Domain Name Resolution Problems with PLDT and Globe DNS Servers

If you are getting weird problems connecting to the web, and are using PLDT’s or Globe’s DSL service, we may have a stumbled upon a less than optimal DNS entry on our side. 

Lately, we have been receiving reports from our hosted clients using PLDT  and Globe internet connection that they cannot view websites.  During the investigation of the problem, we initially thought that there was temporary problem with PLDT’s DNS servers. As out test below would show, some other DNS servers on the Net did not have the same problem.

The details of our test show the following:

1. When the client is using PLDT’s DNS server (from DSL),  the DNS query will fail.

>www.m*********.com
Server:  ns2.i-gate.net
Address:  58.69.254.136

*** ns2.i-gate.net can’t find www.m**********.com: Server failed
2. When the client is using OPen DNS server, the DNS query returns a proper answer and succeed.

> server 208.67.222.222
>www.m*********.com

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    www.m*********.com
Address:  202.91.163.2

So we escalated the problem to PLDT’s top network honchos and asked them what they were seeing from their side. It seems that both PLDT and Globe servers could not resolve the IP address of one of the Name Servers on our side. But other name servers on the internet could.

While we were troubeshooting the problem, we advised our clients to use OPENDNS when encountering problems that are related to PLDT and Globe DNS server. Here are the instructions on how to change DNS settings to OpenDNS

After exhaustive investigation, it seems that our NS records did not have the accompanying A records. (In layman’s terms, it was not fully compatible with some of the DNS servers out there). So we corrected the problem, and with help from PLDT DNS guys,we were able to get confirmation that the DNS servers are now in sync and compatible with PLDT DNS.