M-Web DNS Servers Broken?

[Norri]

My clients are complaining that their websites aren't working but the real issue seems to be DNS servers in SA are a few DAYS behind.

M-Web DNS:

$ dig margateholidayflat.co.za @196.28.80.140

; <<>> DiG 9.7.0-P1 <<>> margateholidayflat.co.za @196.28.80.140
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 17365
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;margateholidayflat.co.za.	IN	A

;; Query time: 11 msec
;; SERVER: 196.28.80.140#53(196.28.80.140)
;; WHEN: Mon Oct 11 11:05:45 2010
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 42

Google DNS:

$ dig margateholidayflat.co.za @8.8.8.8

; <<>> DiG 9.7.0-P1 <<>> margateholidayflat.co.za @8.8.8.8
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 29818
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;margateholidayflat.co.za.	IN	A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
margateholidayflat.co.za. 43200	IN	A	196.34.92.70

;; Query time: 769 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Mon Oct 11 11:04:07 2010
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 58

What's up and what can I do to fix it. Telling my clients that they have to change their DNS settings isn't a problem but what about all the people trying to visit their sites? They're buying advertising to get their new sites known but if most people can't access their sites, what's the point? I end up looking bad because M-Web is slow.

What gives? Who can I speak to to rectify this? A lower TTL might help but will they listen?

 

[zamrg]

I would definitely go with lowering the TTL until you can get it to resolve correctly - will minimise any down time involved.

You should contact their tech support department who will then pass it on to their dns admins -> [email protected]. I'm not a client of theirs but when I had a problem with one of their smtp servers rejecting everything from my mail server, they were more than happy to help resolve it (was a greylisting issue).

 

[Norri]

Thanks zamrg. I've decreased my TTL substantially (to around 10 minutes) but I meant M-Web should lower their TTL on their caching nameservers. (Well, in my opinion anyway!)

Thanks for the email address! I'll contact them now Good to hear that they've been helpful about this sort of stuff in the past. Thanks!

 

[Tinuva]

You can't lower TTL on caching servers, caching servers use the TTL from the authoritative servers to determine for how long they should cache an entry, at least that is the proper way . So if you know you going to be making changes, lower the TTL in advance is a wise choice.

 

[Norri]

Thanks but I've noticed SA ISPs cache for way too long. I'm fairly convinced that they don't pay attention to the proper way :/

I've lowered the TTL to 10M to hopefully help. I should have some signups today to test with. I'm holding thumbs!