reverse lookup not working in delegated subdomain (still ;( )

[Neal P]

(apologies if this is repeat posting - it doesnt appear on my newsgroup
reader...)

Hi all,

Thanks to those who helped earlier - I'm still stuck and I think it's a
problem with understanding and wires getting crossed, or my just being more
suited to strawberry picking.

Anyway, can I throw some queries past you, see what you think... forgive my
lack of site specific information, but I tried that...

- Our main domain (uwic.ac.uk) holds all its A (forward) and PTR (reverse)
records for itself, as I would expect all other domains do.

- Our intended subdomain (internal.uwic.ac.uk) proxy01 nameserver hold lots
of A and PTR records for the 192.168.2.x range (in their proper files). This
also works fine.

- I want to delegate all queries re: the internal range, to the internal
nameserver (proxy01). I guess that we are using a private range is annoying
but, er, out of my hands...

- Therefore I should not have to hold any PTR records for an internal domain
(internal.uwic.ac.uk) on my external nameserver (csu1). Otherwise, as
mentioned, csu1 will resolve queries and my internal nameserver (proxy01)
will never know anything about the query.

- Trouble is, a HP course I've just been on, the course notes, and the DNS
O'Reilly book all suggest you should have a x.x.in-addr.arpa reverse lookup
file on your 'parent' nameserver. This is confusing me. My forward lookups
are being resolved properly by the internal server because of my glue
records and the named.boot record on csu1.

;db.hosts:
internal                        IN      NS      proxy01.internal.uwic.ac.uk.
proxy01.internal         IN      A       192.168.2.3

;named.boot:
secondary       2.168.192.in-addr.arpa
internal.llandaff.hosts.rev.2

- If I remove the reverse lookup file (internal.llandaff.hosts.rev.2) from
the external (csu1) setup, the reverse query timeout's (as it cant find the
specified file).

- If I leave it in and use any combination of the following, I still get
'host/domain not known'

;                               IN      NS      csu1.uwic.ac.uk.
;                               IN      NS      proxy01.internal.uwic.ac.uk.
;3                              IN      NS      proxy01.internal.uwic.ac.uk.
;3                                      PTR     proxy01.internal.uwic.ac.uk.


So, do I need the reverse lookup file on csu1 or should it only exist on the
on the internal nameserver. If it does only exist on the internal, how do
the reverse lookups get resolved as there is no ip-to-address reference to
the internal from external.

At the end of the day, all I need to do is pass reverse lookup queries, say
192.168.2.4, down to the internal and get the correct answer. The external
should know nothing of the internal's IP records aside from the internal
nameserver itself (?).

If I win the lottery, I'll buy the plane and fly you all to Eljaï Salim's
for beer (maybe ;)

Cheers again all,

Neal.