DNS forwarding

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I am a complete newbie to DNS, but have played with it just enough to be dangerous!

I have setup DNS on an OSX 10.3.4 server in our school, using the OSX GUI. This seems to be essential for OSX server logins.

The server has forward and reverse lookups configured, and these seem to work fine for the local server.

However, I need to know the correct setup (in the GUI) to forward requests for a “non-local” lookup (such as external web addresses) to a “parent” DNS server.

I have tried setting up a new “forward” zone, without success – I am obviously missing something! I’ve even read the manual!!!

The only way I can get this to work at the moment is to use a secondary DNS (external) in the Network settings to resolve an external address.

Does this make sense?

Any suggestions??? Good places to start looking??

Thanks,

[curtisf]

The correct setup is in the Network settings as you’ve discovered. The first entry should be the IP address of your server. After that should be the address of your parent server. This tells the child server to check itself first and then my parent (and so on for as many entries as you have in the network settings).

Once, in the pre-OSX days, when I was working with a particularly unreliable ISP, I even went as far as to put some of the root servers in my network settings. This is unnecessary now because BIND knows to look to the root servers.

The tricky part seems to be reverse lookups. I’ve come up with a few work-arounds, but I’m pretty sure that there are simpler ways. Write back if you need help with them, maybe I can help.

hth

Curt

[Author]

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