How do I find what domains are using my glue records?

dballing

6/1/24, 10:15 PM

My domain has two (long-since-disused by me) glue records. When I try to delete them, I am told by the domain-registration system that I can't because they are 'in use'. But they're not in use by any of my domains.

They could be the NS-set of record for some domain I hosted for a friend (I used to host many of them, decades ago) but I don't even pretend to know all of those domains to go find them and check. Even so, it could even just be some random domain who decided to park themselves on that NS-set to bypass their own need to set up DNS servers (because no registrar actually validates that the NS-set will respond favorably to queries).

So the question is - how do I figure out, out of the squillions of domains out there in both the gTLD and ccTLD space, which of them have parked themselves on my glue-records, so that I can at least try to get them disassociated, so that I can delete the glue-records.

0 + 8

domain-name-system

glue-record

anx

6/1/24, 10:43 PM

"I am told" - is that a specific software emitting some concrete output? Prefer quotes over vague descriptions.

dballing

6/1/24, 10:54 PM

thanks. made that more clear.

Paul

6/2/24, 11:30 AM

Set the IP address to your server. See what shows up.

HBruijn

6/2/24, 12:28 PM

You would need to search the relevant zones for occurrences of your name servers. That isn't exactly easily accessible public information. The ICANN Centralized Zone Data Service (CZDS) https://czds.icann.org/home may be of use there or for example the commercial https://drs.whoisxmlapi.com/reverse-dns-search (with a trial account)

anx

6/2/24, 12:51 PM

Who is managing the software that refuses your input? I would assume they have a search interface to look up what other zones *not necessarily associated with your account with them, but still hosted by them* have that "in use".

dballing

6/2/24, 8:51 PM

@anx - It's Google Domains, but ultimately glue records are all still managed for lots of legacy reasons at the Registry level, so it comes down to the .ORG registry (in my case) refusing the request from any reseller to remove the record because they get a rejection code from the .ORG registry telling them "it's in use" (but the response doesn't include any information about what domain[s] are using it."

dballing

6/2/24, 8:51 PM

@HBruijn - The rDNS thing would not give me much help since it only purports to say "what are all the hostnames pointing at this IP address". CZDS looks potentially promising tho.

HBruijn

6/4/24, 8:19 AM

The whoisxmlapi summary says: *"Identify all the domains hosted on a given ... **nameserver**."* , but I haven't used it so I can't say how well it would work for your use-case. - It would indeed be much easier if you were indeed told that you domain is in-use by domainX, Y and Z.

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: How do I find what domains are using my glue records?

Post an answer

Most people don’t grasp that asking a lot of questions unlocks learning and improves interpersonal bonding. In Alison’s studies, for example, though people could accurately recall how many questions had been asked in their conversations, they didn’t intuit the link between questions and liking. Across four studies, in which participants were engaged in conversations themselves or read transcripts of others’ conversations, people tended not to realize that question asking would influence—or had influenced—the level of amity between the conversationalists.