2000/Bind and General Questions

[Smith, John]

All,

	I have noticed what I feel is 'strange' behavior in the resolver and
wanted to ask if the behavior is normal and I just missed something in the
docs and searching through the list archives.  (My apologies if I missed the
answer in either.)  We were setting up a Bind server on a Windows 2000
platform and noticed that clients could resolve names and addresses
properly, but the server itself could not.  After digging a little further
(and moving resolv.conf to the correct directory -
%windir%\system32\drivers\etc) things starting working much better except
for a nuance.  (I am using test.net as an example.)  Following was my
original resolv.conf:

search test.net sz.test.net
server 1.2.3.4
server 5.6.7.8
server 1.2.3.5

	Server 1.2.3.4 is the 2000 Bind server and it is authoritative for
the test.net zone.  Sz.test.net is delegated to servers 5.6.7.8 (primary)
and 1.2.3.5 (secondary).

	The behavior: Server 1.2.3.4 (authoritative for test.net) could
resolve systems in its domain (test.net) but it could not in subzone
sz.test.net.  I then changed the search order in resolv.conf to the
following:

search sz.test.net test.net

	At this point everything resolved properly, although now it takes
the server an additional query to resolve anything in its domain (test.net).

	Just for grins I set up a Bind server with the same configuration on
a RH Linux box and saw the same results.

	My question is simply do I have something wrong in my configuration
files or is this normal behavior?  And if it is normal behavior does anyone
know the logic behind it?

	Specific configuration information: Windows 2000 Server running Bind
9.2.1, RedHat Linux 7.1 workstation running Bind 9.1.0.

	Thanks everyone.

John

=========================================
John Smith
Sys Admin
Minolta-QMS, Inc.
1 Magnum Pass
Mobile, AL  36618
251.633.4300
=========================================