weird dns problems

TechBoyJK

Lifer
Oct 17, 2002
16,699
60
91
I have on ip and 3 different domains and will use the following as examples

33.333.33.333
company.com
business.com
internet.com

The first two domain's records (company.com, business.com) are hosted on HOST A's dns servers. The third domain (internet.com) is hosted on HOST B's dns servers. HOST A and HOST B are completely different companies and providers.

I have a website hosted on a server.

The server has a virtual hosts entry setup so that all 3 domains and their www. prefixed counterparts all resolve to the same ip and site. So there is six total virtual host entries.

company.com
www.company.com
business.com
www.business.com
internet.com
www.internet.com

V

33.333.33.333


Using Firefox, Opera, and Chrome, all 6 domains resolve properly and there are no issues.

Using IE 6/7/8, the third domain resolves properly for both the root domain (internet.com) and the www. prefixed one (www.internet.com).

Using IE, the first two domains resolve properly for the root domains. (company.com, business.com) But for the www. prefixed domains, the sites don't resolve except for the first time and only for the first initial request. Refresh, and the page goes blank.

Basically www.business.com and www.company.com resolve to a blank white screen, only on IE, and work fine in other browsers. The third domain, hosted on a different DNS server, works fine across all browsers, even with www. prefix.

I would add, that it's not isolate to just the www. prefix, it's any prefix.

Any ideas? If I clear the browser cache and history, the www. prefixed domains will resolve for the first request, but then if you refresh, they go white.

If I view the source for hte white pages, it has the following

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META content="text/html; charset=windows-1252" http-equiv=Content-Type></HEAD>
<BODY></BODY></HTML>

I don't understand how it can be a dns issue, because ALL domains, even prefixed ones, resolve fine in all other browsers besides IE. I don't see how it's a webserver issue, because the sites respond fine in FF and Opera, and if you don't use the www. prefix in IE.

I can telnet to all domains on port 80.

The only flag about DNS is that the domain hosted on a different DNS server DOES work completely fine. So it seems isolated to domains hosted on HOST A's dns servers.

But for everything except IE, HOST A's dns servers are responding just fine.


 

TechBoyJK

Lifer
Oct 17, 2002
16,699
60
91
I should add that this problems persists across multiple computers.

I've had the same problem on my work computer, a coworker's computer, my home computer, and even a fresh install that we did here at work.
 

spidey07

No Lifer
Aug 4, 2000
65,469
5
76
TechBoy, I've been mulling over your posts and there are very few things that come to mind. Confirm your DNS is good with nslookup, or use public DNS checker website. As long as your hostnames/FQDN for your various stuff resolves properly I can't see how it would be a DNS problem. Check your webserver logs to make sure it's receiving the request and what it is responding with.

I'm leaning more towards web server problem and it's setup (keep in mind I'm not that good at webservers, at all). This kind of problem is best served by HTTPwatch or a packet trace to really see what is being exchanged between the client and server. You may get better results in programming but I don't venture there.

If you're looking at DNS I must understand what kind of records you have for each, PM me the details if you like so I can help with how the internet sees you.
 

TechBoyJK

Lifer
Oct 17, 2002
16,699
60
91
Originally posted by: spidey07
TechBoy, I've been mulling over your posts and there are very few things that come to mind. Confirm your DNS is good with nslookup, or use public DNS checker website. As long as your hostnames/FQDN for your various stuff resolves properly I can't see how it would be a DNS problem. Check your webserver logs to make sure it's receiving the request and what it is responding with.

I'm leaning more towards web server problem and it's setup (keep in mind I'm not that good at webservers, at all). This kind of problem is best served by HTTPwatch or a packet trace to really see what is being exchanged between the client and server. You may get better results in programming but I don't venture there.

If you're looking at DNS I must understand what kind of records you have for each, PM me the details if you like so I can help with how the internet sees you.

Well, I did confirm that the DNS was good. Via nsLoopup and several website based tools. Everything "looked" ok. And at first, it worked that way. It was only for subdomains and IE that there was a problem. The root domain itself worked fine in IE.

I work at the hosting company that was hosting the DNS servers that host the two problem domains. Before I left work last night, I completely deleted one of the domains entries, db file and all. When I got in this morning, I re-entered the domain, and it's www. record as well.

Everything seems to be working fine for that domain now. So I'm guess it was something DNS related.

I just deleted the records for the other domain, and re-entered them. I'm waiting for cache to clear then I'll see whats up. (I don't have access to our caching dns servers that our workstations use).

Thanks for your input, btw.