Strange behavior of named

[Barry D. Hassler]

[Charles Hedrick types:]
>  I just asked sri-nic.arpa who the root servers are.  The list
>  includes ns.nasa.gov.  We got tired of losing track of the
>  root servers (a common problem under previous versions of
>  named, though it may have been fixed in 4.8).  So we just
>  hardcode the list.  I'm fairly sure that the way we do it
>  causes us to ignore anything we hear from the net.  This might
>  provide a workaround for you.  We have a file /etc/named.root
>  that lists the root servers.  We then put
>    primary . /etc/named.root
>  in named.boot.  The problem with this is that if your list is
>  wrong, you can end up giving people wrong information.  Make
>  very sure that your named.root doesn't have an SOA record in it,
>  or you'll be claiming to be authoritative.  (We retrieve the
>  current list of servers nightly from SRI-NIC, just to make sure
>  our information is always up to date.)

I too have had the entire list hardcoded in my named.ca file like such:

; $Header: named.ca,v 1.3 88/08/17 13:09:33 root Exp $
;
;
; Initial cache data for root domain servers
.			99999999	IN	NS	brl-aos.arpa.
			99999999	IN	NS	sri-nic.arpa.
			99999999	IN	NS	a.isi.edu.
			99999999	IN	NS	gunter-adam.arpa.
			99999999	IN	NS	c.nyser.net.
			99999999	IN	NS	terp.umd.edu.

; Prep the cache
sri-nic.arpa.		99999999	IN	A	26.0.0.73
					IN	A	10.0.0.51
a.isi.edu.		99999999	IN	A	26.3.0.103
brl-aos.arpa.		99999999	IN	A	128.20.1.2
					IN	A	192.5.25.82
gunter-adam.arpa.	99999999	IN	A	26.1.0.13
c.nyser.net.		99999999	IN	A	192.33.4.12
terp.umd.edu.		99999999	IN	A	10.1.0.17
					IN	A	128.8.10.90	

nap2.arpa.		99999999	IN	A	26.18.0.124
nap1.arpa.		99999999	IN	A	26.4.0.176

I have taken ns.nasa.gov out of here because of my problems (note that I am
NOT implying there is anything wrong with NS.NASA.GOV). Altough I did notice
that one of the first things named does after loading the initial configurations is to send a query to one of the listed root servers asking about all the
root servers. I see this in the named.run file like such:

	sysquery: send -> 128.20.1.2 5 (53), nsid=1 id=0 0ms

	datagram from 128.20.1.2 port 53, fd 5, len 327
	ns_req()
	HEADER:
		opcode = QUERY, id = 1, rcode = NOERROR
		header flags:  qr aa ra
		qdcount = 1, ancount = 7, nscount = 0, arcount = 9

	QUESTIONS:
		., type = NS, class = IN

	ANSWERS:
		.
		type = NS, class = IN, ttl = 518400, dlen = 14
		domain name = SRI-NIC.ARPA

		.
		type = NS, class = IN, ttl = 518400, dlen = 13
		domain name = AOS.BRL.MIL

		.
		type = NS, class = IN, ttl = 518400, dlen = 11
		domain name = A.ISI.EDU

		.
		type = NS, class = IN, ttl = 518400, dlen = 14
		domain name = GUNTER-ADAM.ARPA

		.
		type = NS, class = IN, ttl = 518400, dlen = 13
		domain name = C.NYSER.NET

		.
		type = NS, class = IN, ttl = 518400, dlen = 11
		domain name = TERP.UMD.EDU

		.
		type = NS, class = IN, ttl = 518400, dlen = 13
		domain name = NS.NASA.GOV

	ADDITIONAL RECORDS:
		SRI-NIC.ARPA
		type = A, class = IN, ttl = 518400, dlen = 4
		internet address = 26.0.0.73

		SRI-NIC.ARPA
		type = A, class = IN, ttl = 518400, dlen = 4
		internet address = 10.0.0.51

		AOS.BRL.MIL
		type = A, class = IN, ttl = 518400, dlen = 4
		internet address = 128.20.1.2

		AOS.BRL.MIL
		type = A, class = IN, ttl = 518400, dlen = 4
		internet address = 192.5.25.82

		A.ISI.EDU
		type = A, class = IN, ttl = 518400, dlen = 4
		internet address = 26.3.0.103

		GUNTER-ADAM.ARPA
		type = A, class = IN, ttl = 518400, dlen = 4
		internet address = 26.1.0.13

		C.NYSER.NET
		type = A, class = IN, ttl = 518400, dlen = 4
		internet address = 192.33.4.12

		TERP.UMD.EDU
		type = A, class = IN, ttl = 518400, dlen = 4
		internet address = 10.1.0.17

		TERP.UMD.EDU
		type = A, class = IN, ttl = 518400, dlen = 4
		internet address = 128.8.10.90

What I think is actually causing the crash, comes at some point shortly
after logging the following lines in named.run:

	resp: nlookup(NS.NASA.GOV) type=1
	resp: found 'NS.NASA.GOV' as 'NS.NASA.GOV' (cname=0)
	wanted(40af8, 1, 1) 1, 1
	stale: ttl 589122321 518400 (x0)
	make_rr(NS.NASA.GOV, 40af8, 111, -1072910097, 1) 4 zone 0 ttl 589122321

That -1072910097 is a length?! Obviously, I haven't spent any time trying
to track this down further. If I have to, I will, altough I'm hoping someone
else has at least seen this problem.

-BDH