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Date:      Thu, 11 May 2000 11:49:06 -0400
From:      Mitch Collinsworth <mkc@Graphics.Cornell.EDU>
To:        "Marius Vincent" <mvincent@elcb.co.za>
Cc:        "freeBSD-Questions" <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: Block and reverse DNS. 
Message-ID:  <200005111549.LAA86229@larryboy.graphics.cornell.edu>
In-Reply-To: Message from "Marius Vincent" <mvincent@elcb.co.za>  of "Thu, 11 May 2000 14:22:50 %2B0200." <NEBBJNFFELDAHIBIGIAMOEPMCCAA.mvincent@elcb.co.za> 

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>Could somebody please tell me how reverse lookups take place in theory.
>As far as I know it works like this:
>
>If you do a nslookup on 111.111.111.111 then your dns server contacts the
>root servers and requests a dns server ip for the class A address 111.0.0.0,
>then it askes the dns server of 111.0.0.0 to look for 111.222.0.0.0 in its
>records and the same for 111.111.111.0
>and once again the same for the last step that the last DNS server will look
>in it's ptr records and return a address of 111.111.111.111 pointing towards
>foo.bar.com
>
>right???? or wrong??

hmm, well you're sort of on the right track here, but your explanation
is wrong.  When you "nslookup 111.222.333.444"  your request is converted
into a request for a PTR record for "444.333.222.111.in-addr.arpa."
From there, all normal lookup rules apply, i.e. first lookup "arpa.",
then "in-addr.arpa.", then "111.in-addr.arpa.", etc.  Basically, there
is nothing special about reverse lookups except for converting the IP
address into in-addr.arpa notation before starting.

-Mitch


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