DNS forwarders

[Jim Reid]

>>>>> "Paul" == Company, Paul J <paul.company at unisys.com> writes:

    Paul> I'm running BIND 8.2.1

Upgrade to the current version. See:
	http://www.isc.org/products/BIND/bind-security-19991108.html
 
    Paul> I want to delegate part of a class C address space (zone) to
    Paul> another authoritative server under the same domain
    Paul> (plpt.com).  I don't want to subdomain. 

These statements are mutually exclusive. Delegation means the creation
of a subdomain. just like you can't make an omelette without breaking
eggs, you can't create a delegation without making another (sub)domain.

    Paul> I just want all querys for a Class C address to be forwarded
    Paul> to the second master server after the first master server
    Paul> has a crack at it.

Name servers don't work like that. There is no mechanism in the DNS to
say "look up this name and if it's not found, forward the query to
another server for them to lookup". After all, that second server
should get the same answer as the first one did: the name doesn't
exist. There's supposed to be a single, consistent name space.

    Paul> HOST A: master for plpt.com (authoritative for this zone)
    Paul> zone file contains hosta1 IN A 192.168.0.1, hosta2 IN A 192.168.0.2

    Paul> HOST B: master for plpt.com (authoritative for this zone)
    Paul> zone file contains hostb3 IN A 192.168.0.3, hostb4 192.168.0.4

    Paul> HOST C: Regular client, with DNS search (/etc/resolv.conf)
    Paul> pointing to HOST A.

    Paul> If I nslookup hostb3 from HOST C, I want HOST A to forward
    Paul> this to HOST B and get an answer. Is this possible? 

No. Why do you have two master servers for the one zone and why do
those master servers have different data? Which one of those servers
is telling the truth about plpt.com? [By the looks of it, neither of
them is.] Why are these two plpt.com zones allowed to be inconsistent
with each other? Surely it would be better to fix that problem and all
the problems that spring from that? A zone's master server is supposed
to be the definitive source of DNS data for that zone. There should
only be one of them.  Merge the two (bogus) plpt.com zone files into
one and put them under one adminstrative control on one name server.
If office politics are involved, maybe you'll need to make this a
different server from the existing two. Then configure the existing
name servers to be authoritative for the one true plpt.com zone: ie by
being slaves servers for this zone from its new master server.