I have 2 computers with RH9
One is a gateway
And I am trying to set the other computer as the DNS server.

My first priorty is to setup the DNS SERVER as a local DNS server.

---------------------------
GATEWAY Information
---------------------------
IP - 192.168.0.1
Hostname - gw.myintranet.local
Iptables enabled and all policies are ACCEPT

resolv.conf in GATEWAY: (not sure if this is important)
search ns.myintranet.local
nameserver 192.168.0.2

hosts.conf in GATEWAY: (not sure if this is important)
127.0.0.1 localhost.localadmin localhost

----------------------------
DNS SERVER information
----------------------------
IP - 192.168.0.2
Hostname - ns.myintranet.local

resolv.conf in DNS SERVER:
search ns.myintranet.local
nameserver 192.168.0.2

hosts.conf in DNS SERVER:
127.0.0.1 localhost.localadmin localhost
192.168.0.2 ns.myintranet.local ns

I am able to ping from both computers to each other using the ip address. But I want to be able to ping FROM the GATEWAY TO the DNS SERVER using the name ns.myintranet.local

Currently "ping ns.myintranet.local" in GATEWAY gives me
ping: unknown host ns.myintranet.local

Please help.

(Adding 192.168.0.2 ns.myintranet.local ns in hosts file in GATEWAY solves the problem, but that is like duplicating the hosts information everywhere, which i want to avoid.)

the basic logic there basically makes sense, however as you've not mentioned it at all i'm left wondering if you've actually installed a dns server at all? if you want a machine to act as a DNS server, then it kinda needs DNS serving software on it...

personally i'd recommend using http://thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq

Hi acid_kewpie

DNS SERVER is running named.

ps -aux|grep "named" returns the fllowing

named 3246 0.0 0.8 29708 1088 ? S 08:05 0:00 [named]
root 4144 0.0 0.0 172 16 pts/1 R 11:59 0:00 grep named

So I believe dns (named) is running.

So why am i getting unknown host error?

the next stage would be because you've not configured it correctly. but as you've not told us what the config is i couldn't tell you...