dns not resolving

[Joseph S D Yao]

On 2013-11-11 12:11, S. Jeff Cold wrote:
...
>  ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 22495
>  ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
>
>  ;; QUESTION SECTION:
>  ;jeffdiss.org. IN A
...
>  BIND's configuration file is :
>
>  $TTL 3600
>  $ORIGIN jeffdiss.org.
>  ; Start of Authority record defining the key characteristics of the
> zone (domain)
>  @ IN SOA server1.jeffdiss.org. zonemaster.jeffdiss.org. (
...
>  ; mail server Resource Records (RR) for the domain
>  3w IN MX 10 mail.jeffdiss.org.
>
>  ; domain hosts includes NS and MX records defined above plus any
> others required
>  server1 IN A 192.168.1.50
>  server2 IN A 192.168.1.51
>  www IN A 192.168.1.51
...

Jeff,

The above is not the configuration file.  As others have pointed out, 
there is no way to know why a SERVFAIL was returned without that and 
other important information.

But you will NEVER be able to resolve the name "jeffdiss.org" with the 
zone file you included.  Why is that?  Because you never defined an 
address for that name!  That would require either an A record with a 
blank left hand side before all the other A records, or one with "@" in 
the LHS.

And speaking of missing A records, what is the IP address of 
"mail.jeffdiss.org"?  Nobody will ever know, given this zone file.

As Tom Lehrer famously said, life is like a sewer: what you get out of 
it depends on what you put into it.  Same with DNS - only a bit more 
pleasant, one might hope.

I hope this starts to help.


Joe Yao