What are the pros/cons to these two styles of authoritative name servers

2

Looking at the name www.google.com:

  1. The root DNS servers tell you that com is managed by {a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m}.gtld-servers.net.
  2. a.gtld-servers.net tell you that google.com is managed by ns{1,2,3,4}.google.com.
  3. ns1.google.com tells you it's authoritative for google.com and tells you what www is.

Looking at the name www.namecheap.com:

  1. The root DNS servers tell you that com is managed by {a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m}.gtld-servers.net.
  2. a.gtld-servers.net tell you that namecheap.com is managed by a{1,2,3}.verisigndns.com.
  3. a1.verisigndns.com. tells you it's authoritative for namecheap.com and tells you what www is.

There's a distinct difference between these two strategies. In the case of Google, the com DNS servers give an additional info section containing the address of ns{1,2,3,4}.google.com. Without that hint it'd be impossible to finish resolving as to find ns1.google.com you'd need to ask ns1.google.com. I've heard these referred to as "glue records".

When I look at the management portal for a domain registered via Namecheap there's no way for me to input these glue records. I'd have to buy a whole other domain (and let Namecheap manage DNS for it) solely so I could use it to manage the DNS for the first domain.

Is Google's way or Namecheap's way the "canonical" strategy? Are there reasons why one organization would chose to do it one way or the other? Is there an official term for these "glue records"?

Huckle

Posted 2018-01-22T04:33:17.893

Reputation: 376

Sure they allow this. I'd be very surprised if a registrar didn't. https://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/article.aspx/768/10/how-do-i-register-personal-nameservers-for-my-domain

– user1686 – 2018-01-22T04:59:57.057

Your list of steps is slightly wrong: without QNAME minimization, at each step, each authoritative nameserver gets queried for the full name, and it defines itself where the zone cut is and what it should reply. And the official public name of glue records is indeed glue records, and the official technical term is "in-bailiwick nameservers". – Patrick Mevzek – 2018-05-01T15:44:47.913

Answers

1

When I look at the management portal for a domain registered via Namecheap there's no way for me to input these glue records.

As @grawity points out, you can add entries for your own personal nameservers under the Advanced DNS settings, which allow you to specify an IP address for those servers.

namecheap-glue-records

Is Google's way or Namecheap's way the "canonical" strategy?

I would say that Google's way is (arguably) more common but each achieves different goals.

Are there reasons why one organization would chose to do it one way or the other?

If you have a single domain (or very few) and don't mind managing DNS yourself, Google's way is probably not bad. If you have a large number of domains, need ease of updating records, or do not want to host DNS yourself, the Namecheap way is a likely path to choose.

Is there an official term for these "glue records"?

I am pretty certain they are just considered normal NS Resource Records.

I'd have to buy a whole other domain (and let Namecheap manage DNS for it) solely so I could use it to manage the DNS for the first domain.

This actually works very well depending on needs.

Anaksunaman

Posted 2018-01-22T04:33:17.893

Reputation: 9 278

1Turns out name cheap does allow this. They have three different places on two different tabs in their UI where DNS related settings can be controlled. None of them are labeled very well and their support staff were not very helpful as they didn't even know that the Google style was possible. – Huckle – 2018-01-27T20:16:57.880

Asked: 2018-01-22T04:33:17.893

Viewed: 96 times

Active: 2018-01-22T09:31:24.137