Domains with multiple hosts being improperly cached. [BIND 9.2.2]

[Martin Glaude]

I run a webserver hosting a few domains.  Each domain has an entry for
"domain.com" and another for "www.domain.com".  In most cases the
"www" domain is a CNAME, but I've also tried with A records.  See
below for an example.

The problem is that I can query for the "domain.com" address and get a
proper response (after a brief delay).  However, if I then query for
"www.domain.com", I get a SERVFAIL error immediately - as though the
local computer never queried the server.  The reverse case
("www.domain.com" then "domain.com") still results in a success on the
first query, then failures.  Queries to the second domain only seem to
work after the cache-time of the first one has expired and things
start from fresh once again.

-----------------------------------------------------
Example hosts file:

[root at www marty]# cat /var/named/simaltech.com.hosts
$ttl 38400
simaltech.com.  IN      SOA     66.206.231.25. martin.simaltech.com. (
                        1051192071
                        10800
                        3600
                        604800
                        38400 )
simaltech.com.          IN      NS      66.206.231.25.
simaltech.com.          IN      A       66.206.231.25
*.simaltech.com.        IN      MX      5 simaltech.com.
www.simaltech.com.      IN      CNAME   simaltech.com.
mail.simaltech.com.     IN      CNAME   simaltech.com.
tat.simaltech.com.     IN      CNAME   simaltech.com. 

------------------------------------------------------
Example queries:

[marty at other marty]$ dig simaltech.com

; <<>> DiG 9.2.1 <<>> simaltech.com
;; global options:  printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 25885
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;simaltech.com.                 IN      A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
simaltech.com.          36717   IN      A       66.206.231.25

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
simaltech.com.          36717   IN      NS      66.206.231.25.

;; Query time: 1 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
;; WHEN: Thu Aug  7 12:56:21 2003
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 74

[marty at other marty]$ dig www.simaltech.com

; <<>> DiG 9.2.1 <<>> www.simaltech.com
;; global options:  printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 39416
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.simaltech.com.             IN      A

;; Query time: 1 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
;; WHEN: Thu Aug  7 12:56:38 2003
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 35

------------------------------------------------------------------
The named.conf file:

[root at www marty]# cat /etc/named.conf
options {
        directory "/var/named";
        // query-source address * port 53;
};

zone "." IN {
        type hint;
        file "named.ca";
};


zone "localhost" IN {
        type master;
        file "localhost.zone";
        allow-update { none; };
};

zone "0.0.127.in-addr.arpa" IN {
        type master;
        file "named.local";
        allow-update { none; };
};

zone "simaltech.com" {
        type master;
        file "/var/named/simaltech.com.hosts";
        };

// More domains continue below here...