[wplug] Very strange DNS activity

[Bill Moran]

I'd be grateful to anyone who can explain what the government is doing with
their DNS.  It appears as if www.treas.gov is an alias for
treas.tpaq.treasury.gov, but treas.tpaq.treasury.gov does not have a
DNS record.

However, if you go to www.treas.gov in a web browser, all works well.

Anyone have enough DNS-fu to explain this oddity?

# host www.treas.gov
Host not found.

# dig www.treas.gov

; <<>> DiG 8.3 <<>> www.treas.gov 
;; res options: init recurs defnam dnsrch
;; got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 24148
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; QUERY SECTION:
;;      www.treas.gov, type = A, class = IN

;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.treas.gov.          2S IN CNAME     treas.tpaq.treasury.gov.

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
tpaq.treasury.gov.      2h55m22s IN SOA  st3dns.usmint.gov. hostmaster.st3dns.usmint.gov. (
                                        2005072814      ; serial
                                        8H              ; refresh
                                        2H              ; retry
                                        1W              ; expiry
                                        1D )            ; minimum


;; Total query time: 23 msec
;; FROM: pa-plum1b-166.pit.adelphia.net to SERVER: 68.168.160.2
;; WHEN: Thu Jul 28 12:37:25 2005
;; MSG SIZE  sent: 31  rcvd: 126

6# dig treas.tpaq.treasury.gov

; <<>> DiG 8.3 <<>> treas.tpaq.treasury.gov 
;; res options: init recurs defnam dnsrch
;; got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 63387
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; QUERY SECTION:
;;      treas.tpaq.treasury.gov, type = A, class = IN

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
tpaq.treasury.gov.      2h54m59s IN SOA  st3dns.usmint.gov. hostmaster.st3dns.usmint.gov. (
                                        2005072814      ; serial
                                        8H              ; refresh
                                        2H              ; retry
                                        1W              ; expiry
                                        1D )            ; minimum


;; Total query time: 20 msec
;; FROM: pa-plum1b-166.pit.adelphia.net to SERVER: 68.168.160.2
;; WHEN: Thu Jul 28 12:37:48 2005
;; MSG SIZE  sent: 41  rcvd: 102

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com