No forward lookup for one domain

[Jim Reid]

>>>>> "Mark" == Mark Packer <mark.packer at kcl.ac.uk> writes:

    Mark> The DNS is authoritative for 2 domains: smd.kcl.ac.uk &
    Mark> jbf.org.uk

I think you meant to say your name server was authoritative, not the
Domain Name System. Too bad you didn't tell its name or address.

    Mark> I can do forward and reverse lookups successfully for all
    Mark> the smd.kcl.ac.uk zones but for the jbf.org.uk domain I can
    Mark> only do reverse lookups, i.e number to name. Forward does
    Mark> not work for this domain.

This appears to contradict your previous paragraph. If the server is
"authoritative for jbf.org.uk" it should answer for names in that
zone/domain. Access control lists, kernel resources, etc., permitting
of course.

    Mark> I've checked the syslog after restarting named and all the
    Mark> zone files appear to load without errors.

Are you *really* sure about that? If the jbf.org.uk zone file loaded
OK, the server can answer for that zone.

    Mark> Does anyone have any ideas as to where I should look?

Try querying the server for names in jbf.org.uk with dig. Maybe you're
using some other idiot lookup tool that's secretly appending other
domain names to the query before it makes the lookup. It's a pity you
didn't supply the name and address of the name server so someone here
could have tested it.

There are two name servers listed for the jbf.org.uk zone. These are
retina.smd.kcl.ac.uk and iguana.kcl.ac.uk. iguana does not answer
authoritatively for this zone and provides a lot of gunk for what
looks like the org.uk name servers in the answer and authority
sections of the reply it sent to an ANY query for jbf.org.uk. This
would tend to suggest that it hasn't been configured as a master or
slave server for the zone. BTW retina claims that there's another name
server for jbf.org.uk, axolotl.kcl.ac.uk, but axolotl isn't
authoritative for the zone either. It returned me a referral to
retina.smd.kcl.ac.uk and iguana.kcl.ac.uk. So it looks like there's
only one name server that's talking the truth about jbf.org.uk. This
could be upsetting any other name servers that lookup names in
jbf.org.uk.