Bell Fibe Reverse DNS broken.

[Raf]

Does anyone know how to reach the folks that manage dns for bell fibe?

recently there are many zones without any reverse dns…while other zones always have PTR records.

example 

142.198.71.xxx range has no PTR records.

thanks

[ZaneP]

WouId you mind describing the scenario where this is an issue for you? I know the lack of PTR records will be problematic if you want to run your own mail server. Just wondering if there something else.

I don't know how to contact Bell's network administration team.

Cheers,

ZaneP

[Raf]

Some security solutions validate that the connected machine has a valid PTR; some email security services will flag a host without a valid PTR; all internet connected addresses should have a valid PTR - pretty standard across service providers…

cheers 

Raf 

[ZaneP]

You can't validate the PTR for your gateway modem's IP address? Mine validates.

If you can't get connected to someone at Bell's network admin, you could post your issue on the Bell Direct Forum on  DSL Reports. https://www.dslreports.com/forum/sympatdirect

It's a site for private Q&A for problem-solving specific issues for Bell subscribers. No anonymous posts are allowed on that forum, so you'll need to sign up to get a user id.

[Raf]

That’s the odd piece; for some ranges it doesn’t and for some it does - an admin at bell needs to take a look;

thanks 

raf

[ZaneP]

Definitely post your issue on that Bell forum on DSLR. The mods are Bell employees, and will look at it.

[VRx]

We're having the same problem here. For 29 years we have been using SSH to connect to our server in Palo Alto (which has been there since '86) with no problem. Bell has one wonky server in the chain that supports reverse-DNS addresses. I've submitted a technical report to Bell that shows queries, responses and timings and all I get is "we don't do support on that". 

I understand that I should post this to DSL Reports but am a little curious as to why I need to use a 3rd party website to fix a problem with Bell's global infrastructure that has been documented to exists since 2016. Isn't that rather beyond the pale? 

We have an open ticket with Bell on this because I cant really use a service with the kind of 30 second delays in DNS that as far as I can tell is unique in Canadian internet history.

This issue has been raised here on DSL Reports, NANOG, Reddit going back to 2016, and I'm surprised that an organization such as Bell seems to be lacking in motivation or ability to fix this long-standing problem. I've been associated with the birth and development of DNS for a while and would be happy to assist for free in any way I can. the perhaps not so subtle implication here is that I'm pretty sure I could fix this in about half an hour. 🙂

sexton@vrx Sun Dec 17 14:41:15 ~
% host bras-base-toroon0822w-grc-46-142-198-55-225.dsl.bell.ca
bras-base-toroon0822w-grc-46-142-198-55-225.dsl.bell.ca has address 142.198.55.225
Host bras-base-toroon0822w-grc-46-142-198-55-225.dsl.bell.ca not found: 2(SERVFAIL)
sexton@vrx Sun Dec 17 14:41:24 ~
%

You will notice it takes 9 seconds, every other response from Bell DNS servers is serviced in a fraction of a second, and this one above, comes back right away and gives you the address then times out and returns SERVFAIL. 

I suspect  its something to do with Bell doesn't want to serve up DNS recursion for non-bell.ca customers and that is quite legitimate however you do need to serve up PTR records so that the IP address Bell handed out can be verified as a security measure. The problem as I see it is there's a recursive  DNS machine tat is doing double-duty by servicing only Bell DSL customers but is also serving up PTR records but they're obviously falling into the path of not a DSL customer so it will report SERVFAIL. If this is true, then the answer is to set up another public-facing DNS server solely for PTR records which would be slaved from the errant server. Or you could do split-horizon DNS if your nameserver code supports that. This is certainly easier than everybody updating their own hosts file to include addresses from Bell just to avoid this critical problem. 

Cheers,

Richard Sexton

[ZaneP]

The Bell Direct Forum on DSLR has closed. You won't be able to post the problem.

I really can't say if your DNS issue will be addressed by Bell support in this Community Forum.  Have you escalated the issue with Bell tech support?