The SOA retry interval is outside the usual range
What this check looks for
The timer that decides how soon a backup nameserver tries again after a failed check is set unusually. ‹consequence›
Why it matters
Retry governs recovery after a transient failure. Too short and a struggling primary is hammered by every secondary at once; too long — or longer than the refresh interval — and a single missed transfer delays the whole zone for hours.
When the check passes, your report says: “The SOA retry interval is within the usual range”.
What it costs your score
When this check fails it removes 2 points from your DNS score, before the status, confidence and repeat multipliers are applied. DNS carries a weight of 10 in the overall score.
It shares the dns.health.soa family ceiling of 20 points: however many findings that family produces, together they cannot remove more than that from DNS. One underlying problem showing up in several places is still one problem.
- Severity
- low
- Default confidence
- confirmed
- Status when triggered
- warn
- Deduction
- 2 points
- Family cap
- dns.health.soa · 20
- Category
- DNS
- Module
- Dns health
- Fix owned by
- dns host
- In the ruleset since
- 2026.09
How to fix it
Set the SOA retry shorter than the refresh interval, typically one hour.
A retry that is not shorter than refresh never happens at all.
Edit the SOA record at your DNS host.
Set retry to 3600 (1 hour) with a refresh of 7200 (2 hours).
Confirm secondaries have picked up the new SOA.
How to confirm it worked
dig +short SOA ‹domain› — check the fifth number (retry) against the fourth
{{domain}}. 3600 IN SOA ns1.{{domain}}. hostmaster.{{domain}}. 2026090901 7200 3600 1209600 3600A named slot like ‹domain› — and the braces left in the configuration below — is filled in with your own values when this rule appears on a report.
Technical detail
‹domain› publishes a retry of ‹value› (‹seconds› seconds); the usual range is ‹recommended range› and RFC 1912 §2.2 also requires retry to be shorter than refresh. A retry that is not shorter than refresh never actually fires: the refresh timer comes round first every time.
Standards and references
Test this on your domain
Run the check that produces this finding, on its own, against any domain.
Other dns health checks
- A name has a CNAME alongside other records
- A glue record's address does not match the nameserver's own
- A nameserver inside the domain has no glue record
- A nameserver you delegate to does not answer for the zone
- The domain has fewer than two nameservers
- A nameserver name is an alias rather than a host
- The registry and the zone disagree about the nameservers
- All nameservers resolve to one address
- All nameservers sit in one network block
- A nameserver name has no address
- The delegation could not be checked
- A nameserver answers queries for domains that are not yours