Named does not accept zonefiles

[Chris Buxton]

The answer to your first question is no.

In your second question, you describe two problems which are most 
likely unrelated.

1. You say your server is not caching data. I queried your server 
(using the IP address listed in your zone file, below), and it was 
able to both recursively resolve and cache data. Have you fixed the 
problem?

It does take most of a second (from here) to get a response from your 
server, but it is also caching data. The way to tell, if you're using 
dig to query your server, is to look for the "aa" flag in the 
response. If there's an aa flag present in the dig output, then the 
server either knows the answer natively (from its own zone files) or 
it got the answer from some other server as part of answering your 
query. If the aa flag is not present, then the answer came out of the 
cache.

2. Your zone file isn't loading at all. I have no idea why not; check 
the log. The problem with your zone data should normally cause the 
zone to be loaded, with complaint to the log, such that all data is 
reported as non-authoritative. But it will still serve out most of 
the zone data.

The problem in your zone file is an illegal CNAME record. You have a 
CNAME record with the same name as the zone. Fix this. (CNAME records 
can often be problematic. You should avoid using them unless you're 
sure you understand when they can't be used, or unless you're 
creating a classless subnet reverse zone delegation. If you don't 
know what that is, don't worry about it.)

There is no reason to avoid using multiple A records for a given IP 
address, so if the goal was to associate the name wertkarten.net with 
the IP address 212.17.84.45, then an A record will work whereas a 
CNAME record will not.
____________________________________________________________________

Chris Buxton <cbuxton at menandmice.com>

Men & Mice <http://www.menandmice.com/> provides:
  - DNS training, including Active Directory
  - QuickDNS, a DNS management system for servers on Linux & Mac OS
    (Solaris support coming soon!)
  - DNS Expert, a DNS analysis and troubleshooting utility
____________________________________________________________________

At 12:16 PM +0000 6/1/01, Roland Seuhs wrote:
>Hi!
>
>I've got some problems setting up a master bind/named/dns server on
>Linux(SuSE7.1/x86):
>
>named -v reports:
>named 8.2.3-T9B Fri Jan 19 09:43:33 GMT 2001
>
>I've edited/created:
>
>/etc/named.conf
>/var/named/wertkarten.net.zone (my zonefile)
>
>Q1) Are there any other files to be considered?
>
>I started named either directly (just type "named" in root prompt or via
>SuSE's "rcnamed start" script)
>
>Q2) Are any command-line options or any other things to be considered when
>starting named?
>
>When named is started, I can get valid responses when I type "dig
>@mynameserver domain" for valid domains. (This fails when named is not
>running so I am sure that named was actually started)
>But cashing also does not work; It will take a couple of seconds every time
>I check a domain.
>I don't get any response for my domain.
>
>Here is my /etc/named.conf (minus commentary):
>
>####### /etc/named.conf ########
>
>options {
>         directory "/var/named";
>         # the default is to fail, if the master file is not correct
>         check-names master warn;
>
>         pid-file "/var/run/named.pid";
>         statistics-interval 0;
>         cleaning-interval 720;
>
>         datasize default;
>         stacksize default;
>         coresize default;
>         files unlimited;
>         recursion yes;
>
>         multiple-cnames no;
>};
>
>logging {
>#       category default { null; };
>         category lame-servers { null; };
>         category cname { null; };
>};
>
>zone "." IN {
>         type hint;
>         file "root.hint";
>};
>
>zone "localhost" IN {
>         type master;
>         file "localhost.zone";
>         check-names fail;
>         allow-update { none; };
>};
>
>zone "0.0.127.in-addr.arpa" IN {
>         type master;
>         file "127.0.0.zone";
>         check-names fail;
>         allow-update { none; };
>};
>
>zone "wertkarten.net" IN {
>         notify no;
>         type master;
>         file "wertkarten.net.zone";
>         allow-transfer { any; };
>};
>
>##############
>
>My Zonefile looks like this:
>
>########## /var/named/wertkarten.net.zone ############
>
>
>$TTL 3D
>@       IN      SOA     ns.wertkarten.net. hostmaster.wertkarten.net. (
>                         200102191
>                         8H
>                         2H
>                         4W
>                         1D )
>;
>                 NS      ns
>;
>                 MX      10      mail.wertkarten.net.
>;
>localhost               A       127.0.0.1
>ns.wertkarten.net.      A       212.17.84.45
>wertkarten.net.         CNAME   ns.wertkarten.net.
>en.wertkarten.net.      CNAME   ns.wertkarten.net.
>fr.wertkarten.net.      CNAME   ns.wertkarten.net.
>de.wertkarten.net.      CNAME   ns.wertkarten.net.
>telefon.wertkarten.net. CNAME   ns.wertkarten.net.
>ssl.wertkarten.net.     CNAME   ns.wertkarten.net.
>mail                    CNAME   ns.wertkarten.net.
>
>#################
>
>I've left root.hint, localhost.zone and 127.0.0.zone in /var/named
>untouched. I am not aware of any other files.
>
>Q3) Is there anything wrong with my files?
>
>Thank you very much for your help.
>
>Since my email is down, too, please reply to this forum or
>mailto:e9626680 at student.tuwien.ac.at or both.
>
>Thank you very, very much,
>
>Roland
>
>--
>Roland Seuhs
>         http://Wertkarten.net
>