Strange search order problem

[Adam Augustine]

We seem to have a strange problem with the order that the resolver =
searches
domains. We are using 8.2.2P7 on the main office server and 8.2.2P7 and =
P5
on the remote office servers. All are running on either Red Hat or =
Caldera
Linux. All clients (regardless of OS) experience this problem.

We have, on our internal network (not visible to the Internet), =
delegations
from our corporate office to our remote country offices that follow =
this
form:

de.morinda.com
au.morinda.com
ca.morinda.com

and so on. And the resolv.conf at the corporate office name server =
looks
like this:

search morinda.com
nameserver 127.0.0.1
nameserver 172.16.6.3

Here is an illustration of the problem:

[root at clotho named]# ping multi.au
PING multi.au.morinda.com (10.111.6.1) from 172.16.6.1 : 56(84) bytes =
of
data.
64 bytes from multi.au.morinda.com (10.111.6.1): icmp_seq=3D0 ttl=3D253
time=3D378.1 ms
64 bytes from multi.au.morinda.com (10.111.6.1): icmp_seq=3D1 ttl=3D253
time=3D378.8 ms
64 bytes from multi.au.morinda.com (10.111.6.1): icmp_seq=3D2 ttl=3D253
time=3D383.4 ms
=F2
--- multi.au.morinda.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max =3D 378.1/380.1/383.4 ms
[root at clotho named]# ping multi.de.morinda.com
PING multi.de.morinda.com (10.121.6.1) from 172.16.6.1 : 56(84) bytes =
of
data.
64 bytes from multi.de.morinda.com (10.121.6.1): icmp_seq=3D0 ttl=3D251
time=3D205.8 ms
64 bytes from multi.de.morinda.com (10.121.6.1): icmp_seq=3D1 ttl=3D251
time=3D215.6 ms
64 bytes from multi.de.morinda.com (10.121.6.1): icmp_seq=3D2 ttl=3D251
time=3D207.2 ms
=F2
--- multi.de.morinda.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max =3D 205.8/209.5/215.6 ms
[root at clotho named]# ping multi.de
PING multi.de (194.9.194.37) from 172.16.6.1 : 56(84) bytes of data.