I keep seeing the following in my "/var/log/daemons/errors" file:

guarddog dhcpd: if IN A shnelly.muttsnet.lan rrset doesn't exist add 1800 IN A shnelly.muttsnet.lan 192.168.1.25: not a zone.

Can anyone explain this error? I haven't had much luck finding anything on the web. What does "IN A" mean? It seems familiar but I can't dig it out of my grey matter. What about that "not a zone" bit?

This error keeps occuring every 30 minutes, I suppose because of that "add 1800" statement.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Tom Murray

The "IN A" is part of an Address record from a DNS entry. Are you running your own named? If so, check it's config files for a line about shnelly. It sort of looks like all the stuff before the "not a zone" message was read from a named config file, so it could be that what was supposed to be a comment somewhere is no longer commented out. If that bad line is outside any zone definition, named would think it should be a zone def, hence the "not a zone" error message.

M the H,

Thanks for the reply.

Yes. Here is the contents of named.conf:

====================================

// generated by named-bootconf.pl


// secret must be the same as in /etc/rndc.conf
key "key" {
algorithm hmac-md5;
secret
"blahblahblah";
};

controls {
inet 127.0.0.1 allow { any; } keys { "key"; };
};


options {
pid-file "/var/run/named/named.pid";
directory "/var/named";
/*
* 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;
named-xfer "/var/named/";
};

//
// a caching only nameserver config
//
zone "." {
type hint;
file "named.ca";
};

zone "0.0.127.in-addr.arpa" {
type master;
file "named.local";
};

zone "1.168.192.in-addr.arpa" {
type master;
file "/var/named/192.168.1.rev";
};

zone "muttsnet.lan" {
type master;
file "/var/named/muttsnet.lan.hosts";
};

====================================

As you can see, there is no mention of the machine called "shnelly".
Wish there was a "dns for rank beginners"

Thanks,
Tom Murray

Your named.conf references files in the /var/named directory, so the problem could be in any one of the files in there. Check them too.

There is a HOWTO for DNS around. Check www.tldp.com's HOWTO list for it.

Thanks. I read this a while ago, but I think I should make another atempt at it. I might be able to make more sense out of it this time around.

Tom Murray

Hey,

I'm getting a very similar error as you described...... actually it's practically the same

Were you ever able to progress this issue to any conclusion?

If so, I would love some advice,
cheers
andrew

I am having the exact same problem. As far as I can tell, the problem is that the dhcpd server is trying to update the name server, but the name server is refusing the update because of the "not a zone" part of the message.

I have been searching the internet for suggestions to what the problem may be, but so far all i have found is several threads where folks (like yourself) have reported having this problem, but I have not yet found any posts with the answer.

It seems most likely to be a problem in the named setup, but I am still considering a possibility that it could be in my dhcpd setup.

Let me know if you find an answer, and I will do the same for you.

Thanks,
Scott

Hi,
I read your thread with interest and was wondering if you ever sorted this out. I'm new to this DDNS bit and am also getting the errors you mentioned.

If you did sort it can you remember what you did?

Thanks,
Ian T