5 ms·

For many years (but no longer) Vince Cate's Offshore Information Services had a DNS A record for the ccTLD "ai", so that http://ai/ http://ai/ was a valid URL t

by schoen 5y ago

For many years (but no longer) Vince Cate's Offshore Information Services had a DNS A record for the ccTLD "ai", so that http://ai/ http://ai/ was a valid URL that worked in browsers. (A few people also had e-mail addresses @ai.) Today, there are no longer any TLDs of any kind with their own A records. https://www.internic.net/domain/root.zone https://www.internic.net/domain/root.zone

leblancfg 5y ago
Neat! That link worked for me on the latest Chrome ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- schoen 5y ago
  I don't understand how that could be (!).
  - necovek 5y ago
    Perhaps it auto-prepends "www" to it (since that worked for me on FF).
    - sharken 5y ago
      Found this old comment about it (of course it had to be a long URL) https://aaa.aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.com/a?áaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂåAæãæãæaæââÁáÆáÆåÅåäæææâáÅæÀåâåÆåÄåáåÀåÅåàæãåÆæááÅåâåÆåÄáÆåÀæãåäåÄâÆåÀåãâÄâàâaâaâââàâåâãâä https://aaa.aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...
  - mod 5y ago
    Works here, too. Chrome on Android. Got a very basic html site with Vi ce Cates' name on it.
  - Kelamir 5y ago
    Firefox, works just fine.
    - schoen 5y ago
      But... it doesn't have a DNS record anymore!
      - scbrg 5y ago
        You sure? $ dig +noall +answer ai. ai. 80534 IN A 209.59.119.34
        schoen 5y ago
        Huh, this is weird! The DNS record is no longer in the root zone itself (I think it used to be?) and some recursive resolvers seem to filter out the bare-TLD query or response. But the A record still exists inside the ai zone... so I'm not sure who is right, so to speak!
        buffrr 5y ago
        The A record was never in the root zone. The root zone has an NS record for ai TLD which delegates authority to ai nameservers. You can try `dig @a.root-servers.net ai NS` to get the nameserver `a.lactld.org.` which is authoritative for ai. You can now try `dig @a.lactld.org ai A` to get it (that's how recursive resolves generally work)
        schoen 5y ago
        Yeah, so I think I'm seeing something weird where some software isn't allowing this particular recursive query? I'll dig into it more. By the way: > The A record was never in the root zone. Are you sure of that? I don't have any proof, but my impression was that the DNS registry for ai (which was also just Vince Cate...) was able to ask for it because at one time the root zone was less restrictive in what RRtypes could be placed there for TLDs. But that might just be repeating someone else's mistaken impression. OK, I went and looked in the Internet Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090716164810/http://www.internic.net/domain/root.zone https://web.archive.org/web/20090716164810/http://www.intern... and this version of the root zone from 2009 does indeed not have an A record for ai, just ordinary NS delegations. So it seems like your explanation is confirmed, and there must be a change in some recursive resolver behavior. (I tried from four different Linux systems on different networks and all refused to resolve it, so there really must be something that's changed more widely, not just my home router.)
Jiocus 5y ago
There's also https://www.dj/ https://www.dj/
enw 5y ago
curl ai Worked as well.
schoen 5y ago
I can't edit this anymore, but further down in this thread it turned out that it's just systemd that refuses to attempt a global DNS A lookup for a single-label name, so this record DOES still exist, just like it ever did, but all the machines that I've tried on for the past few years as well as yesterday were Linux systems using a local systemd stub resolver that enforced this rule. :-( I guess I should get some servers running other operating systems, or something. It might be difficult to convince the systemd developers that this special case should be removed just because of this one anomalous DNS name...

by schoen 5y ago

leblancfg 5y ago

Neat! That link worked for me on the latest Chrome ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

schoen 5y ago
I don't understand how that could be (!).
- necovek 5y ago
  Perhaps it auto-prepends "www" to it (since that worked for me on FF).
  - sharken 5y ago
    Found this old comment about it (of course it had to be a long URL) https://aaa.aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.com/a?áaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂáaaÂåAæãæãæaæââÁáÆáÆåÅåäæææâáÅæÀåâåÆåÄåáåÀåÅåàæãåÆæááÅåâåÆåÄáÆåÀæãåäåÄâÆåÀåãâÄâàâaâaâââàâåâãâä https://aaa.aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...
- mod 5y ago
  Works here, too. Chrome on Android. Got a very basic html site with Vi ce Cates' name on it.
- Kelamir 5y ago
  Firefox, works just fine.
  - schoen 5y ago
    But... it doesn't have a DNS record anymore!
    - scbrg 5y ago
      You sure? $ dig +noall +answer ai. ai. 80534 IN A 209.59.119.34
      - schoen 5y ago
        Huh, this is weird! The DNS record is no longer in the root zone itself (I think it used to be?) and some recursive resolvers seem to filter out the bare-TLD query or response. But the A record still exists inside the ai zone... so I'm not sure who is right, so to speak!
        buffrr 5y ago
        The A record was never in the root zone. The root zone has an NS record for ai TLD which delegates authority to ai nameservers. You can try `dig @a.root-servers.net ai NS` to get the nameserver `a.lactld.org.` which is authoritative for ai. You can now try `dig @a.lactld.org ai A` to get it (that's how recursive resolves generally work)
        schoen 5y ago
        Yeah, so I think I'm seeing something weird where some software isn't allowing this particular recursive query? I'll dig into it more. By the way: > The A record was never in the root zone. Are you sure of that? I don't have any proof, but my impression was that the DNS registry for ai (which was also just Vince Cate...) was able to ask for it because at one time the root zone was less restrictive in what RRtypes could be placed there for TLDs. But that might just be repeating someone else's mistaken impression. OK, I went and looked in the Internet Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090716164810/http://www.internic.net/domain/root.zone https://web.archive.org/web/20090716164810/http://www.intern... and this version of the root zone from 2009 does indeed not have an A record for ai, just ordinary NS delegations. So it seems like your explanation is confirmed, and there must be a change in some recursive resolver behavior. (I tried from four different Linux systems on different networks and all refused to resolve it, so there really must be something that's changed more widely, not just my home router.)

Jiocus 5y ago

There's also https://www.dj/ https://www.dj/

enw 5y ago

curl ai Worked as well.

schoen 5y ago

I can't edit this anymore, but further down in this thread it turned out that it's just systemd that refuses to attempt a global DNS A lookup for a single-label name, so this record DOES still exist, just like it ever did, but all the machines that I've tried on for the past few years as well as yesterday were Linux systems using a local systemd stub resolver that enforced this rule. :-( I guess I should get some servers running other operating systems, or something. It might be difficult to convince the systemd developers that this special case should be removed just because of this one anomalous DNS name...