Hosting own domain - newb questions.

[Chris Buxton]

First, you appear to be misusing the term SIP, which is a voip and  
video conferencing TLA.

A name server becomes authoritative for a zone by loading the zone  
into memory from some source. Authority is declared unilaterally by  
the server. However, nobody will know unless the zone is also  
delegated to the server by the parent zone. In this case, your parent  
zone is com.au; you have to register your zone with a domain  
registrar for com.au, including specifying the name and address of  
your name server.

Ignore PTR records for the moment. They have no bearing on the problem.

You should not name your server the same as your zone; doing so,  
while valid, leads to confusion and isn't as flexible as using a name  
such as 'ns' as your server name (meaning 'ns.gvmp.com.au.' as an FQDN).

I did some checking, and I found the following:

- Your domain is properly registered.
- Your name server is properly registered (assuming its address is  
202.172.129.5).
- A query sent to your name server is not answered. This might be a  
firewall issue, or it may be that named is not running.
- A query to your offsite slave (ns1.westnet.com.au) is answered with  
an error, probably indicating that it can't get your zone from your  
server. See previous item.

So, first check whether named is running.

ps ax | grep named | grep -v grep

If there's any output, then named is running.

Next, check the server logs (e.g. /var/log/syslog on Ubuntu, unless  
you have either modified /etc/syslog.conf or added a logging  
statement to /etc/named.conf or any included files). Is it  
complaining about not being able to establish listeners? Is it able  
to start a listener on either 202.172.129.5 or a private address for  
which you have port 53 mapped (NAT or PAT) from the public address?

Chris Buxton
Men & Mice

On Aug 21, 2006, at 5:43 AM, Frank Hamersley wrote:

> I have been faffing around trying to establish a BIND 9.3.2 on  
> Ubuntu Dapper
> Server as the authorative NS for a single .com.au. domain...but  
> with only
> partial success - most of which I suspect is due to my limited  
> knowledge
> (just enough to be dangerous).
>
> I have Bind up and running and shorewall seems to be behaving  
> itself too
> athough it is spitting more messages than I would like (previously  
> I have
> cut the iptables script by hand).
>
> I can get a response when querying using the SIP but when using the  
> FQDN of
> the NS it chokes ... which I presume signals a "lame" NS?
>
> I have by following various bits of net howto established the domain
> (gvmp.com.au) zone and indicated that the primary NS is to be
> ns.gvmp.com.au.  After having communicated with the ISP they have
> established a PTR for gvmp.com.au to the SIP but this doesn't seem  
> to help.
>
> Is this a viable arrangement or should I change the zone NS to be  
> the same
> name as the domain so the PTR maps directly back to it?
>
> Can someone in a broad brush explain how a NS can become  
> authorative for
> itself?  I presume this is down to the "glue" but am left wondering  
> just how
> the discovery process goes from the root servers to the delegation  
> point
> (which I presume is my SIP).
>
> If needed I can post /etc/bind/* here.
>
> Regards, Frank.
>
>
>
>