Cloudflare reverse DNS SERVFAIL, normal?

Tue Aug 30 22:02:47 UTC 2016

In message <926F8B85-8864-4424-BEAA-1836B718A9FD at delong.com>, Owen DeLong writes:
> > On Aug 29, 2016, at 17:01 , Mark Andrews <marka at isc.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> > In message <20160829234737.GA16137 at cmadams.net>, Chris Adams writes:
> >> Once upon a time, Mark Andrews <marka at isc.org> said:
> >>> The following is general and is not directed at Cloudflare.  I know
> >>> some people don't think errors in the reverse DNS are not critical
> >>> but if you are delegated a zone it is your responsablity to ensure
> >>> your servers are correctly serving that zone regardless of where
> >>> it is in the DNS heirarchy.  Failure to do that causes additional
> >>> work for recursive servers.  If you don't want to serve a zone then
> >>> remove the delegation.
> >>
> >> You are assuming that an authoritative server operator has some way to
> >> know all the zones people delegate to their servers, and remove such
> >> delegations if they don't want to handle them.  That is a wrong
> >> assumption.
> >
> > They have methods.  They choose not to use them.  See RFC 1033
> > COMPLAINTS then after that the court system.
> >
> > Mark
>
> Let us review this and compare to your statementâ€¦
>
> From RFC 1033:
> > COMPLAINTS
> >
> >    These are the suggested steps you should take if you are having
> >    problems that you believe are caused by someone else's name server:
> >
> >
> >    1.  Complain privately to the responsible person for the domain.  You
> >    can find their mailing address in the SOA record for the domain.
> >
> >    2.  Complain publicly to the responsible person for the domain.
> >
> >    3.  Ask the NIC for the administrative person responsible for the
> >    domain.  Complain.  You can also find domain contacts on the NIC in
> >    the file NETINFO:DOMAIN-CONTACTS.TXT
> >
> >    4.  Complain to the parent domain authorities.
> >
> >    5.  Ask the parent authorities to excommunicate the domain.
>
> 1.	Doesnâ€™t really apply in a situation where someone has pointed
> 	an NS record for a domain at your server without warning. There
> 	is no SOA record from which to retrieve said mailing address.

If they have pointed a NS record at you there is a SOA record.  Either
in the zone or in the delegating zone.

> 	Also doesnâ€™t work very well in cases where the SOA record does
> 	not contain a valid email address that reaches someone.

Some do, some don't.  There is also whois address, web contact addresses
etc.

> 2.	Do we really want NANOG buried in â€œWill the
> 	@#@!@$!@$% who delegated XYZ.COM <http://xyz.com/> NS Records to
> point to
> 	my servers <name> and <name> please cease and desist?â€
> 	messages? Personally, I vote no.

Why not.  It is a operational message about a misconfiguration.

> 3.	The NIC? Please explicate Mr. Andrews what that would mean
> 	in the modern era. Please cover both the normal case and
> 	the cases where domain privacy is configured.
>
> 4.	This might _MIGHT_ actually work, but I suspect that $REGISTRY
> 	is unlikely to help much when $REGISTRAR accepted an NS record
> 	from one of their customers for a domain they registered
> 	that happens to point to your server. Similarly, I suspect
> 	$REGISTRAR is going to tell you that they wonâ€™t make changes
> 	without authorization from the domain owner.

The registrar becomes party to the disruption to your services and
no the contract the registry signed with ICANN does not save them
from being fined by a court further down the process so they should
listen as it is their finanical interests to listen.

Criminal law trumps contract law and deliberate disruption to
services falls under criminal law.  It becomes deliberate once they
fail to act on the complaint in a timely manner.  Remember we are
dealing with matters of fact here.  Published NS records and address
records.

Add to that there are published proceedures that are not being
followed that they should be aware of.

> 5.	I suspect that success in this effort will likely parallel
> 	the level of success I would expect in step 4.
>
> So, now that weâ€™ve realized that RFC-1033 is utterly useless in this
> context and badly outdated to boot, letâ€™s review your other suggestionâ€¦

No, it isn't utterly useless.  It also shows you have tried to solve
the problem in a civil manner if you take it further.

> â€œâ€¦ after that [sic] the court system.â€
>
> [sic] refers to the missing comma.
>
> So let me see if I understand correctly.
>
> I run a pair of nameservers. Letâ€™s call them ns1.company.com
> <http://ns1.company.com/> and ns2.company.com <http://ns2.company.com/>
>
> Someone registers example.com <http://example.com/> and points NS records
> in the COM zone at my
> nameservers.
>
> Iâ€™m now supposed to seek judicial relief in order to compel them to stop
> doing that?
>
> Small claims doesnâ€™t process claims seeking injunctive relief. I suppose
> I could
> use a $1,500 or even $5,000 small claims case as a way to get their
> attention,
> but thatâ€™s kind of an abuse of the process. If I want an injunction, at
> least
> in California, I have to go to Superior court.
>
> Now, first, we have to figure out jursidiction. As a general rule,
> jurisdiction
> goes to the court which is responsible for the locale in which the event
> takes
> place or where the contract was entered into, or the jursidiction set by
> the
> contract. In this case, thereâ€™s no contract, so we have to look at where
> the
> event in question occurred. The problem is that the law hasnâ€™t really
> caught
> up with technology in this area and depending on who ends up being parties
> to the suit, the definition gets pretty murky at best. Is it the primary
> office of the registry? The registrar? The registrant? The location of the
> nameserver(s) which are erroneously pointed to? (What if they are anycast
> all over the world?) The business address of the operator or owner of
> those
> nameservers? Where, exactly do we file this suit?

Your lawyer will work that out.

> The next problem we have is who to sue. Do we sue the domain registrant?
> The
> registrar they used to register the domain name? etc.

Your lawyer will work that out.

> Yeah, I donâ€™t think thereâ€™s enough possibility of any sort of recovery to
> make that worth the effort or expense.

So you decide to not avail yourself of the process available to you.  That
is not the same thing as saying there is no process.

> Owen

-- 
Mark Andrews, ISC
1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742                 INTERNET: marka at isc.org