[TriLUG] forward zones

[Magnus Hedemark]

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On Tuesday 05 August 2003 15:40, Scott Lundgren wrote:

> My thinking was that I would then do the same but backwards to create the
> forward zone. However I found that if I tried to add records to the only
> forward zone, localhost (athos's localhost is acting as the nameserver),
> the only records I could were to <blank>.localhost (which I thought would
> have been subdomains to localhost). Instead I added 3 new Forward Master
> Zone records, one for each box. Everything works, each box can ping & nmap
> each other box by IP & hostname since all 3 use athos for a gateway &
> nameserver. So are forward zones created per machine than per network
> segement like reverse zones ? Or is something seemingly working but
> probably isn't?

You ought to be creating a different forward zone for your network, preferably 
with a unique domain name.  I usually like to use the .priv top level domain 
if the network is not going to have routes into it from the Internet (as is 
the case with most home networks).  For example, I use "yonderway.priv" as my 
forward zone name.

In /etc/named.conf there is an entry like:

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

Then there is a file /var/named/yonderway.priv.zone which looks like:


; yonderway.priv domain database
@      IN      SOA     bluegill.yonderway.priv.  chris.yonderway.com.  (
                                22      ; Serial
                                3600    ; Refresh
                                900     ; Retry
                                3600000 ; Expire
                                3600 )  ; Minimum
                     IN      NS      bluegill.yonderway.priv.

; Addresses
localhost.yonderway.priv.      IN A    127.0.0.1
diodon.yonderway.priv.          IN A    192.168.55.1
bluegill.yonderway.priv.        IN A    192.168.55.2
tuna.yonderway.priv.            IN A    192.168.55.3

books.yonderway.priv.           IN CNAME        bluegill.yonderway.priv.
ldp.yonderway.priv.             IN CNAME        bluegill.yonderway.priv.
netbsd.yonderway.priv.          IN CNAME        bluegill.yonderway.priv.
openbsd.yonderway.priv.         IN CNAME        bluegill.yonderway.priv.


Far less robust a configuration than I might use for a client but it serves my 
purposes fine.   I used to have a secondary name server but I'm living as a 
guest temporarily in someone else's home so had to bring only a short stack 
of machines with me. (also this file is abbreviated from what it really looks 
like, just enough to give you a taste of what the zone files look like).

All those CNAME records are for VirtualHost entries in the Apache config on 
bluegill.  I mirror some valuable documentation sites on the home server due 
to problems with the broadband connection not being reliable.
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