Hello all. I am trying to do some basic configurations for my home network to include a Linux based DNS server. I'm trying to take some load off of my wireless router which is responsible for roughly 20 devices, of which 3 are media intensive.

When I try to restart my named services, I get the following errors:

dns_rdata_fromtext: forward.cms:7: near eol: unexpected end of input
forward.cms:9: warning: '10.20.30.3': MX is an address
zone mydomain.local/IN: loading from master file forward.cms failed: unexpected end of input
zone mydomain.local/IN: not loaded due to errors.
_default/mydomain.local/IN: unexpected end of input
zone localhost.localdomain/IN: loaded serial 0
zone localhost/IN: loaded serial 0
zone 1.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.ip6.arpa/IN: loaded serial 0
zone 1.0.0.127.in-addr.arpa/IN: loaded serial 0
zone 0.in-addr.arpa/IN: loaded serial 0


Questions I have:
Where should the zone files go? In /var/named/ where the named.conf sets that directory?

Why, when run, do I get this error when to my Knowledge, after Fedora 9, the TTL was required? named-checkconf /var/named/forward.cms
/var/named/forward.cms:1: unknown option '$TTL'
/var/named/forward.cms:11: unexpected token near end of file

Do I need to generate a DNS Key? If so -- uumm, how?

Since the Linux flavors are different, does the syntax used differ? My common confusion revolves around: I use Fedora, so should I look for examples using Redhat, Fedora, or Debian?

ANyway: Copy of my code follows. Thank you to whomever can point me in the right direction. With that being said, here are the specs I'm working with:

Fedora 13 CLI
Ran yum install bind

vi /etc/named.conf

//
// named.conf
//
// Provided by Red Hat bind package to configure the ISC BIND named(8) DNS
// server as a caching only nameserver (as a localhost DNS resolver only).
//
// See /usr/share/doc/bind*/sample/ for example named configuration files.
//
options {
forward first;
forwarders { 10.20.30.1; };
listen-on port 53 { 127.0.0.1; any; };
directory "/var/named";
dump-file "/var/named/data/cache_dump.db";
statistics-file "/var/named/data/named_stats.txt";
memstatistics-file "/var/named/data/named_mem_stats.txt";
allow-query { localhost; any; };
recursion yes;
};
logging {
channel default_debug {
file "data/named.run";
severity dynamic;
};
};
zone "." IN {
type hint;
file "named.ca";
};
zone "mydomain.local" IN {
type master;
notify no;
allow-query { any; };
allow-update { none; };
file "forward.cms";
};
include "/etc/named.rfc1912.zones";




cd /var/named/
vi forward.cms


$TTL 3D
mydomain.local. IN SOA spank.mydomain.local. (
1997022700
28800
14400
3600000
86400 )
@ IN NS spank
mail IN MX 10 10.20.30.3
spank IN A 10.20.30.14






cd /etc/sysconfig
vi network

NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME=spank.mydomain.local




Outside of not having a reverse zone file setup, what else can I check to see why I can't load this?

Hi,

You miss the contact email address in the SOA record. Also the MX record should point to a FQDN not a IP address.
Regarding your questions:
The zone files go into the directory specified by the directory option. Note though, that if you run named chrooted (for example in /var/chroot/named), the actual directory is the chroot+directory (in this case /var/chroot/named/var/named)
TTL is not mandatory, but it's always good to have. If you get an error like the above, double-check your syntax
The key is used mostly by rndc and zone transfers. If you want to create one read this
The syntax is the same. What happens, is that every distro uses different directories for config and zone files and maybe splits named.conf in more files for "easy" maintainance.
You can use
Regards

WOW...thank you! I think that has been the most informative reply I've got yet. I will certainly try it it out and reply how everything worked out.

Many Thanks Bathory!