External DNS Resolve takes long
 

Hi I hope someone can help

Brief outline:
I have two PCs behind a D-link 604 Router. One pc is running XP and the other is running RH9 with Apache 2 (virtual hosts setup) and Bind with internal and external DNS. The PCs are not networked and don't share resources. Linux system is a 333Mhz with 192Mb RAM

For DNS, I only provided Primary NS to providor since I only have one system.

Questions:
1) When I try to view my domain, initially, I recieved the message "The web server specified in your URL could not be contacted. Please check your URL or try your request again. This error could have been caused by:". Then after trying again, the page loaded.
Could this be related to my DNS or Apache taking too long to serve?

2) Why can't I type my domain without the 'www' prefix? My domain doesn't get resolved? I'm guessing it has to do something with my DNS but not sure what?
Do I need to add a CNAME?

3) when my page has loaded and if I include another directory name with the url, the error message reported isn't a 404 from my server but "The page cannot be found" message from Explorer. If I try once more, it may show my server message.
Again, could this be a setting with my Apache or is my system just toooo slow.?

4) similar to question #3, if i type my domain and another directory in the url to load (this is before loading my page), the url isn't resolved at all. I get the same message as in question #1 unless I try a couple more times.
Any ideas? Again, I think it has to do with the DNS or my system being to slow?

5) I'm considering to look for a Dynamic DNS providor since my home IP is dynamically assigned. Where can I find one that will give me the same flexibility I would have if I had my own IP to host my services? Take for example I want to host another domain on my system. Would I also have to pay to register that domain with a DYn providor? I'm just looking for pointer to my system. Something like a static IP that points to my Dynamic IP. Any thoughts?

Sorry for adding so many questions. I'm hoping that this may be the best way to at least get some answers. I think I need to concentrate on Tuning my system but I'm not sure yet becaue if I use my IP address for the web address, the page is served quick enough.

Thanks for any help.

1) Possibly, more likly to be DNS than a slow apache.

2) You need to narrow down the problem, does www.yourdomain.com
resolve to an ip address? is it the correct ip address?
does apache serve a page in response to requests for that domain?

3) Internet explorer has "show friendly http error messages" turned
on by default.

4) You need to narrow down the problem. Run a sniffer. Are you
getting a reply to dns querys? Is the browser opening a
connection to port 80 on the web server?

5)Spend a few minutes with google and do your own research.
You can get an address like linuxleo.dynsdns.org for free.
To get dns service for linuxleo.com you will probably have to pay.

Thanks Zaphodiv fro replying. I've responded to your questions below.

1)How can I improve DNS? I did something with my settings that I couldn't find any reference to. I inluded two zone files ( mydomain.com and mydm.com) for 2 different IPs. One for my internal 192.168.0 and one for my external 24.XXX.XX.XXX and loaded them under one daemon because I couldn't figure out how to load two daemons. The Zone files have the same info but use different IPs(internal, external).
Also does the name after the TTL matter? For example I named mine ns.mydomain.com. Could I have just named it mydomain.com instead? Is this considered the NS name for my Primary NS?

2) Yes, the domain does resolve to the correct IP address. I used dig to test this. Apache does serve the correct page because I tested virtualhost with another domain like linuxleo.no-ip.com and it served a different page. I setup NameBased VH. Maybe I need to include ServerAlias? I'll test mydomain.com with dig tonight. I'll also review my Apache for a default.

3) noted. thanks.

4) Apache and Router are configured to listen to port 80. Could you name some utilities I can use to to test and debug BIND and Apache?

5) I agree. I've looked into this and I would have to pay. Basically, I'm paying someone else to handle my DNS to point to my system for one domain. So, I don't have the ability to host more than one domain unless i fork out some more cash. :(

my config files were setup incorrectly because of my setup. I used dnsreport .com to verify my settings. It reported issues with my settings.

Leo