DNS Problem on CentOS

[nabbed]

What are the chances of getting a dns for dummies howto.
I will gladly put my hand up as the dummy if it means someone posts a very explicit howto for dns on centos 5, using example.com as the domain, on a machine with an internal ip address behind a firewall. If bind was running on the same machine as the mail server that would be good but if not then no problem to have it running on a separate machine.

I will proof read, test, provide feedback, anything. I just can't make it work yet and the forums and wiki are good but I still can't get accross the line using them.

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by nabbed

What are the chances of getting a dns for dummies howto.

Search for 'DNS In A Nutshell' in the forums I think it's the second post in that thread tells you what you need to know. There's also Split DNS in the wiki but I think the forum thread is more clear. It's really not that difficult to set-up a DNS server on CentOS.

[EDIT]What exactly is your problems? I'll also split this into a separate thread as it's not really a CentOS problem.

[nabbed]

I have followed DNS in a nutshell and now get the following results testing dns configuration.

[root@mail ~]# dig any qmunity.net

; <<>> DiG 9.3.3rc2 <<>> any qmunity.net
;; global options:  printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 53431
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 4, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;qmunity.net.                   IN      ANY

;; ANSWER SECTION:
qmunity.net.            38400   IN      SOA     mail.qmunity.net. root.mail.qmunity.net. 2005110200 10800 3600 604800 38400
qmunity.net.            38400   IN      NS      mail.qmunity.net.
qmunity.net.            38400   IN      MX      10 mail.qmunity.net.
qmunity.net.            38400   IN      A       192.168.50.20

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
mail.qmunity.net.       38400   IN      A       192.168.50.20

;; Query time: 1 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
;; WHEN: Sun Jun 17 18:07:32 2007
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 137

[root@mail ~]# dig any mail.qmunity.net

; <<>> DiG 9.3.3rc2 <<>> any mail.qmunity.net
;; global options:  printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 31659
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;mail.qmunity.net.              IN      ANY

;; ANSWER SECTION:
mail.qmunity.net.       38400   IN      A       192.168.50.20

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
qmunity.net.            38400   IN      NS      mail.qmunity.net.

;; Query time: 0 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
;; WHEN: Sun Jun 17 18:07:33 2007
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 64

When Installing zcs I get the following

DNS ERROR resolving MX for mail.qmunity.net
It is suggested that the domain name have an MX record configured in DNS
Change domain name? [Yes]

Any ideas what I am doing wrong.

[mmorse]

try changing it to just qmunity.net - it might be the classic: DNS error resolving MX...
show us your hosts file
you could also continue on and add a domain/fix this later (but yes it makes it easier if you solve this first)

[nabbed]

[root@mail ~]# cat /etc/hosts
# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
127.0.0.1               localhost.localdomain localhost
::1             localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6
192.168.50.20           mail.qmunity.net mail

[root@mail ~]# hostname
mail.qmunity.net

[root@mail ~]# cat /var/named/chroot/etc/named.conf
zone "qmunity.net" {
        type master;
        file "/var/named/qmunity.net.hosts";
};

[root@mail ~]# cat /var/named/chroot/var/named/qmunity.net.hosts
$ttl 38400
@       IN      SOA     mail.qmunity.net. root.mail.qmunity.net. (
                        2005110200
                        10800
                        3600
                        604800
                        38400 )
@             IN        NS      mail.qmunity.net.
@             IN        MX     10 mail.qmunity.net.
@             IN        A       192.168.50.20
mail IN        A       192.168.50.20
www IN        A       192.168.50.20

[root@mail ~]# ping mail.qmunity.net
PING mail.qmunity.net (192.168.50.20) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from mail.qmunity.net (192.168.50.20): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.374 ms
64 bytes from mail.qmunity.net (192.168.50.20): icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.063 ms

--- mail.qmunity.net ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1000ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.063/0.218/0.374/0.156 ms
[root@mail ~]# ping qmunity.net
PING qmunity.net (192.168.50.20) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from mail.qmunity.net (192.168.50.20): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=2.02 ms
64 bytes from mail.qmunity.net (192.168.50.20): icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.000 ms

--- qmunity.net ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 999ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.000/1.010/2.020/1.010 ms

[jholder]

Hi Nabbed-
We're going to post a pretty comprehensive tutorial on BIND and Zimbra next week.

Looks like you have chroot installed.

Try changing
[/code]

[root@mail ~]# cat /var/named/chroot/etc/named.conf
zone "qmunity.net" {
        type master;
        file "/var/named/qmunity.net.hosts";
};

to
[/code]

[root@mail ~]# cat /var/named/chroot/etc/named.conf
zone "qmunity.net" {
        type master;
        file "/var/named/chroot/var/named/qmunity.net.hosts";
};

Also, ping is not a reliable way to test name resolution. When using ping, hosts file trumps DNS, and it will always go with hosts.

dig is better

-john

[nabbed]

I changed /var/named/chroot/etc/named.conf as follows

[root@mail ~]# cat /var/named/chroot/etc/named.conf
zone "qmunity.net" {
        type master;
        file "/var/named/chroot/var/named/qmunity.net.hosts";
};

and got the following results

[root@mail ~]# service named restart
Stopping named:                                            [  OK  ]
Starting named:
Error in named configuration:
zone qmunity.net/IN: loading master file /var/named/chroot/var/named/qmunity.net.hosts: file not found
_default/qmunity.net/IN: file not found
                                                           [FAILED]

So I changed it back.
I only put the ping in because of the mention of it in DNS in a nutshell.
I agree that dig is better because of the hosts file trumping dns which is what I included first.

I wanted to get back to basics so, what things should I check if I am running
running a local dns
on centos 5
using zcs 4.5.5
with chroot
with hostname = mail.qmunity.net
and ip address = 192.168.50.20
?

What automated checks does the install script use and maybe I can check my config from that angle?
I was very careful not to do anything extra to the install. It's all as base as it can be. Is there some useful dns tool that I can install to test with. I can't imagine it really because dig should be good enough? Is there some other tool I can use to test what the script is testing?

[nabbed]

Whoops, I just re-read the DNS error resolving MX... post.
I have now done what it says and input qmunity.net for the domain which allowed the install to complete.
Sorry and thanks for the help.