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dnsdomain-name

http://bi/ It works! What kind of domain name is this?

I just mistyped a URL and the browser displayed a page saying "It works!"

How does DNS resolve these names? What are they? 

~> curl http://bi/
<html><body><h1>It works!</h1></body></html>


~> nslookup bi

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:   bi
Address: 196.2.8.205
Solution

  • It's not normally done, but it looks like the bi NIC entered a domain record for the TLD itself. When you do a PTR (Reverse DNS) record search on that IP you get the following:

    Non-authoritative answer:
205.8.2.196.in-addr.arpa    name = ns.nic.bi.

    Normally TLD (Top-level domains) should now have A records attached to them.

    The DNS records for bi are as follows:

    ;; QUESTION SECTION:
;bi.                IN  ANY

;; ANSWER SECTION:
bi.         38400   IN  TXT "Check the website http://www.nic.bi"
bi.         38400   IN  TXT "Top-level Domain of the Republic of Burundi"
bi.         38400   IN  TXT "NIC Burundi"
bi.         38400   IN  TXT "Top-level Domain of .bi"
bi.         38400   IN  A   196.2.8.205
bi.         38400   IN  SOA ns.nic.bi. registrar.nic.bi. 2011070201 21600 3600