Custom Domain Published Blogs With Earthlink As Registrar Are Showing "Not Found"

Today, we see discussions in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken about a problem with blogs published to custom domains, and using Earthlink DNS servers.

I have a blog showing "Server Not Found", and never got an answer here, so I called Earthlink tech support. It turns out it's an Earthlink problem with the "CNAME"s.

A straight "A" retrieval Dig shows us simply no DNS addresses.

; <<>> DiG 9.3.2 <<>> @localhost blog.data-miners.com A
 ; (2 servers found)
 ;; global options:  printcmd
 ;; Got answer:
 ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 52920
 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
 
 ;; QUESTION SECTION:
 ;blog.data-miners.com.  IN A
 
 ;; Query time: 584 msec
 ;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
 ;; WHEN: Fri Nov 12 02:58:59 2010
 ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 38

If we dig a bit deeper, we find out an interesting detail.

; <<>> DiG 9.3.2 <<>> @localhost data-miners.com ANY
 ; (2 servers found)
 ;; global options:  printcmd
 ;; Got answer:
 ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 35417
 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 12, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
 
 ;; QUESTION SECTION:
 ;data-miners.com.  IN ANY
 
 ;; ANSWER SECTION:
 data-miners.com. 86400 IN SOA localhost. hostmaster.earthlink.net. 2010033001 86400 900 2592000 86400
 data-miners.com. 86400 IN MX 1 aspmx.l.google.com.
 data-miners.com. 86400 IN MX 5 alt1.aspmx.l.google.com.
 data-miners.com. 86400 IN MX 5 alt2.aspmx.l.google.com.
 data-miners.com. 86400 IN MX 10 aspmx2.googlemail.com.
 data-miners.com. 86400 IN MX 10 aspmx3.googlemail.com.
 data-miners.com. 86400 IN MX 10 aspmx4.googlemail.com.
 data-miners.com. 86400 IN MX 10 aspmx5.googlemail.com.
 data-miners.com. 86400 IN A 207.217.125.50
 data-miners.com. 86400 IN NS dns1.earthlink.net.
 data-miners.com. 86400 IN NS dns2.earthlink.net.
 data-miners.com. 86400 IN NS dns3.earthlink.net.
 
 ;; Query time: 189 msec
 ;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
 ;; WHEN: Fri Nov 12 03:00:27 2010
 ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 351

The "SOA" record pointing to "localhost" seems a bit odd. For comparison, here's a similar Dig for my domain, "nitecruzr.net".

; <<>> DiG 9.3.2 <<>> @localhost nitecruzr.net ANY
 ; (2 servers found)
 ;; global options:  printcmd
 ;; Got answer:
 ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 47224
 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 14, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
 
 ;; QUESTION SECTION:
 ;nitecruzr.net.   IN ANY
 
 ;; ANSWER SECTION:
 nitecruzr.net.  3600 IN MX 10 aspmx.l.google.com.
 nitecruzr.net.  3600 IN MX 20 alt1.aspmx.l.google.com.
 nitecruzr.net.  3600 IN MX 30 alt2.aspmx.l.google.com.
 nitecruzr.net.  3600 IN MX 40 aspmx2.googlemail.com.
 nitecruzr.net.  3600 IN MX 50 aspmx3.googlemail.com.
 nitecruzr.net.  3600 IN A 216.239.32.21
 nitecruzr.net.  3600 IN A 216.239.34.21
 nitecruzr.net.  3600 IN A 216.239.36.21
 nitecruzr.net.  3600 IN A 216.239.38.21
 nitecruzr.net.  86400 IN SOA ns11.domaincontrol.com. dns.jomax.net. 2010080403 28800 7200 604800 86400
 nitecruzr.net.  3600 IN NS ns11.domaincontrol.com.
 nitecruzr.net.  3600 IN NS ns12.domaincontrol.com.
 nitecruzr.net.  3600 IN NS ns53.domaincontrol.com.
 nitecruzr.net.  3600 IN NS ns54.domaincontrol.com.
 
 ;; Query time: 120 msec
 ;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
 ;; WHEN: Fri Nov 12 03:26:29 2010
 ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 364

The "SOA" record needs to point to the authoritative DNS server for the domain. If we bypass the "SOA" for "data-miners.com", we get something more normal.

; <<>> DiG 9.3.2 <<>> @dns1.earthlink.net blog.data-miners.com A
 ; (1 server found)
 ;; global options:  printcmd
 ;; Got answer:
 ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 33911
 ;; flags: qr rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
 
 ;; QUESTION SECTION:
 ;blog.data-miners.com.  IN A
 
 ;; ANSWER SECTION:
 blog.data-miners.com. 86400 IN CNAME ghs.google.com.
 
 ;; Query time: 233 msec
 ;; SERVER: 207.217.126.11#53(207.217.126.11)
 ;; WHEN: Fri Nov 12 03:28:17 2010
 ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 63

Unfortunately, since the normal practice, when looking up a domain, is to start with the "SOA" record, "data-miners.com" - and other domains using Earthlink - may be out until Earthlink tech support figures out why their SOAs are broken like this.

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