DOC(8)

NAME
doc - diagnose unhealthy DNS domains

SYNOPSIS
doc [-p] [-e][-w][-v][-d] domain_name [parent_domain_name]

DESCRIPTION
Doc is an automated tool for verifying (to an extent) that a domain is configured and functioning correctly. The only required parameter is the valid domain name of an existing domain. Example:

        doc isi.edu.

If the parent (delegating) domain can be determined simply by stripping off the first domain part and subsequent dot from the specified domain name, then there is no need to include the parent_domain_name parameter. Examples:

	doc isi.edu. edu.			(this is correct)
	doc isi.edu.    			(this works too)
	doc 9.128.in-addr.arpa. arpa.	(this is correct)
	doc 9.128.in-addr.arpa.		(this will NOT work)

In the last (incorrect) example, because there is no parent domain specified, doc fills in the optional parent_domain parameter, and runs as if you specified:

    doc 9.128.in-addr.arpa. 128.in-addr.arpa.

Since, the delegation information for 9.128.in-addr.arpa. is not at 128.in-addr.arpa. (rather at arpa.), this run will abort, and not report as expected.

OPTIONS

-p  Skip testing the information held at delegating domain's servers.

    The default operation of doc includes testing that all of the servers for the delegating (parent) domain agree about the delegation information held for the domain in question. Since inconsistencies discovered at this level may or may not indicate serious problems, one can choose to skip the parent testing. If so, doc uses the first non-authoritative list of NS records from a parent domain server as those to direct further queries. If all of the parent domain servers are additionally authoritative for the domain, the answer from the last one queried is used. This may be a useful timesaver if you are regularly checking up on a large number of domains. [See also section FILES USED for a similar functionality.]

-[e][w][v][d]  Specify the level of verbosity to standard output.

    The default mode of operation is to only print to standard output a summary of what is discovered. In addition, errors made in the process of testing (i.e. query errors, errors causing doc to abort, etc) are noted.

        -e	Output comments about errors discovered.
        -w	Output comments about warnings issued.
        -v	Verbose output. Include misc. comments and output
    		confirming correct behavior.
        -d	Debug output. Checkpoint current (last) nameserver query.

    These output options are cumulative (i.e. -v implies -v -w -e).

    NOTE: Parsing is very simple. All option flags must come before the domain names.

FILES CREATED
In addition to the standard output, doc produces a log file named log.<domain_name>, which it places in the current directory. This file includes all "verbose" level comments, followed by the nameserver responses to the queries (in a slightly masticated form).

While running, doc creates several temporary files in the current directory. These files have names of the form:

    <domain_name>.*

FILES USED
Doc expects the auxiliary files: doc1.awk, doc3.awk, and doc4.awk to reside in the current working directory.

Doc looks for the file DNsrv.<parent_domain_name> in the working directory. If it exists, doc does not make a standard query to discover the list of nameservers for the parent domain. Rather it queries the list of servers contained in this file to obtain delegation information for the domain being tested. This may be useful if one regularly tests a series of domains, all with the same delegating zone, where one of the servers in known to be foul. This server would simply be omitted from the the DNsrv.* file.

awk, sed & dig (version 2.0 or higher) are expected to be found in your normal path. If not, you may want to alias to the full path inside of doc itself.

DETAILS
See file INFO (included with distribution tar) for details of procedure.

BUGS
The exit code returned via the shell is only 8 bits. This could cause a problem in the value returned by the auxiliary file doc3.awk. This hasn't been seen yet (a "poison configuration" is not likely to occur yet), and hopefully will be corrected if/when doc is re-implemented (see below).

The current implementation is fairly simple (albeit not pretty), so it is not expected to abort unexpectedly. However, this version (2.0) is an initial attempt at automating this task. Further development is expected in identifying the appropriate queries, analysis, and subsequent conclusions that are made. Hopefully once the design of the test suite has become more stable, a less "patchwork" production version of doc will be done.

Comments are very much welcome.

AUTHOR
Steve Hotz (hotz@isi.edu) Paul Mockapetris (pvm@isi.edu)

SEE ALSO
dig(1), bind operators guide, RFCs: 1034,1035,xxxx