Why dns lookup is possible without root hint file?

[D. Stussy]

"MontyRee" <chulmin2 at hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:g6mdbd$1b9s$1 at sf1.isc.org...
> Hello list.

Note that this is also a newsgroup (gated list).

> I have operated caching only nameserver using bind.
> and as I know root hit file is required.
> but curiously dns lookup works well without any problem.
>
> surely, I deleted root hint file, all cache data and resolv.conf config.
>
> My named.conf file is below.  ...

That's because named has an internal representation of the root zone hints
file, as it was when that version of bind was released.

Personally, I define it as a stub zone - so that way it will update the file
copy.  Otherwise, from an admin's perspective, I see no operational
difference between these two types.  They still list the name servers for
the zone (with stub adding the SOA record - of which the serial has to be
periodically checked anyway for updates).