[H-GEN] Problem configuring a caching only name server

[Ewan Edwards]

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It seems to me that this should be very easy, but for me its proving to be 
anything but.  I can only guess that there's something basic in the BIND 9 
Administrator Reference Manual (bind9arm) that I'm just not seeing.  Any help 
here will be appreciated.

My caching only name server doesn't seem to be.  Caching, that is.

I've constructed the named.conf file (below) from the sample in the the above 
manual (Chapt. 3) and other sources on the 'net.  I suspect my problem is to 
do with the query-source option.  As you can see that option is currently 
commented out as any attempt to start named with that included produces the 
following in /var/log/messages.  Without that option included, named seems to 
start okay (5 instances).

Nov  6 11:56:45 ruby named[1539]: starting BIND 9.2.1 -u named
Nov  6 11:56:45 ruby named[1539]: using 1 CPU
Nov  6 11:56:45 ruby named[1542]: loading configuration from '/etc/named.conf'
Nov  6 11:56:45 ruby named: named startup succeeded
Nov  6 11:56:46 ruby named[1542]: no IPv6 interfaces found
Nov  6 11:56:46 ruby named[1542]: listening on IPv4 interface eth0, 
172.30.44.22#53
Nov  6 11:56:46 ruby named[1542]: could not get query source dispatcher
Nov  6 11:56:46 ruby named[1542]: loading configuration: address not available
Nov  6 11:56:46 ruby named[1542]: exiting (due to fatal error)

One of the many things I don't understand is; what is named supposed to use as 
a reference to answer questions it doesn't know if there is no query-source 
specified?  Another one is the meaning of "could not get query source 
dispatcher".

What makes me think it is not caching?
When I ask the server to write out its statistics (rndc stats) and cache 
information (rndc dumpdb) after a number of weeks of operation, I get the 
following.

<snip>
[root at ruby named]# cat named_dump.db
;
; Cache dump of view '_default'
;
$DATE 20021106013030
[root at ruby named]#
[root at ruby named]# cat named.stats
+++ Statistics Dump +++ (1032928580)
success 0
referral 0
nxrrset 0
nxdomain 0
recursion 86
failure 86
--- Statistics Dump --- (1032928580)
+++ Statistics Dump +++ (1032929755)
success 0
referral 0
nxrrset 0
nxdomain 0
recursion 91
failure 91
--- Statistics Dump --- (1032929755)
+++ Statistics Dump +++ (1036546219)
success 3
referral 0
nxrrset 0
nxdomain 0
recursion 45718
failure 45734
--- Statistics Dump --- (1036546219)
[root at ruby named]#
</snip>

<snip>
#
# File name: /etc/named.conf
#
# This is the bind DNS server configuration file on Ruby.
# Ruby is a server located in the Brisbane office of MineStar Solutions.
#
# The initial config setup is for a caching-only nameserver.
#
#
        // We want to allow queries only from the local network.
acl "bnenetwork" { 172.30.44.0/23; };
acl "vpnnetwork" { 10.1.5.0/24; };

        // Set up the global options.
options {
                // Start with the default working directory and files.
        directory       "/var/named";
        pid-file        "named.pid";
        statistics-file "named.stats";
        dump-file       "named_dump.db";
                // Some access control.
        allow-query     { "bnenetwork"; "vpnnetwork"; };
        listen-on       { 172.30.44.22; };
                // For queries we can't answer ...
//      query-source    address 172.30.212.28 port 53;
        version         " UNKNOWN ";
                // Some other global options may go here.
};

        // Root server hints
zone "." IN {
        type hint;
        file "named.root";
};

        // Localhost forward zone
zone "localhost" IN {
        type            master;
        file            "localhost.zone";
        notify          no;
        allow-update    { none; };
};

        // Localhost reverse zone
zone "0.0.127.in-addr.arpa" IN {
        type            master;
        file            "localhost.rev.zone";
        notify          no;
        allow-update    { none; };
};
</snip>



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