DNS won't start - serial # problem

[unclecameron]

Hi all,

Bind works out of the box, but when I attempt to add a domain.com zone
I get this error:

Starting named:
Error in named configuration:
zone localdomain/IN: loaded serial 2006110721
zone localhost/IN: loaded serial 2006110700
zone 0.0.127.in-addr.arpa/IN: loaded serial 1997022700
zone
0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0. 0.0.0.0.0.0.ip6.arpa/IN:
loaded serial 1997022700
zone 255.in-addr.arpa/IN: loaded serial 1997022700
zone 0.in-addr.arpa/IN: loaded serial 199702270
[FAILED]

How do I find the correct serial # I'm supposed to use?

I've tried to dig localhost and cut/paste the serial # into the zone
files above, and tried any combination I could think, including
incrementing the last 2 serial digits, what am I doing wrong?

results of dig localhost:
; <<>> DiG 9.3.3rc2 <<>> localhost
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 48676
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;localhost. IN A

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
. 6925 IN SOA A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
NSTLD.VERISIGN-GRS.COM. 2006110700 1800 900 604800 86400

;; Query time: 2 msec
;; SERVER: 38.96.5.10#53(38.96.5.10)
;; WHEN: Tue Nov 7 13:17:06 2006
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 102

Thanks for the help or pointers,
Cameron Camp
San Diego

[phoenix]

Serial numbers are only important for slave dns servers, as far as I know (which isn't a lot about bind). I only run one instance of BIND on my LAN and I've never changed the serial number. Your DNS server should be the primary server and that's what you modify.

[dijichi2]

serial numbers are used to tag the 'revision' of the dns data. every time you change a zone file you should increase the numerical value of the serial number, otherwise slaves will not reload the data. general practice says you should use 4Y2M2D+2incrementer, eg: 2006110801 for the first change of today. however, bind normally only says 'zone ... loaded' after it's successfully parsed and loaded the zone into the memtree. the FAILED probably refers to something else, can you increase debug output?

[unclecameron]

I've attempted to manually increment the last 2 digits from 00 - 10 and it hasn't helped, but if named isn't starting would it increment anyway? There wasn't anything noticeable in /var/log/messages

Here's my setup:
ns1.logicalwebhost.com (has dns pointing mail.logicalwebhost.com to mail3.lwh.com)

|

|

mail3.logicalwebhost.com 66.11.112.74

so all I really need is something on mail3 to make zimbra install happy. I've tried reinstall bind a couple times, can I simply point zimbra to ns1 for the record, and how would I do that? I just want mail.logicalwebhost.com to go to 66.11.112.74. I'm using tinydns on ns1 because it's easier to deal with, but I'd like to learn bind.

Thanks a lot,
Cameron
San Diego

[dijichi2]

if you've got tinydns running on ns1, assuming that's your primary nameserver there should be no reason to install bind on the zimbra box, if that's what you're trying to do. if you're installing bind as a technical excercise then by all means post errors here and we'll see if we can help, even if this isn't really the 'right place'. try named --help and see if there's a -D debug option or similar - you need to find out why it's failing to start, it's not serial numbers.

btw

ns1.logicalwebhost.com (has dns pointing mail.logicalwebhost.com to mail3.lwh.com)

dont use CNAMEs to alias MX records, if that's what you're trying to do. use another A record, and it's helpful to try and get forward and reverse resolution consistent, although not strictly necessary.

[unclecameron]

ns1.lwh.com has an A record pointing to 66.11.112.74, which is mail3.lwh.com

so when I attempt to install Zimbra

what should I do when it says I have the wrong DNS entry and it won't update it when I say yes to the prompt to update?

my hosts is
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost

my resolve.conf is

nameserver ns1.logicalwebhost.com
nameserver ip.ip.ip.ip
nameserver ip.ip.ip.ip

Thanks,
Cameron

[phoenix]

The requirements for the /etc/hosts file are documented in the Quick Start Guide and covered in the forums dozens of times, do a quick search. Do you also have th MX record set-up?