New install, having bind issues

[Jeremy Lunsford]

I hope someone can help, I've been beating my head against this for the
last 24hours.

I just did a fresh install of Fedora.  The install seemed to go well, so
I started restoring all my files.  I checked the new named.conf file and
all the header stuff at the top matched up exactly with my old one.
(Which was from a RedHat 9 install, so same major version of bind)  So I
copied my named.conf file into /etc.  I then copied all my zone files
into /var/named.  (Not replacing the hint file)  Then I started bind..
It will resolve other domains with no problem, but when I query it about
a domain that it is master for it gives me a 

   ** server can't find thedames.com: SERVFAIL

In my log file all I get is a lame server error..

   Mar  7 20:56:24 bender named[22199]: lame server resolving
'thedames.com' (in 'thedames.com'?): 209.75.97.4#53

So my server clearly doesn't think that it has info for those zones.  At
first I thought this was a permissions issue.  However at this point my
named.conf file and all my zone files are 777 with an owner of named.
So I don't think that is an issue..  I don't get any errors when
restarting named.  It just happily says that its loading named.conf and
that everything is great.

   Mar  7 20:48:55 bender named[22199]: starting BIND 9.2.2-P3 -u named
-t /var/named/chroot
   Mar  7 20:48:55 bender named[22199]: using 1 CPU
   Mar  7 20:48:55 bender named[22199]: loading configuration from
'/etc/named.conf'
   Mar  7 20:48:55 bender named[22199]: no IPv6 interfaces found
   Mar  7 20:48:55 bender named[22199]: listening on IPv4 interface lo,
127.0.0.1#53
   Mar  7 20:48:55 bender named[22199]: listening on IPv4 interface
eth0, 209.75.97.2#53
   Mar  7 20:48:55 bender named[22199]: command channel listening on
127.0.0.1#953
   Mar  7 20:48:55 bender named[22199]: running
   Mar  7 17:48:55 bender named: named startup succeeded


If I run named-checkconf on my named.conf file I get the following:

   [root at bender etc]# named-checkconf -t /etc/ named.conf
   named.conf:4: change directory to '/var/named' failed: file not found
   named.conf:4: parsing failed

I had my friend run that same command on his server thou, and he got the
same error.  I think I'm running the command wrong.

Here is my current named.conf file, and one of my zone files:

// generated by named-bootconf.pl

options {
        directory "/var/named";
        /*
         * 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;
};

// 
// a caching only nameserver config
// 
controls {
        inet 127.0.0.1 allow { localhost; } keys { rndckey; };
};
zone "." IN {
        type hint;
        file "named.ca";
};

zone "localhost" IN {
        type master;
        file "localhost.zone";
        allow-update { none; };
};

zone "0.0.127.in-addr.arpa" IN {
        type master;
        file "named.local";
        allow-update { none; };
};

include "/etc/rndc.key";


zone "vmfaq.com"{
        type master;
        file "vmfaq.com";
};

zone "ethiopianet.net"{
        type master;
        file "./ethiopianet.net";
};

zone "thecryptorium.com"{
        type master;
        file "./thecryptorium.com";
};

zone "monku.org"{
        type master;
        file "./monku.org";
};

zone "thedames.com"{
        type master;
        file "thedames.com";
};

zone "gravelymanor.com"{
        type master;
        file "./gravelymanor.com";
};



;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; File vmfaq.com
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; $ORIGIN vmfaq.com
; @ = vmfaq.com
;
@ 86400      IN      SOA     ns1.vmfaq.com. dnsadmin.vmfaq.com. (
 200403070      ; Serial number
     10800      ; Refresh after 3 hours
      3600      ; Retry after 1 hour
    604800      ; Expire after 1 week
     86400 )    ; Minimum TTL of 1 day

      86400                  IN NS   ns1.vmfaq.com.
          86400              IN NS   ns1.thoene.net.


vmfaq.com. 86400                IN A    209.75.97.2
                86400           IN MX 0 mx1.veriomail.com.
www         86400            IN A    209.75.97.2
bender 86400                    IN A    209.75.97.2
ns1             86400           IN A    209.75.97.2
fonts 86400                     IN A    209.75.97.2



I found one place that said that I needed to put a $TTL 1D at the top of
my zones files.  I've tried that, no luck..  Plus, the zone checker
utility says all my zones are ok.  Besides my zone files having their
permissions wide open, so does the actual named directory..

If anyone has some suggestions, I'd love to hear them.  I've never had
this kind of problem with DNS before.  I've been doing it for quite a
while and the thing I love about bind is that it always just works.
(Except today.)

Thanks!!!!