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I run 3 DNS servers for various domains I buy/transfer on my customers behalf.

Before I transfer a domain, I configure my servers so that they are ready to serve requests for that domain, using a copy of the current DNS records. My registrar is configured to automatically set my DNS servers as glue records upon domain transfer.

When the transfer happens it does not matter how slow the NS glue records propagate, because other records are just the same between old and new DNS servers: I can just sit and wait while everything works on my customer side.

A problem arises when I make a mistake configuring my servers before the trasfer. I can only run basic tests against my servers and visually check the results, but, since the domain is not transferred yet, it's hard to test every requisite the registrar wants to actually set my servers as NS for the domain.

Things get worse when you consider that different TLDs have different registrars, and different sets of rules about the DNS health.

Is there anything like intodns.com and similar services, that lets me specify the IP address of the DNS to check, even if that IP address is not one of the current NS records, that runs the tests pretending the IP address were actually part of the configured NS records?

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  • What tests are you wanting to run exactly? named-checkconf and named-checkzone work great for checking config. You can always point nslookup or dig at a particular IP as the DNS server to use.
    – ivanivan
    Nov 9, 2018 at 13:49
  • I didn't know about named-checkzone: I see it covers most if not all the tests of intodns.com. If you turn your comment into an answer I can accept it, thanks.
    – Lucio Crusca
    Nov 9, 2018 at 13:59

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What tests are you wanting to run exactly? named-checkconf and named-checkzone work great for checking config.

Usage-

named-checkconf - checks syntax of /etc/bind/named.conf* and all file that are included/referenced.

named-checkzone example.com /path/to/zonefile/for/example.com - checks syntax and structure of the zone file. Will alert on all sorts of errors - no A records, no NS records, etc.

You can always point nslookup or dig at a particular IP as the DNS server to use.

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A tool like Zonemaster (online or installable locally) has a special "pre-delegation" test where you can test a specific domain on a specific set of nameservers (by providing their names and IP addresses if necessary) before they are listed in the parent zone as being authoritative for this domain.

See it at: https://zonemaster.net/pre_delegated_domain_check

It is explained fully in their FAQ:

  1. What is an undelegated domain test?

An undelegated domain test is a test performed on a domain that may, or may not, be fully published in the DNS. This can be quite useful if one is going to move one's domain from one registrar to another. For example, if you want to move your zone example.com from the nameserver "ns.example.com" to the nameserver "ns.example.org". In this scenario one could perform an undelegated domain test providing the zone (example.com) and the nameserver you are moving to (ns.example.org) BEFORE you move your domain. When the results of the test are colour coded in green one can be fairly certain that the domain's new location is supposed to be replying to queries . However there might still be other problems in the zone data itself that this test is unaware of.

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