SOA Minimum Value

Tests that the Start of Authority (SOA) minimum value is in the recommended range.

The Start of Authority (SOA) record is a special DNS record that lists certain administrative information about the domain name and helps with coordinating zone transfers. Zone transfers are how a cluster of servers can coordinate on updating information.

The Minimum value determines the negative caching behavior for the domain name. For example, if you try to go to a website and find that the domain name doesn't exist. This data (the website doesn't exist) will be cached in the DNS system. If you then decide to purchase this domain name and proceed to setup the DNS records, those updated records will not become available until the negative caching duration expires. This is controlled partly by this Minimum SOA record. The recommended values are somewhere between 5 minutes (300s) and 1 hour (3600s). This test will only be marked as a failure if the Minimum value is shorter than 2 minutes or longer than 1 day.

Depending on your DNS provider, is likely that you do not have control over setting the values of the SOA record.

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