Understanding SERVFAIL (for google)

[Bill Moseley]

On Thu, Mar 31, 2005 at 03:27:19PM +1000, Mark Andrews wrote:
> 	If you want to be secure with externally accessable components
> 	then keeping them up to date is generally the best policy.
> 	Named, I am sure, is inspected by black hats at every release
> 	for fixes that may expose remote holes.  While we also do
> 	this and issue advisaries when we find something, we won't
> 	guarantee that we havn't missed a case.  Staying up to date
> 	limits your exposure.

Makes sense.  I know my machines are updated within a very short time
of receiving any Debian security announcements.  But I don't like
running the old code.  I do run a few backports on Stable, but I'm
always worried that something will conflict when they get updated.

We have all been waiting for a new Stable release.

> > Are you saying that the problem I'm seeing is due to running Debian's
> > version of Bind?  Or just that the version in Debian Stable is not capable
> > of debugging the problem?

> 	Well there are bug fixes in there that may fix your problem.

Can I ask a bit more generic question and forget about the versions for
now?  I'll assume that my specific problem is related to a bug in the
version I'm running.

In general, if dig shows SERVFAIL are there specific options that will
help detail why that's being reported?




-- 
Bill Moseley
moseley at hank.org