BIND basics

[Peter Eddy]

Carsten wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> I am just trying to understand BIND. I would like my DNS-Server to
> resolve it's own name. Is that possible or do I have to put it into
> /etc/hosts?
> A ping to kutter.carsten.peters.name (see zone file below) doesn't work
> either. Why?

I'm no DNS expert, but I have a few suggestions.

> - hostname of my machine: caluta.carsten.peters.name
> - IP address: 192.168.1.3
> - /etc/nsswitch.conf
> - hosts: files dns
> - /etc/hosts:
> 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
> - /etc/resolv.conf:
> nameserver 192.168.1.3
> nameserver 194.179.1.100 #ISP's DNS
> 

your ISP's nameserver shouldn't be here, it should be in named.conf, see 
below.

> DNS caching-only running and working.
> Then I added a zone to the end of /etc/named.conf
> Here is the whole file:
> ===
> // generated by named-bootconf.pl
> //
> // a caching only nameserver config
> //
> #include "/etc/rndc.key";
> options {
>         /*
>          * If there is a firewall between you and nameservers you want
>          * to talk to, you might need to uncomment the query-source
>          * directive below.  Previous versions of BIND always asked
>          * questions using port 53, but BIND 8.1 uses an unprivileged
>          * port by default.
>          */
>         // query-source address * port 53;
>         directory "/var/named";

           forwarders {
               194.179.1.100;
	      // could put more here if you have them
           }
> };
> controls {
>         inet 127.0.0.1 allow { localhost; } keys { rndckey; };
> };
> zone "." {
>         type hint;
>         file "named.ca";
> };
> zone "localhost" {
>         allow-update { none; };
>         type master;
>         file "localhost.zone";
> };
> zone "0.0.127.in-addr.arpa" {
>         allow-update { none; };
>         type master;
>         file "named.local";
> };
> zone "carsten.peters.name" {
>         type master;
>         file "carsten.peters.name.zone";
> };

You should have a reverse DNS zone here for carsten.peter.name

> ===
> 
> Here is the new zone file:
> ===
> $TTL 86400
> caluta.carsten.peters.name.     IN      SOA     carsten.peters.name    
> root    (
>                                 5 ; serial
>                                 28800 ; refresh
>                                 14400 ; retry
>                                 3600000 ; expire
>                                 86400 ; ttl
>                                 ) 
> caluta  IN      NS      192.168.1.3
> caluta          IN      A       192.168.1.3
> kutter          IN      A       192.168.1.2
> ===

This looks wrong, but it could be a difference in our versions of bind. 
My bind9 zone looks like this:

$TTL    604800
@       IN      SOA     net.home. root.net.home. (
                         2003070410      ; Serial
                          604800         ; Refresh
                           86400         ; Retry
                         2419200         ; Expire
                          604800 )       ; Negative Cache TTL
;
         IN      NS      acephlaous.net.home.    ; name server
         IN      MX      10 mail.net.home.       ; Primary mail exchanger

mail            IN      A       209.67.232.227
antonov         IN      A       192.168.1.7
kalypso         IN      A       192.168.1.1

Peter