forwarders in named.boot are not being used

[Jeroen_D]

Hi,

On a DNS-server which does the name-to-ip translation on a LAN there were no forwarders and no root DNS servers known.

On another subnet, there is another DNS-server. I want to make the first DNS-server to forward requests to that server. I therefore added the line
forwarders
to /etc/named.data/named.boot
and I restarted the name-daemon.

However, this does not seem efficient.
I can ping the IP of the other DNS-server but I cannot request it to do name-resolution.

What have I forgotten ?

TIA,
Jeroen.

[Brian Hackley · Accepted solution]

Jeroen,

You have to KILL the named and start it as a new process to get parameter changes such as forwarders to take effect. If you just HUP it or sig_named restart, that will NOT read the forwarders line.
Sometimes you have to repeat the IP address of the fowarder.
Check /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log for syntax errors or other complaints by named.
Turn on debuging output and examine the named debug log. Consult named and sig_named man page for infos.
Problems such as these are also covered in the BIND Operations Guide ("BOG") in /usr/share/doc/bog.txt, "DNS and BIND" O'Reilly book, and various FAQs e.g. www.dns.net www.acmebw.com
Hope this helps,
-> Brian Hackley

[Kevin Wright]

add the line
forwaders
sometimes this works..
also, what do you have in db.cache file? you could add the other dns server you wish to forward queries to here, then do a ndc reload to load the hints file
. IN NS dnsserver
dnserver IN A ipaddress

[Jeroen_D]

Hi,

thanks a lot for your help !!!

The combination of the 2 answers solved my problem.
I restarted the named (killing it, nog sig_named restart) after changing both the named.boot and db.cache file

I also had to copy the /etc/named.data/named.boot to /etc/named.boot as this is the default file the named will use.

I had forgotten this too...

Again : TNX !
Jeroen.

[Thierry Poels_1]

Hi,
/etc/named.boot is normally a link to /etc/named.data/named.boot.
Thierry.

[Jeroen_D]

Thierry,

I didn't know that.... it is indeed a very good idea to make it a link.

-----
About half an hour after my change I got reports that internal name resolving failed...

I changed my entries in the db.cache file but now (even with those forwarders still in the correct named.boot-file) I can no longer resolve the external name.

It is a DNS server somewhere in America, on the same intranet but on another subnet, the name too is from another dns-domain.

Previously I had no entries in my db.cache-file. I then added 2 lines for that DNS-server and that worked... but apparently the internal DNS queries are now always being sent upwards...

I'm checking this out...if anyone knows the answer immediately, a reply is always welcome.

Jeroen.

[Kevin Wright]

DNS server2 will only use the forwarders directive, or use the db.cache file if it cannot resolve the request locally..unless you add the forward only line..is server2 a slave for the server you have in the db.cache file? can you resolve local names on this host with nslookup without going to the primary server?
Are you sure that the primary dns server( the one you are forwarding to) can resolve external names correctly?