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           If I didn't know any better, I'd think this was a Monday

Today was not a good day (you would think that after being grounded for a
week after playing with matches, the Younger would have learned “Fire Bad!”
[1] but alas, he was again caught, this time with a lighter—I'm guessing in
his mind, that wasn't a match).

Last night I received email from Mark [2] informing me of DNS (Domain Name
Service) problems with both our primary and secondary DNS servers. The
primary DNS server (which is maintained by my old roommate Rob [3]) was no
longer responding; no idea what is up with our secondary DNS server (which is
maintained by our friend Kelly [4]) and it was causing problems for Mark. I
knew there was nothing to be done then about the primary server since Rob
goes out clubbing Thursday nights and besides, the secondary DNS server was
there.

Today, I started looking at the problem a bit more. One of the things Mark
and I have been meaning to do, now that we have a new server, is register it
as a name server; this was something that was easier to do a few years ago
(with Network Solutions through email) but I've yet to find out how to do
this with my current registrar. I finally got a hold of Rob around 3:00 pm
and informed him of the problem with his server. Major problem: he wasn't in
a position to check the server, and probably wouldn't for some time (hours at
least). And I was still under the impression that the secondary DNS server
was still working.

It wasn't until I was over at the GM (Game Master)'s house (for tonight is
D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) night) and I tried bringing up pictures from the
4^th [5] that I realized things might be worse than they appear. I couldn't
bring up my site, or any site on my server. I then spent the rest of the time
there tracking down the problem (partly because I host the game's website [6]
and manage the party mailing list, but partly because this could seriously
affect email—my email!). I can rule out the primary DNS server—it's still
down and there isn't much I can do so I start looking into the secondary DNS
server and that's when i realize that Kelly must have moved his DNS in a
hurry and forgot that he was our backup. It further appeared that his DNS was
now being hosted by another friend of ours, Chris [7].

It was then that I learned that Kelly was out of town for the weekend. So
too, was Mark, although I was able to talk to him and find out how to make
the necessary DNS changes on Chris' box (long story short: Mark set up a
system to allow Chris to make DNS changes and unless you know what you are
doing it's easy to screw up the configuration). I then called Chris to get
the root password to make the changes and informed that Mark told me exactly
what to do, he relented (another long story short: Mark (and to a lesser
extent, Kelly and I) help Chris run his server—he was just concerned that any
DNS changes I made might break his system).

I successfully reconfigured the DNS server, although I did use the wrong
files (outdated information) and it took several editing passes for me to
clean up the information. All while the rest of the players were trying to
deal with a trapped corridor in the dungeon.

Not a good day at all.

[1] http://www.campchaos.com/cartoons/napsterbad/fire_bad.html
[2] http://www.conman.org/people/myg/
[3] http://www.tragic-smurfs.com/
[4] http://www.asperwood.net/
[5] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2003/07/04.2
[6] http://www.dragonslayers-society.org/
[7] http://www.ai-r.com/meet.htm

Email author at [email protected]