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So I have been trying to setup BIND / named as a primary / secondary name server for a domain name I purchased a while back because I switched my hosting plan from shared to VPS recently. I think I have everything setup properly (for the most part) but when I go to ping the domain name I have registered, the command prompt just says unknown host. I made sure I registered the name servers with the domain name registrar, and I can ping the name servers. So I know that part is working but for whatever reason I can not ping my domain name.

The domain name I am referring to is chrisrjones.com

The named.conf looks like the following, http://pastebin.com/cphG1yWy

The fwd.chrisrjones.com file looks like the following, http://pastebin.com/G7iXCdLz

and the reverse, pastebin.com/Hk9pyEHu

ipatch
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1 Answers1

4

Let's start with some sanity checks.

From your whois record:

Name Server: NS1.CHRISRJONES.COM
Name Server: NS2.CHRISRJONES.COM

Looks good.

Do the TLD servers for com. have this information?

$ host -v -t ns chrisrjones.com. a.gtld-servers.com
Trying "chrisrjones.com"
Using domain server:
Name: a.gtld-servers.com
Address: 2001:503:a83e::2:30#53
Aliases: 

;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 15725
;; flags: qr rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 2

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;chrisrjones.com.               IN      NS

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
chrisrjones.com.        172800  IN      NS      ns1.chrisrjones.com.
chrisrjones.com.        172800  IN      NS      ns2.chrisrjones.com.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns1.chrisrjones.com.    172800  IN      A       192.232.240.116
ns2.chrisrjones.com.    172800  IN      A       192.232.240.115

Received 101 bytes from 2001:503:a83e::2:30#53 in 119 ms

Still looking good.

Do your nameservers work?

$ host -v -t ns chrisrjones.com. 192.232.240.116
Trying "chrisrjones.com"
Received 33 bytes from 192.232.240.116#53 in 88 ms
Trying "chrisrjones.com"
Using domain server:
Name: 192.232.240.116
Address: 192.232.240.116#53
Aliases: 

Host chrisrjones.com not found: 5(REFUSED)
Received 33 bytes from 192.232.240.116#53 in 89 ms

No, it refused our query!

$ host -v -t ns chrisrjones.com. 192.232.240.115
Trying "chrisrjones.com"
;; connection timed out; trying next origin
Trying "chrisrjones.com"
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

No, it's down!

OK, let's start with your nameserver that's up. In the options in named.conf you have, among other things:

allow-query { localhost; };
recursion yes;

So, queries are only allowed from the local host! All others get refused.

For a proper authoritative name server, you should allow access from anywhere and turn off recursion.

allow-query { any; };
recursion no;

Once you get that straight, you'll find that your zone has no A (or AAAA) records, thus you can't look up the address for, for instance, www.chrisrjones.com. Be sure to add the appropriate A and AAAA records.

Finally, your secondary DNS server doesn't exist, and is also on the same subnet if it did exist. This effectively breaks the redundancy that having two or more nameservers is supposed to provide. Consider locating your other DNS server somewhere else, for instance on another server in another country, or with a third party provider.

Michael Hampton
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  • Mike, thank you so much for the thorough reply. I will definitely run through the ropes in the AM, thanks again for the reply, as I will make the necessary changes. – ipatch Sep 07 '13 at 06:22
  • A quick way to troubleshoot DNS failures is to run [`dig +trace chrisrjones.com`](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dig_\(command\)). A more thorough approach would be to use one of many web-based [DNS analyzer tools](http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools#dnsReport|type=domain&&value=chrisrjones.com). – 200_success Sep 07 '13 at 08:24