Does the DNS lookup result mean that my nameserver is pointed nowhere?

Question

I changed my domain's nameservers, but I don't think the change was processed correctly. Can anyone help me understand the result below "AFTER"? In my registrant's control panel, I change the name servers from ns1.secure.net (etc.) to ns1.linode.com (etc.). But, after the changed, it looked like the DNS was pointed nowhere at all.

Is this a normal in-between state during the process of nameserver changeover, or does this mean that the new nameservers were not correctly assigned?

BEFORE:

$dig mobtownballroom.com

; <<>> DiG 9.8.3-P1 <<>> mobtownballroom.com
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 19515
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 2

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;mobtownballroom.com.    IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
mobtownballroom.com.    69141   IN  A   66.228.58.195

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
mobtownballroom.com.    69141   IN  NS  ns2.secure.net.
mobtownballroom.com.    69141   IN  NS  ns1.secure.net.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns1.secure.net.  63323  IN  A   192.220.124.10
ns2.secure.net.  63323  IN  A   192.220.125.10

;; Query time: 44 msec
;; SERVER: 128.220.143.30#53(128.220.143.30)
;; WHEN: Fri Apr 4 18:19:12 2014
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 131

AFTER:

$dig mobtownballroom.com

; <<>> DiG 9.2.4 <<>> -t ANY mobtownballroom.com
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 10778
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;mobtownballroom.com.    IN ANY

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
com.     900    IN  SOA a.gtld-servers.net. nstld.verisign-grs.com. 1396650155 1800 900 604800 86400

;; Query time: 0 msec
;; SERVER: 64.22.68.60#53(64.22.68.60)
;; WHEN: Fri Apr 4 18:22:57 2014
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 110

(For the time being, I have changed the nameservers back to ns1.secure.net, so if you run dig yourself now, you'll see "BEFORE".)

More detail about how I got here:

• A previous developer registered the domain with MelbourneIT.
• I transferred the registration to active-domain. The DNS settings carried over.
• Having trouble getting the www subdomain to work with the nameservrs, I tried to point the nameservers to Linode.
• The site "went down" and, as you can see, the DNS pointed nowhere.

Answer 1

It appears that you did not get an answer because the DNS server your client computer is pointed to is not the authority. The require authority flag (if I remember the name right) is likely set and the request not completed because the DNS you queried was not the authority. This can be common if you are pointed to a Bind instance. By default, recursive look-up is not set and/or try a query directly is not set in Bind. I went through this recently, but forgive me if the exact setting names and flag names are not exactly right because I am going off of my memory.

Try: dig @ns1.linode.com mobtownballroom.com any

Alternatively, try: dig +trace mobtownballroom.com any

These should give you an answer. The first one you are querying the authoritative name server directly. If this does not work, the next will do a trace and find the authority.