I am trying to set up BIND and DHCP on a RHEL4 server. DHCP seems to be working fine, but since the two are related I decided to include it here anyway.

Everything seems to work fine if I am logged on to the server, but if I am logged on to a client I cannot load web pages. When I launch firefox from the client I see it that it says "connecting to somedomain.com", but it never connects and and will eventually time out. I can successfully run the "dig" and "host" commands from both the client and the server.

At this point I could care less whether it becomes a cacheing only name server or a master as long as it works.

Both named and dhcpd start without error.

These are just the latest examples of my config files. At least as far as named.conf goes, there have been various incarnations and all have had exactly the same issue. The named.conf file listed below was an effort to start back at square one.

I guess I should add that this problem exists with or without iptables or selinux.


# My dhcp.conf file
-------------------
ddns-update-style interim;
ignore client-updates;

subnet 192.168.169.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {

# --- default gateway
option routers 192.168.169.254;
option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;

# option nis-domain "nis.notiones.org";
option domain-name "notiones.org";
option domain-name-servers 192.168.169.254;

option time-offset -6; # Central Standard Time
# option ntp-servers 192.168.1.1;
# option netbios-name-servers 192.168.1.1;
# --- Selects point-to-point node (default is hybrid). Don't change this unless
# -- you understand Netbios very well
# option netbios-node-type 2;

range dynamic-bootp 192.168.169.200 192.168.169.254;
default-lease-time 21600;
max-lease-time 43200;

# I'm handing out fixed addresses for the following:
host server1 {
hardware ethernet 00:E0:29:46:AA:BB;
fixed-address 192.168.169.254;
}
host station01 {
hardware ethernet 00:20:ED:66:AA:BB;
fixed-address 192.168.169.201;
}
host station02 {
hardware ethernet 00:10:C6:CE:AA:BB;
hardware ethernet 00:13:CE:6D:AA:BB;
fixed-address 192.168.169.202;
}
}

# My named.conf file
--------------------
//
// named.conf for Red Hat caching-nameserver
//

options {
directory "/var/named";
dump-file "/var/named/data/cache_dump.db";
statistics-file "/var/named/data/named_stats.txt";
/*
* If there is a firewall between you and nameservers you want
* to talk to, you might need to uncomment the query-source
* directive below. Previous versions of BIND always asked
* questions using port 53, but BIND 8.1 uses an unprivileged
* port by default.
*/
query-source address * port 53;
};

//
// a caching only nameserver config
//
controls {
inet 127.0.0.1 allow { localhost; } keys { rndckey; };
};

zone "." IN {
type hint;
file "named.ca";
};

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

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

zone "0.0.127.in-addr.arpa" IN {
type master;
file "named.local";
allow-update { none; };
};

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 {
type master;
file "named.ip6.local";
allow-update { none; };
};

zone "255.in-addr.arpa" IN {
type master;
file "named.broadcast";
allow-update { none; };
};

zone "0.in-addr.arpa" IN {
type master;
file "named.zero";
allow-update { none; };
};

zone "notiones.org" IN {
type master;
file "notiones.org.zone";
allow-update { localhost; };
};

zone "169.168.192.in-addr.arpa" IN {
type master;
file "notiones.org.rr.zone";
allow-update { localhost; };
};

include "/etc/rndc.key";

# My forward lookup
-------------------
;
; Zone file for Steve's notiones.org domain
;
; This is the complete database for this zone
;
$TTL 3D
@ IN SOA server1.notiones.org. admin.notiones.org. (
20060808 ; serial number = today's date + rev number
8H ; refresh frequency (8 hours)
2H ; retry frequency (2 hours)
4W ; expiration period for data (4 weeks)
3D ) ; time to live of at least 3 days

IN NS server1 ; Specifies the name server
; IN MX 10 mail ; mx 2b used later (see below)

server1 IN A 192.168.169.254
;other IN A 192.168.169.253 (reserved for additional server)

;mail IN CNAME server1 (reserved for later use)
ftp IN CNAME server1
www IN CNAME server1

# My reverse lookup
-------------------
;
;
$TTL 3D
@ IN SOA server1.notiones.org. admin.notiones.org. (
20060811 ; serial number
28800 ; refresh frequency
14400 ; retry frequency
3600000 ; expiration period
3D ) ; minimum TTL
IN NS server1
1 IN PTR server1

Change
option domain-name-servers 192.168.169.254;
To
option domain-name-servers server1.notiones.org;

Make sure ns.notiones.org has only the following in /etc/resolv.conf:

nameserver 127.0.0.1

Fill in the forwarders { }; section in named.conf - it'll resolv much faster. Find out what your ISP DNS servers are from your WAN router.

Change
IN NS server1 ;
To
IN NS server1.notiones.org.

<-- Make sure you have a dot at the end, take off the ; semicolon

I applied your suggestions and it made things worse. I am sensing I may have some deeper issue because when I changed ...

option domain-name-servers 192.168.169.254;
To
option domain-name-servers server1.notiones.org;

... the dhcp daemon wouldn't start. I received an error message stating that it was looking for a host name or ip address. I thought this was strange as the host name is clearly defined in /etc/sysconfig/network.

I think I may have to start over from the very beginning. Surely I must have some basic networking issue here. My brother gave me "DNS and BIND" by Paul Albitz & Cricket Liu so I am going to give that a read too. That's over 550 pages of pure reading pleasure, to be sure.

Thanks for the help. Not many like to tread in these waters or so it seems.

Make sure the file /etc/resolv.conf has only the following lines:

search notiones.org
nameserver 127.0.0.1

Comment all the other lines with a # in front then try it again.

I will give tha a shot.

I applied the second post concerning "search notiones.org", which allowed me to start up the dhcp daemon. All is good now. Thanks RamRam.

Regards,

Steve