Re: [PLUG] FW: BIND troubleshooting / help

[epike <epike@isinet.com>]

hi

i was also following the discussions but could not find the
flaw.  for a while i suspected the delegation from the
root name servers to be getting in the way but could not
find the fault there either.

here are some additional inputs IMHO:


> --> 2. You do not seem to have A records for the nameservers.

this is the zone file for gh-systems.com not intelli-media.com.
A records for intelli-media.com belong in that zone (if you put
A records for intelli-media into the zone file for gh-systems
 bind will complain).  You
only need A records here if you are putting NS "inside" your
zone such as ns.gh-systems.com (those are "glue" records to
solve a "chicken and egg" problem).

> --> 4. since it looks like the zone files are all the same except
> --> for the domain
> --> name (maybe not I only looked at a couple) I would suggest
> --> using the same
> --> zone file for all of them. It cuts down on maintenance. In
> --> named.conf on the
> --> master use the same filename for all of the zones that are the
> --> same. Do not do
> --> this on the slaves. It will confuse things. For the www entries
> --> take out the
> --> fqdn and just make a www entry.

here's a handy one that i use for our "virtual" server that have
all the same names (names changed to hide the server names):

[root@magnushost public]# cat db.generic
$TTL 12h

@ IN SOA ns1.xxxxxx.com. xxx.xxxxxxx.com. (
                           15        ; serial
                           3h        ; refresh
                           1h        ; retry 
                           1w        ; expire
                           1h      ) ; negative ttl

  IN NS ns1.xxxxxx.com.
  IN NS ns2.xxxxxxx.com.
  IN MX 10 mx1.mxxxxxx.com.

; server

@                             IN A 111.111.11.11
www                           IN CNAME @
ftp                           IN CNAME @
[root@magnushost public]# 



in named.conf just do:


zone "domain1.com"          IN { type master; file "public/db.generic"; };
zone "domain2.com"            IN { type master; file "public/db.generic"; };
zone "domain3.com"           IN { type master; file "public/db.generic"; };

i have like 10 domains sharing the definition...on the slave server
they curiously scatter into 10 different files.

but this is already OffTopic...just wanted to get that out..

> --> 7. for your slaves you might want to prefix your zone file
> --> names in named.conf
> --> with cache/ or something like that. Then make a dir in
> --> /var/named called cache
> --> and chown the dir to named:named. This will not make thinks
> --> work any better but
> --> it will allow you to keep the master and slave zone files
> --> separate. If you are
> --> like most people you will end up with master and slave zones on the same
> --> machines. It is much easier to admin that way.
> -->

yeah you do have the files the same and could give you much confusion.
personally i put my slave zones in /var/named/sz and my master
zones in /var/named/pz .  but whichever works is great.

> --> 11. In the DNS and bind book (Cricket book) the explanation for negative
> --> caching TTL says "TTL stands for time to live. This value applies to all
> --> negative responses from the nameservers authoritative for the
> --> zone" Now we
> --> both know as much as we did before. :-)


Negative TTL is cached "not found" answers.  If i query your domain and
find that somehost.yourdomain.com is not existing, your negative TTL tells
my named to just keep on returning to me the error till the timer runs out.
named caches negative as well as positive hits to minimize queries.


HTH.

epike
_________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group        --       http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.netisland.net/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion  --   http://lists.netisland.net/mailman/listinfo/plug