syslog errors on new server (Fwd)

[Jim Reid]

>>>>> "Mark" == Mark E Drummond <drummond-m at rmc.ca> writes:

    Mark> Rick Reineman wrote:
    >>  I just got DNS running for the first time on a Solaris 2.7
    >> system.  I believe it is using BIND 8.1.2.  It is a
    >> non-internet server, the primary server is the root.

    Mark> Maybe I am wrong here but I seem to remember reading in the
    Mark> Linux DNS-HOWTO that for a closed net you do not need a root
    Mark> zone at all. I help manage a closed net for another company
    Mark> and set their DNS up w/o a root zone. It works just fine.

It may appear to work "just fine", but it's not. The name server will
be squealing that it can't find any name servers for the root
zone. Unless the server knows about ".", it cannot know the name space
it operates in. [i.e. What domain names exist and which don't.] There
are bound to be lots of messages about this in the name server's logs.
Every name server should be told about the root zone: either the real
one on the internet or some private internal one.