 years everyone needs to realize that, for localities, delegation is distributed. While you would fill out a form at the old isi web site, it would look up the local hostmaster and simply pass it along. So if you go fill out the form asking for slashdot.aurora.il.us it will get sent to me.

    When Neustar took over they, first off, sent us pages and pages of documents to fill out. The big technical change is that they required us to allow zone updates to be pushed from their servers. My guess is that they want to be able to bill people for an aurora.il.us registration and have it entered automatically that way, bypassing the possible human failure point that is introduced under the old system when a request was mailed. That pretty much would have prevented anyone from billing for changes because the "registrar" would not be able to guarantee that the changes were entered. This thought is backed up by a lot of the questions in the aforementioned paperwork asking indirectly about if we would expect a cut if someone started changing for registrations.

    So the problems reported may be that the person running the nameserver simply did not change the ACL allowing Neustar to push down changes. Now remember that there were two types of .us locality registrars in the old days. People like me who run it for the community and, usually, don't charge, and compaines that could become the registrars for up to 200 (I think that was the cap) localities that then changed $10/change trying to hit it big off of billing for domain management. The latter were usually a couple of people living in Florida with two 486s running the nameservers and an old tape answering machine. It would usually take a month for them to make a change, and they would usually do it wrong anyway, and it would take another month -- then you would get a bill for $10.

    Just thought I would share this lest anyone think that Neustar were the first to screw up the .us space looking for a buck.

    --chris
  • The .us top level domain is nothing new at all. I know that the Hawaii Department of Education has been using the domain k12.hi.us [k12.hi.us] for at least the past 5 years...at least that's how long I've had and email address with them. However, their web site does also have problems, and frequently won't resolve. It has become more reliable in recent months, however, it's still slow to resolve. It seems to be the worst on Fridays for some reason. But anyway, with a domain that's been around for at least half a decade, they should have the kinks worked out by now, especially if your registrar is the US Government! It seems that the problems with this domain run quite deep indeed.
  • It sounds like register.com is passing the blame. I have several .us domains through several different registrars (none of which are register.com), and they all work perfectly fine (all changes I make take place almost immediately).
  • I suspect that your problems have more to do with RCOM than with Neulevel.

    If you register the name through RCOM, then their job is to take your money ('natch), and send the info to Neulevel, who *only* needs to know who your nameservers are.

    [Although, Neulevel's requirement that any nameservers for a .US domain be physically located in the U.S. of A. is up there on the dumb idea scale. The point of DNS is redundancy. Why put all your nameservers in the same basket?]

    From then on, your zone file and MX settings, etc., are handled by your DNS provider (i.e. whoever runs your nameservers). If RCOM said your "zone file got corrupted", it sounds like they are covering up for some other incompetence.

    Sure the .US registry is a "new thing". Managing DNS isn't, and that's what your problem likely is. Go check out easyDNS [easydns.com] or another outsourced DNS company.

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