Caching-Only Behavior

[Joe Kattner]

Jeff,

If the name server is set up as caching only, other servers will not
ever send it queries (unless it's acting as a forwarder, but you don't
mention that). It must be authoritative for something so another server
would know that it exists and needs to query it. In you example the name
server is not authoritative for anything, so the description you give in
the last paragraph is accurate; Caching servers work for the clients,
and reduce the load on authoritative servers.

Clients on the other hand must be configured to send their DNS queries
to specific name server(s). The server then uses recursion to find the
answers for those clients. Your example server holds no answers, only
the ability to perform a recursive query for it's clients.

--Joe


-----Original Message-----
From: NCR Employee [mailto:ncremployee at ncr.com]=20
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 10:11 AM
To: comp-protocols-dns-bind at isc.org
Subject: Caching-Only Behavior


I have not been able to find any reference material to answer my DNS
question:

When a UNIX system is properly setup to perform caching and it is not
setup as a Primary or Secondary Nameserver, will it respond to name
server requests that are sent directly to it from other servers?

I would think that name caching was used on the local host to speed up
name resolution for local applications and to minimize requests to the
actual DNS server, rather than, providing name resolution for other
servers.

Jeff