DNS Troubleshooting
 

I have set up a DNS on a Fedora 9 server. It resolves hosts fine locally, but when a remote machine attempts to use the DNS Server (via dig or nslookup) the request times out (";; connection timed out; no servers could be reached"), like the DNS isn't even listening to datagrams (nmap confirms that 53 is open, and iptables is shutdown).

Here is my named.conf
----------begin named conf------------------------
options {
listen-on port 53 { any; };
listen-on-v6 port 53 { ::1; };
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";
version "Bind";
allow-query { localhost; };
recursion yes;
#forwarders { 172.30.0.10; 172.30.0.11; }; #IP of upstream ISP nameserver(s)
#forward only; #rely completely on our upstream nameservers
};

logging {
channel default_debug {
file "data/named.run";
severity dynamic;
};
};

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

zone "se.dr.com" IN {
type master;
file "se.dr.com.zone";
allow-update {none;};
};

zone "4.30.172.in-addr.arpa" IN {
type master;
file "reverse.se.dr.com.zone";
allow-update {none;};
};

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

include "/etc/named.rfc1912.zones";
---------------------------end named.conf---------------------
----------------begin se.dr.com.zone file---------------------

$TTL 3D
; Information about "forward" domain se.dr.com
$ORIGIN se.dr.com.
@ IN SOA ns1.se.dr.com. webmaster.se.dr.com. (
2004042601 ; serial
86400 ; refresh
7200 ; retry
1209600 ; expiry
1D ) ; minimum

NS se17 ;Inet Address of nameserver
localhost A 127.0.0.1
ns1 CNAME se17
se17 A 172.30.4.100
se18 A 172.30.4.102
se19 A 172.30.4.104
-------------------end se.dr.com.zone file--------------------------
-------------------begin reverse.se.dr.com.zone file---------------
; Information about "inverse" domain 0.30.172.in-addr.arpa.
$TTL 3D
@ IN SOA ns1.se.dr.com. webmaster.se.dr.com. (
2004042601 ; serial
86400 ; refresh
7200 ; retry
1209600 ; expiry
3D ) ; minimum

NS ns1.se.dr.com.
5 IN PTR ns1.se.dr.com.
10 IN PTR se17.se.dr.com.
15 IN PTR se18.se.dr.com.
20 IN PTR se19.se.dr.com.
-------------------end reverse.se.dr.com.zine file------------------
I am not sure where to begin, since dig, nslookup etc don't seem to do anything anywyere but the server acting as a DNS. Pings to the DNS from the remote servers reply, and ssh works back and forth.

Thanks for any assistance.

first -- you do know that fedora 9 is past it's end of life and has not had a security update in over 5 months , and NEVER will have any more updates.

Yes, but we are not always masters of our destiny like we would like to be. Without going in to details, I am stuck with FC9 for now.

Hi,

Fisrt make sure that port 53 is open for both tcp and udp protocols. Also you might comment out the 2 "listen" directives, so your server listens on all available interface.
Edit the above to:
Just add any other hosts/networks you want.
Restart bind and see what you get.

Regards

That appears to do the trick!

Can you explain to me what these lines were doing?

Glad it worked. If you want an explanation of the named.conf directives take a look here.
here

Regards