Name Server for local machine

[Kevin Darcy]

The fact that it works when you configure forwarding really only proves that the nameserver to which you are forwarding is able to resolve the query. It doesn't tell you much of anything about why your nameserver can't.

Are you trying to use an Internet root hints file in the absence of full Internet connectivity? That's the most likely explanation for your nameserver's inability to answer the query. The document you cited claims to be useful for "dialup users". If you're on an internal network behind a firewall, you may have to configure
things quite differently.

                                                                                                                                                         - Kevin


Sumit Mehrotra wrote:

> Hi
>
> I am trying to set up a name server on my linux box ( Red Hat 6.2), to act as a primary DNS for the webserver running on the same machine.
>
> I have already installed BIND. I have followed the DNS HOWTO by Nicolai Langfeldt (http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/DNS-HOWTO-3.html#ss3.3 ). I reached uptil Section 3.1. And I am getting all the correct messages in the syslog. BUT in the last step when I query a local machine in the same domain using nslookup, I get
>
> "*** localhost can't find machine.bu.edu: No response from server"
>
> error message, instead of the correct answer as the HOWTO states.
>
> Any idea about this error message?
>
> Thing to note is that when I put in a forwarding section in the "options" in the /etc/named.conf file ( as stated in section 3.2 of the same HOWTO), everything works out fine.
>
> This makes me doubt that the NDS on the local machine is THE primary NS for the webserver on the local machine. I guess all the requests are being forwarded, in this case, to the upstream DNS. ( I even checked this out with a bogus IP for the local machine in the /etc/hosts file: a look up always gave me the correct IP :)