Authority problem...

[Kevin Darcy]

augusto bott wrote:

> Hi All...
>
> I've posted this very same question about a month ago, but haven't caught no
> answer (or lost it), couldn't find anything on the web again....
>
> Here we go: I've setted up a bind server. It's a 4.0 freeBSD. When I run
> NSLOOKUP, asking for:
> >myowndomain.com
>
> server: unassigned
>
> Non-authoritative answer:
> ....(bla bla bla)....
>
> 1 - Why am I getting a non-authoritative answer from myowndomain.com (A
> records)

A non-authoritative answer generally means either a) the server you queried is not
configured as a master or slave for the zone and is answering from cached data, or
b) the server you queried is configured as a master or slave for the zone but
could not load it correctly (for master servers, this is usually caused by a
syntax error in the zone file).  So, first check that the server you queried is
configured as master or slave for the zone. If so, then check that it loaded the
zone correctly.

> when I've setted all right on the NIC (for primary and 2ndary
>    servers)?
>
Whether or not the server has been delegated the zone (via a NIC or whatever) is
irrelevant to whether it gives authoritative answers for that zone or not.


> I have an authoritative answer for otherdomain.com, anotherdomain.com, etc...
>

That doesn't mean much of anything either. If your nameserver needs to query
another nameserver to resolve the query, and gets an authoritative answer back,
it'll pass that back to the client as authoritative, since it came directly from
an authoritative source and wasn't from cached data. So it doesn't necessarily
mean that the responding server *itself* is authoritative for the zone. A better
question is: if you immediately query the same names, are the responses *still*
authoritative? Probably not, since now the nameserver is answering from its cached
data.

>            2 - Why my server is unassigned? It has a host name, one primary domain, and many other domains pointing to it's ip (A records - always same hostname)
>
I'm not exactly sure: I've never seen nslookup say "server: unassigned". My guess
is that it's some sort of FreeBSD extension to nslookup. Maybe it's trying to tell
you that there is no reverse-mapping for the address of the nameserver you're
using. Or maybe it's trying to tell you that it's using address 0.0.0.0 as the
nameserver address because you have no /etc/resolv.conf. Maybe you ought to check
the man page for nslookup on your system. Or use the "strings" command on the
nslookup binary to see if it actually contains the string "unassigned".


- Kevin