fowarding vs named.ca

[Jim Popovitch]

On Fri, 2005-07-08 at 22:26 +0200, Brad Knowles wrote:
> At 3:38 PM -0400 2005-07-08, Jim Popovitch wrote:
> 
> >  I have a remote caching bind instance that resolves via forwarders (from
> >  another cache) for local lookups.  This works fine, expect for the times
> >  that the upstream forwarders go MIA.  Is there a way to use named.ca
> >  (roots) as a last resort if all forwarders are un-responsive?
> 
> 	The root nameservers do not do recursion.  You can't use them as 
> forwarders.
> 
> >  Additionally, is there a way to go to the roots if the forwarders return
> >  no result?
> 
> 	Nope.

Thanks Brad,

As a follow-up, here is something that came to mind as perhaps being
possible....  :-)

Can I have 2 caching bind instances on the same host, one using
forwarders (bound to 127.0.0.1) and the second using roots (bound to
loop 127.0.0.2).  Then just set up 127.0.0.1 and .2 in /etc/resolv.conf.
This would seem to allow normal usage via a caching instance, but the
emergency usage of direct queries (which I know is bad, bad, bad, but
would allow for system survival if the upstream caches go down).  Lack
of name/PTR resolution could case email delivery problems on this
system.

-Jim P.