comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains Frequently Asked Questions

A new version of this document appears monthly. If this copy is more than a month old it may be out of date.

This FAQ is edited and maintained by Chris Peckham, cdp@pfmc.net. The most recently posted version may be found for anonymous ftp from

rtfm.mit.edu : /pub/usenet/news.answers/internet/tcp-ip/domains-faq

It is also available in HTML from http://www.users.pfmc.net/~cdp/cptd-faq/.

If you can contribute any answers for items in the TODO section, please do so by sending e-mail to domain-faq@pfmc.net ! If you know of any items that are not included and you feel that they should be, send the relevant information to domain-faq@pfmc.net.

Index

Section 1. TO DO / UPDATES

• Q1.1. Contributions needed
• Q1.2. UPDATES / Changes since last posting

  Section 2. INTRODUCTION / MISCELLANEOUS

• Q2.1. What is this newsgroup ?
• Q2.2. More information
• Q2.3. What is BIND ?
• Q2.4. What is the difference between BIND and DNS ?
• Q2.5. Where is the latest version of BIND located ?
• Q2.6. How can I find the path taken between two systems/domains ?
• Q2.7. How do you find the hostname given the TCP-IP address ?
• Q2.8. How do I register a domain ?
• Q2.9. How can I change the IP address of our server ?
• Q2.10. Issues when changing your domain name
• Q2.11. How memory and CPU does DNS use ?
• Q2.12. Other things to consider when planning your servers
• Q2.13. Reverse domains (IN-ADDR.ARPA) and their delegation
• Q2.14. How do I get my address assigned from the NIC ?
• Q2.15. Is there a block of private IP addresses I can use?
• Q2.16. Does BIND cache negative answers (failed DNS lookups) ?
• Q2.17. What does an NS record really do ?
• Q2.18. DNS ports
• Q2.19. What is the cache file
• Q2.20. Obtaining the latest cache file
• Q2.21. Selecting a nameserver/root cache
• Q2.22. Domain names and legal issues
• Q2.23. Iterative and Recursive lookups
• Q2.24. Dynamic DNS
• Q2.25. What version of bind is running on a server ?

  Section 3. UTILITIES

• Q3.1. Utilities to administer DNS zone files
• Q3.2. DIG - Domain Internet Groper
• Q3.3. DNS packet analyzer
• Q3.4. host
• Q3.5. How can I use DNS information in my program?
• Q3.6. A source of information relating to DNS

  Section 4. DEFINITIONS

• Q4.1. TCP/IP Host Naming Conventions
• Q4.2. What are slaves and forwarders ?
• Q4.3. When is a server authoritative?
• Q4.4. My server does not consider itself authoritative !
• Q4.5. NS records don't configure servers as authoritative ?
• Q4.6. underscore in host-/domainnames
• Q4.7. How do I turn the "_" check off ?
• Q4.8. What is lame delegation ?
• Q4.9. How can I see if the server is "lame" ?
• Q4.10. What does opt-class field in a zone file do?
• Q4.11. Top level domains
• Q4.12. US Domain
• Q4.13. Classes of networks
• Q4.14. What is CIDR ?
• Q4.15. What is the rule for glue ?
• Q4.16. What is a stub record/directive ?

  Section 5. CONFIGURATION

• Q5.1. Upgrading from 4.9.x to 8.x
• Q5.2. Changing a Secondary server to a Primary server ?
• Q5.3. Moving a Primary server to another server
• Q5.4. How do I subnet a Class B Address ?
• Q5.5. Subnetted domain name service
• Q5.6. Recommended format/style of DNS files
• Q5.7. DNS on a system not connected to the Internet
• Q5.8. Multiple Domain configuration
• Q5.9. wildcard MX records
• Q5.10. How do you identify a wildcard MX record ?
• Q5.11. Why are fully qualified domain names recommended ?
• Q5.12. Distributing load using named
• Q5.13. Round robin IS NOT load balancing
• Q5.14. Order of returned records
• Q5.15. resolv.conf
• Q5.16. How do I delegate authority for sub-domains ?
• Q5.17. DNS instead of NIS on a Sun OS 4.1.x system
• Q5.18. Patches to add functionality to BIND
• Q5.19. How to serve multiple domains from one server
• Q5.20. hostname and domain name the same
• Q5.21. Restricting zone transfers

  Section 6. PROBLEMS

• Q6.1. No address for root server
• Q6.2. Error - No Root Nameservers for Class XX
• Q6.3. Bind 4.9.x and MX querying?
• Q6.4. Do I need to define an A record for localhost ?
• Q6.5. MX records, CNAMES and A records for MX targets
• Q6.6. Can an NS record point to a CNAME ?
• Q6.7. Nameserver forgets own A record
• Q6.8. General problems (core dumps !)
• Q6.9. malloc and DECstations
• Q6.10. Can't resolve names without a "."
• Q6.11. Why does swapping kill BIND ?
• Q6.12. Resource limits warning in system
• Q6.13. ERROR:ns_forw: query...learnt
• Q6.14. ERROR:zone has trailing dot
• Q6.15. ERROR:Zone declared more then once
• Q6.16. ERROR:response from unexpected source
• Q6.17. ERROR:record too short from [zone name]
• Q6.18. ERROR:sysquery: findns error (3)
• Q6.19. ERROR:Err/TO getting serial# for XXX
• Q6.20. ERROR:zonename IN NS points to a CNAME
• Q6.21. ERROR:Masters for secondary zone [XX] unreachable
• Q6.22. ERROR:secondary zone [XX] expired
• Q6.23. ERROR:bad response to SOA query from [address]
• Q6.24. ERROR:premature EOF, fetching [zone]
• Q6.25. ERROR:Zone [XX] SOA serial# rcvd from [Y] is < ours
• Q6.26. ERROR:connect(IP/address) for zone [XX] failed
• Q6.27. ERROR:sysquery: no addrs found for NS
• Q6.28. ERROR:zone [name] rejected due to errors

  Section 7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

• Q7.1. How is this FAQ generated ?
• Q7.2. What formats are available ?
• Q7.3. Contributors