Hi,
In short, my problem that I'm seeking help on is that I can't ping a new nameserver that I setup. Below are the details of my setup. Thank you for any suggestions.
Unfortunately, I can't post all the details because this message forum says that you must have atleas 5 postings to post a url, but anyways, I added 2 additional name server bindings (not delegation, but associating a name server with an IP address), but after doing that and setting up my /etc/hosts file and BIND entries on my server, I can't ping the nameserver. If I try ping ns3_mydomain_com (underscores because I'm not allowed to post a URL yet), it can't find it. I can ping the IP addresses directly though. Also, after adding my /etc/hosts entries and Bind entries, I restarted BIND and also network services, but no luck.
I know that delegation entries take 24-48 hours to replicate to other ISP name servers, but I wouldn't think name server entries (associating ns3_mydomain_com with an IP address of the server running BIND) would take any time, since those themselves don't replicate (as far as I know).
Thanks for any suggestions.

Jeff

What do you have in your /etc/resolv.conf? If it's your DNS server, then it should resolve its own name (if not, the configuration is wrong). If you have another DNS in resolv.conf, you need to wait for the settings to replicate.

What Mara said. Trying doing the following from your main name server
$ dig @ip-of-main-nameserver yourdomain.tld ns
If that doesn't return the correct ns records, then you've done something wrong with your configuration (probably forgot to increment the serial number in the zone file). If that does return the expected entries, then you need to make sure /etc/resolv.conf is pointing at your own name server. Also, it may take a while for the changes to replicate from the master to to the slaves, and/or there may be a firewall inbetwen that is not allowing zone file transfers.

Did you leave some holes in your firewall so that your name server can be reached?

Also, are you using dhcp to give ip addressess to your others computers?

If you want an example on named.conf, dhcpd.conf and zone files tell me

Good luck

turns out that it did just take some time for the name server record to replicate at the registrar