Robin> I have set up a local DNS server running on Red Hat 5.2 as a primary server.
Robin> Form my client machines I also need to access 2 other DNS servers as
Robin> provided by my ISP which we connect to via a gateway. When I edited the
Robin> settings for my machine (via DHCPD) to include the local DNS I discovered
Robin> that DNS lookup was only being performed by my local DNS server. i.e. if the
Robin> local DNS server cold not resolve a name the other DNS server were not
Robin> tried.
Robin> Is this a fault with my client software (NT4) or do I need to set up the
Robin> local DNS server differently.
If you're intending to cache hits that you aren't a master for, make
sure you've put the "forwarding" parameter somewhere in named.boot (or
whatever your named cfg file is). This is slightly different for
bind-4 and bind-8. For 4, just put in "forwarders 1.2.3.4" replacing
1.2.3.4 with the ip address of the other DNS server.
BTW: I ran into trouble at some point with my ISP's DNS server (it was
dog slow a lot of the time), so I don't forward. My configuration
goes straight out and queries root-servers and does it this way.
Perhaps it's not always the best way, but I haven't had a big delay
like I did using my ISP's DNS servers!
To use this, I have "cache . named.ca" in my /etc/named.boot (again,
bind-4). named.ca is produced using dig as:
Actually, I do this monthly to make sure I am up to date (an old
named.ca can be very hard to deal with), and check the file to make
sure the query was successful before I overwrite the one used. Simple
little script that's been working flawlessly for years now. If you
need a copy of this, drop me a line.
HTH
-bill
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by