I realize how some might think this isn't exactly constructive, buuuut, I was wondering how come you can't resolve com, org, us, ru, or any other top level domain? I am taking this is as a learning exercise because there might be some holes in my understanding of how DNS works. For example, I tried;
nslookup com
Server: dns.server.com
Address: 123.123.123.123
*** dns.server.com cant find com: Non-existent domain
I always thought that all other sites under the .com top level domain depended on the existence of an actual domain name called com. At the very least, I thought it kept track of existing domains under the .com domain. What am I missing?
They do depend on com. - but it does not have an A record and you can't look it up like that. Try looking for the NS record instead:
This will give you the gtld-servers which are authoritative for com. and on which you are directed to next set of nameservers for a domain.
If you have dig, try
dig +trace com.if not, then visit http://www.digwebinterface.com/?hostnames=com.&type=&trace=on&ns=resolver&useresolver=8.8.4.4&nameservers= which will show you the output and the route from root level (.) until the NS that gives you the NXDOMAIN response.You're not missing anything. Domain 'com' exists, but has no A records. If you look for NS records (domain server records), you get results (as expected).