need help
 

Hi everyone, im a student here in jackson,mn I have been studing windows 2003 servers and red hat servers. How can i figure a forward looking and reverse looking zone and configure the dns on red hat. I have a book that is called web server administration by steve silva. It do not say much about about the forward looking zone, I have a picture about how it should be, it also said to save it to the ptr file( where is the ptr file?) should i be in the terminal shell, if so what part of the shell should i be in. The instructor here dos not know all that much about red hat.

Hi -

Learning how to capitalize proper places ("Jackson, MN") and proper names ("Steve Silva"), how to punctuate run-on sentences, how to conjugate the verb "do", and how to spell the verb "does" are all essential and necessary prerequisites for configuring DNS lookup (not "looking") zones.

Sorry. You must step to the back of the classroom and return to Windows for the rest of the period. :D

Hi earlpage,

First of all, it will be a bit confusing to handle red-hat and windows-2K3 servers at a time. But, anyways here is a brief description of how I configured DNS foe myself :
In DNS in RHEL, there are two zones :
a) forward lookup zone (resolves host names to IP addresses)
b) backward lookup zone (resolves IP address to host names)
DNS will only resolve FQDNs(Full Qualified Domain Names)only.

This resolving can also be done in two ways, :
i) local resolving (on a particular machine only)
ii) through DNS (gloabal impact)

So, first of all for DNS , you need to install the required package, start the daemon service 'named' , i.e:
# chkconfig named on
Next step is to set the hostname, and decide on the domain name that you need to configure.
Now, open /etc/hosts and hostname in that file. Later open /etc/resolve.conf file and put hostname & domain name in this file. Make sure don't delete any files, untill unles veru sure of.

This will finish the basic configuration of DNS. Now we need to get involved in more complex and detailed configuration of DNS. We will start with configuration of default port-53 for DNS :
# cd /var/named/chroot/etc
# cp named.caching-nameserver.conf named.conf
# chown root:named named.conf
# chmod 640 named.conf
Above statements will backup named.conf file, change the ownership for the file and set maximun secure permission for it.

# vi named.conf
i) line no 15 : change lookup IP to actual IP. make sure of dots and colons (if any)
ii) line no 23 : allow query(localhost; <actual IP/subnet>;);
iii) add another line just after this line :
# allow-transfer (localhost; <actual IP/subnet>;);
# forwarders ( actual IP;);
iv) line no 34 : match clients (localhost; <actual IP/subnet>;);
v) line no 35 : match destinations (localhost;<actual IP>;);

After this we need to edit /var/named/chroot/etc/named.rfc1912.zones file :
i) line no 21: remove 'localhost' and give your domain name
ii)line no 23: remove localhost again , and put 'your domain name.zone'

reverse lookup :
iii) line no 27: give IP address appropriately and rest will remain same
iv) line no 29 : file "actual IP.zone"

# service named restart
This will show that files are not avaialable, which is obvious because till now we have not created the files as well as didn't place them properly and configure them appropritely. if some other error comes, then check something must be wrong.

# cd /var/named/chroot/var/named
# cp localhost.zone your-domin-name.zone
# cp named.local reverse IP.zone
e.g : if IP is 10.2.5.1 then: cp named.local 5.2.10.zone
# restorecon 5.2.10.zone
# restorecon yourdomainname.zone

This will create the required files.

I am quite sure that this will be confusing enough for you till now. But believe me that DNS configuration is confusing only for the first time.Finally, you need to add hostnames, aliases and hostname in these files in the similar format that has been there in these files(yourdomainname.zone and 5.2.10.zone) as samples.

# service named configtest
# named-checkzone yourdomainname.zone /var/named/chroot/var/named/yourdomainname.zone
# named-checkzone 5.2.10.zone /var/named/chroot/var/named/5.2.10.zone
All of the above three statements should show OK after their execution.
# service named restart

Finally,
# dig yourdomainname
should show details like query, authority, answers, ...etc

Hope that will not confuse you even more...but if it does so then maybe you can wait for others more fruitful entries....

Regards,
Kapil

You are in school and it should show...

The next time you ask a question here at the forum using a title like "need help" and written in so sloppy a manner, you may get no response at all.

You owe a thanks both to paulsm4 for the Zen rebuke and to kapilbajpai88 for an answer.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/...Ask_a_Question

The RHEL 5 Deployment guide http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_boo...ion/index.html.
GIYF

well not paulsm4
if people keep worrying about how good someone speaks/types on the internet no body will ever talk to anybody

Not as screed...

I merely emphasize that there are good and ample reasons why the rules and conventions of standard English should apply when communicating to an audience of many. It is an indication in the least that all parties are making an effort in good faith.

If self-chosen variations are to be freely available, I have always thought well of boustrophedon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boustrophedon

Yes, use proper English, please. Don't forget there are old people like me and Pixellany reading your posts, we might have trouble with your trendy talk. ;)

den Y don u just deel wit it?

Heyup, lad, thas gerrin wurse. Dint thi teach thi owt at skoo?

do it madder dood?

Nah, not really. As long as a question's reasonably understandable. We're here to help with Linux, not English, after all.

Thats what i meant.