openDNS: Use Exit, Moron!
It’s hard for me to keep track of whether “quit” or “exit” is used to actually stop using a particular command line application. While using nslookup to check on IPs for someone, I used “quit”. The response was rather interesting.
adam@obsidian:~$ nslookup
> quit
Server: 208.67.220.220
Address: 208.67.220.220#53Non-authoritative answer:
quit.neo.rr.com canonical name = use-exit-moron.neo.rr.com.
Name: use-exit-moron.neo.rr.com
Address: 208.67.217.132
>
My apologies to openDNS. I’ll try to remember to use “exit” from now on.
August 25th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Because ‘quit’ is not a command, nslookup is appending your search domain ‘neo.rr.com’ and attempting to look it up.
Someone at Road Runner appears to have configured ‘quit.neo.rr.com’ to be a CNAME to what you saw, which OpenDNS returns just like any other record.
You can verify this by querying another non-OpenDNS server:
$ dig +short quit.neo.rr.com. @4.2.2.1
use-exit-moron.neo.rr.com.
:)
August 25th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Thanks, Mike, for the explanation. If it hadn’t been so late in the evening, I probably would’ve expanded on it more and not specifically referenced openDNS. In any event, you have to appreciate the length at which Time Warner’s tech support goes to help its customer.