formerr for some queries until named restarted

[Barry Margolin]

In article <f96ahs$1bu4$1 at sf1.isc.org>,
 Jason Grant <expires07 at logular.com> wrote:

> I have an ADSL modem that can operate as a nameserver, albeit without a
> caching capability.
> 
> To introduce some caching on my home network, I've set up bind9.4 on
> fedora7 as shown below.  It forwards to the modem when it does not have
> an answer in its cache, and it is running in IPV4 mode with the -4
> switch.

Why forward to the modem instead of iterating from the root servers?  Do 
you have problems if you use the default, non-forwarding configuration?

> With this setup, I regularly have a problem with named returning
> SERVFAIL, and logging FORMERRs for particular queries (sample below).
> After named returns an error it continues to do so for the same query
> until it is restarted.   If I query the modem directly, it resolves the
> name without a problem.  After restarting named, the query works fine.
> 
> Another possible clue: this fault seems to occur repeatedly only for a
> handful of queries.  In recent days, I've encountered this problem
> repeatedly for the following names, whereas others work fine:
> 
> FORMERR resolving 'addons.glb.mozilla.com/A/IN': 192.168.1.1#53
> FORMERR resolving 'download.eclipse.org/A/IN': 192.168.1.1#53
> FORMERR resolving 'ftp.nai.com/A/IN': 192.168.1.1#53
> FORMERR resolving 'madheifer.pacific.net.au/A/IN': 192.168.1.1#53
> FORMERR resolving 'mail.internode.on.net/A/IN': 192.168.1.1#53
> FORMERR resolving 'subclipse.tigris.org/A/IN': 192.168.1.1#53
> FORMERR resolving 'update.nai.com/A/IN': 192.168.1.1#53

Have you tried dumping the cache to see what it says about these domains?

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
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