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I don't know if this is the right place for my question, but I have a problem with my DNS/nameservers after changing the nameservers. I'm not sure if it is a problem at my side or at my webhost.

I updated the DNS Zone Records in the Control Panel of my webhosting provider to the ones provided by Cloudflare. After that there are two nameservers:

NS  elle.ns.cloudflare.com  
NS  lloyd.ns.cloudflare.com

The site is still alive, but when I check the DNS (http://www.intodns.com) I have the following errors:

enter image description here

Pingdom also tells me:

  • Superfluous name server listed at parent: ns1.mijnhostingpartner.nl
  • Superfluous name server listed at parent: ns2.mijnhostingpartner.nl
  • Superfluous name server listed at parent: ns3.mijnhostingpartner.nl 2
  • different serials found. 2 different SOA records found. Could not
  • find reverse address for (4 times)

Could someone please help me? Cloudflare also says that the installation is not correct. Thanks!

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  • When did you change it?
    – Christopher Perrin
    Apr 9, 2015 at 19:08
  • 1
    What's the domain name with the problem?
    – jotap
    Apr 9, 2015 at 19:10

1 Answer 1

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The error messages and the referenced RFC2181 5.4.1 pretty much already tells what's wrong: you are having conflicting NS records in your zone and in the parent zone as "glue" records.

"Glue" above includes any record in a zone file that is not properly part of that zone, including nameserver records of delegated sub- zones (NS records), address records that accompany those NS records (A, AAAA, etc), and any other stray data that might appear.

It is not enough to change the NS records in the zone file, but you should also change them at your domain registrar. Then, they are added in the TLD's zone in order to delegate the control over your sub-zone. Here, example.com. is a sub-zone of com. that is a sub-zone of ., the root.

Why are these "glue" records necessary? They prevent circular references. If you think DNS queries as a conversation between DNS servers, a circular reference could be:

  • Hello, NS of com.! Do you know, what is the name server for example.com.?
  • Sure I do! It's ns1.example.com..
  • Thanks bro! What is the IP address of this ns1.example.com.?
  • I don't know, you should ask from the name server of example.com..
  • Ok, what is the name server for example.com.?

Therefore, the previous level zone must include the IP addresses of the nameservers, too.

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  • Thank you very much. I hope I understand, but do I have to ask my webhost to change them? I can't do that by myself I think because I already changed the NS records? (shared hosting).
    – Jordy
    Apr 9, 2015 at 19:25
  • Depends on where you bought the domain name. If you had it from the same hosting company, you should ask them to change it. If you manage your domain on your own, which I highly recommend, you go to your registrars management portal and change the name servers there.
    – Esa Jokinen
    Apr 9, 2015 at 19:26
  • My webhost has his own domainpanel, where I could change the DNS zone. There I already changed the nameservers. They said that just changing the DNS zone was ok, but it still doesn't work... You said that I should change them at my domain registrar too, but what exactly is the difference? If my website is shared hosting, I think it is not possible to change it there too? I don't understand exactly at which two places I need to edit something.
    – Jordy
    Apr 9, 2015 at 19:36
  • That's probably because you were talking about different things due to semantic differences in your terminologies. If they were talking about DNS records, they were completely right. But you weren't trying to change the DNS records but the whole DNS servers. That cannot be done within the zone itself.
    – Esa Jokinen
    Apr 9, 2015 at 19:43
  • Well, they said: "you should change the nameservers in your customerpanel under 'Domains'. Then it should work". I did, but it doesn't work. So I think that means they should change the whole DNS server? But it is strange that I never hear people that use Cloudflare with the same problems. Does it mean that my webhost has some strange settings?
    – Jordy
    Apr 9, 2015 at 19:47

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