hostname resolution

[T G Manikandan]

Hello,
I have a primary DNS server which is my unix box.i have a problem in resolving NT hostnames.
I have a seperate NT DNS server for NT machines.
Is that possible I can make my unix DNS server as primary and NT DNS server as secondary from my unix workstation.
How to proceed?

Thanks

[A. Clay Stephenson]

That's not really the way that you want to do this. You really need to do that in the DNS server. It should do the pointing to the other DNS servers.

[T G Manikandan]

Then what should I do on my unix DNS server.
How can I point my NT DNS server there.

Thanks

[Wilfred Chau_1]

If the NT servers are in a different domain, what you need is to add a zone in /etc/named.conf. Something like,
zone "Ntdomain.com" {
type slave;
file "db.Ntdomain.com";
masters { NT-DNS-IP; };
};

add Ntdomain.com to your search list in /etc/resolv.conf

Restart named, you should be able to resolve NT names now.

If the NT servers and Unix servers are in the same domain and are handled by different DNS(NT and Unix) then you have to manually add the hosts/IP info to /etc/hosts.

Hope this helps.

[Mark van Hassel]

If is is just resolving what you want, you can add both DNS servers in /etc/resolv.conf.

HtH,

Mark

[T G Manikandan]

If I am to add it in the resolv.conf file then the first nameserver will be looked for resolution.Only if the first name server is down then it would look into the second entry if I am right.
I want a scenario where the client looks at the first nameserver,if it could not then it looks into the second entry and then the hosts file and then comes out.

Thanks

[Hartmut Lang]

Are your NT and Unix boxes part of the same domain (using the same domainname)?

If yes your primary DNS server (your Unix server) has to resolv all addresses. Even of your NT boxes. This is what a primary DNS server is for.

The only thing that you can do (as Clay mentioned above), is something in the DNS server , e.g. relay some requests to other servers. But this is internal of the server. Anyway the server must be able to resolve all hostnames in its domain.

Hardy

[Michael Tully]

Hi,

Something to add to this:
Suggest you have an updated copy of
the DNS downloaded from the NT
server regularly. You don't know
when these bad boys are not going
to be available.
Have your /etc/resolv.conf file
like this:
domain myname.com
nameserver 150.20.20.5
nameserver 175.54.20.5

Have your /etc/nsswitch.conf file
pointing to your hosts first, much
more efficient (see above about NT
servers being available) and then
look at DNS if not available. This
way you still have your primary DNS
on your NT server, but have a good
redundancy just in case. This is
how we do it and it works quite
well.

-Michael

[T G Manikandan]

Hello ,
My solution requires that if one of the DNs sevrer is not able to resolve the hostname,can it pass that on to the next dns server.
Is that the entries in the resolv.conf file for dns server is only for redundancy?
For example I have a DNS server for my unix machine and a DNs server for my NT machine.
Both are on the same domain.
But the problem is that I cannot resolv my NT hostnames as they are not in the hosts file.
I have around 1000 NT machines and I cannot enter all of them in my UNix Dns server hosts file.
So what I thought was if I am resolving my NT hostname from my unix machine,
1.First look at the unix dns server
if it cannot resolve,then
2.Look at the NT Dns for resolution.
Can it happen!

[John Bolene]

you want to add the statement to your named.boot

forwarders nt-ip-addr

this will send any unresolved IP's to the other box for resolution