Question on subdomain delegation

[Barry Finkel]

>Joel <jc517 at wmi.com> wrote:
>
>Either I've got things setup incorrectly or I don't quite understand
>how subdomain delegation is supposed to work. Or both. I'm trying to
>create a subdomain in wmi.com called lpx.wmi.com. On our internal
>machine we are running a very old version 8.2.2-P7. Following
>instructions I found on the web I added this to the zone file
>
>    lpx.wm.com. 43200   IN      NS      ns.lpx.wmi.com.
>    ns          43200   IN      A       192.168.1.102
>
>The named.conf file has this for wmi.com
>
>    options {
>        directory "/var/named";
>        forwarders { 209.137.163.242; };
>        allow-transfer { 192.168.1.102; 192.168.1.18; 192.168.1.19; };
>    };
>
>    zone "wmi.com" {
>            type master;
>            allow-update { key DHCP_UPDATER;
>                    127.0.0.1
>                    192.168.1.253;
>            };
>            file "wmi.com";
>    };
>
>This didn't seem to work. When I sniff packets they went to
>the outside server at 209.137.163.242. The I added a new zone
>in the config file. Both of these made it work but I suspect not the
>way it is supposed to.
>
>    zone "lpx.wmi.com" {
>        type forward;
>        forwarders { 192.168.1.102; };
>    };
>
>    zone "lpx.wmi.com" {
>        type forward;
>        forwarders {};
>    };
>
>I think this completely sidesteps the delegation. What do I need
>to fix this? If a client asks for the address of etp10.lpx.wmi.com
>should the client send the request to 192.168.1.102 or should the
>primary server that got the initial request do this? I suspect
>it's the client. That's not what I am seeing. My understanding is
>you delegate so that the one server can get out of the picture as
>quickly as possible.
>
>It's lunchtime here and I'm off to the book store in search of
>some more detailed info.

It appears that you added a correct NS record to your zone

     lpx.wm.com. 43200   IN      NS      ns.lpx.wmi.com.

You also added 

     ns          43200   IN      A       192.168.1.102

I think you meant that record to be

     ns.lpx      43200   IN      A       192.168.1.102

to give the address of the ns.lpx.wmi.com name server.

Once you have told DNS the address of the 

     ns.lpx.wmi.com

name server, DNS should be able to forward queries to that server
without you having to add the new zone as a "forward" zone.  You could,
of course, add the lpx subdomain as a slave zone on your server, with
the ns.lpx server being the master.  That way, your BIND server will
have the authoritative information, and it will not have to ask
another server.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Barry S. Finkel
Computing and Instrumentation Solutions Division
Argonne National Laboratory          Phone:    +1 (630) 252-7277
9700 South Cass Avenue               Facsimile:+1 (630) 252-4601
Building 222, Room D209              Internet: BSFinkel at anl.gov
Argonne, IL   60439-4828             IBMMAIL:  I1004994