How to reinstall the DNS Service on RedHat Enterprise Linux v4
 

Dear LinuxQuestions.org

Recently our RedHat Linux Server crashed and we had to restore everything from backup.

Yesterday we noticed that the named (DNS) is not functioning.
When we try to restart the "named" we are getting as message (FAILED).
We suspect that the DNS service somehow got corrupt when restoring the server from backup.

The RedHat server is the only server on the network.
All clients are Windows PC's.
The Redhat Linux emulates a Domain Controller and therefore the DNS should work properly.
The Domain is "ruclaservices.local"

Question 1:How do we reinstall the DNS service on the REDHAT Linux server?

OR

Question 2: How can we fix this issue of the named not starting?

We would prefer to re-install the named or DNS service if possible.Since we think that would be the fastest way to fix this issue.

Lothar Irausquin

Before reinstalling take a look at the log files under /var/log to see if you find what the problem is.

Where do you get this 'failed' message? Have you tried running it from the command line to see if you can get more information? Are you running it 'chrooted'? Have you had a look at the conf file to see whether that still makes any kind of sense?

If I were to take a wild guess, I would guess that you are running named chrooted and that part of the directory structure upon which this depends is damaged (remember that in a chrooted app, the paths need to be thought of relative to the directory which now seems to be '/', which isn't '/' ).

So, if my wild guess is correct, and there is every reason to believe it may not be, re-installing won't help, unless you also cure the actual problem.

Named is pretty ensitive to file permissions an the like. Are you getting a more detailed message in your logs? Look in /var/log/messages.