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RackNerd DNS down, support silent for 72 hours

Domain Names by annexbi 15 replies 2.4K views
annexbi

Member OP

2 #1

Registered "hosthatch.com" through RackNerd on August 12. WHOIS shows active (expiration 2027-08-12, status: clientTransferProhibited (which is normal (for new registrations))). Registrar portal: green checkmark, "active."

DNS resolution: complete failure. A record, NS record, even SOA queries timeout from multiple vantage points (tested from: my home connection (Contabo ISP), my VPS (Vultr), friend's line in another country (different AS entirely)). dig +trace dies at the TLD servers: delegation exists, but no response from RackNerd's nameservers (racknerd.com, racknerd.com).

Support ticket #48291: opened 72 hours ago. No response. Status page: "all systems operational" (which (to be honest) is starting to feel like a cruel joke (given that their own nameservers are down (or misconfigured (or possibly (and this is the paranoid reading) deliberately null-routed)))).

Anyone else seeing ghost domains with RackNerd? The domain is "active" in every database except reality.

push. done. coffee.
NUT

Member

Bangkok

#2

RackNerd DNS dead again lol

SH

Member

#3

Im having the same problem with my domain Registered with RackNerd last week and my site just... stopped working? I thought I broke something. Glad (sort of) its not just me. What do we do?

olespete

Member

Trust No One

#4

This is EXACTLY why I run redundant DNS. Never trust a single registrar's nameservers. What could go wrong:

  • Nameserver compromise (malicious zone edits)
  • DDoS on provider infrastructure
  • Configuration drift during "maintenance"
  • Insider threat deleting zones
  • BGP hijack of NS IPs

Set up secondary DNS with independent provider IMMEDIATELY. Also check your logs for unauthorized transfers—this could be precursor to hijacking!

fail2ban on your servers, obviously. But that won't help if the registrar itself is the attack surface.

airgapped, encrypted, faraday'd, still worried
MARIA3

Member

#5

I make test from Madrid and also cannot resolve. This is not local problem, is RackNerd problem.

I check their nameservers with online tool and both show timeout. Very strange because status page says all ok. I sent ticket yesterday too, no answer yet.

For temporary fix, you can change nameservers to Vultr or GreenCloudVPS if registrar allows. I did this with one domain last year when similar problem with other provider. Not ideal but make a server up again.

Regards 😊

siesta first, deploy later
moebig

Member

RAID is not backup

#6

Wesh ana, same issue here with 3 domains on RackNerd. Le server حلو in theory but DNS is mort

Incha'allah they fix soon but I'm not waiting. Transferring to HostHatch tonight (ironic, same name as my broken domain lol) — https://hosthatch.com. Their NS responded in 12ms from my test.

RackNerd finally posted update 20 minutes ago: "degraded DNS performance in region" — region?? I test from Paris, Dubai, and Montreal, all dead. "degraded" is cute way to say "completely broken" I think.

Good luck all

RAID 1: because paranoia pays
blogfranck

Member

#7

"degraded" from three continents? RackNerd spin doctors working overtime

AL

Member

#8

Which region did they mean?

HA

Member

#9

Same, my RackNerd domain died tuesday

olespete

Member

Trust No One

#10
haodock said:
Set up secondary DNS with independent provider IMMEDIATELY

To be clear I meant third-party DNS hosting, not registrar DNS. Cloudflare, NS1, Amazon Route 53, whatever. Your registrar handles delegation, your DNS host handles resolution. Separate the blast radius.

Already seeing reports on Twitter that RackNerd's whois server is also timing out now. Not just resolution—their whole port 43 listener. That's a different subsystem entirely.

airgapped, encrypted, faraday'd, still worried

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