DNS nslint error messages

[Chuck Swiger]

Brad Gilmer wrote:
> I am running freebsd 5.4-STABLE on an IBM e-series 330 server.  I have recently started playing with DNS and have been largely successful.  However, nslint reports the following errors:
> 
> nslint: missing "a": localhost. -> 127.0.0.1
> nslint: missing "a": localhost.org. -> 0.0.0.1

The first message means you're missing a localhost forward domain.  Normally
this won't matter, because you have a localhost entry in /etc/hosts, but you
could add a localhost domain to named.conf which contains:

;
; BIND data file for local loopback interface
;
$TTL 604800

@       IN      SOA     localhost. root.localhost. (
                              1         ; Serial
                         604800         ; Refresh
                          86400         ; Retry
                        2419200         ; Expire
                         604800 )       ; Default TTL
@       NS      localhost.
@       A       127.0.0.1


The second one recommends adding a line like:

   localhost      IN A 127.0.0.1

... to your gilmer.org zone, using no "." at the end, to create a
localhost.EXAMPLE.COM entry.

> If I add the line:
> 
> localhost.      IN A 127.0.0.1
> 
> to my zone file, the first nslint error message goes away, but I then see the following message in my /var/log/messages file upon named startup:
> 
> Jan 30 18:58:55 gilmer named[15485]: master/gilmer.org:16: ignoring out-of-zone data (localhost)
> 
> So which is correct?

named is correctly ignoring a forward A record which is out of zone.

>  Should I insert the A record in the zone file and ignore the nslint message, or should I leave it out and ignore the named message?  Is there something else improperly configured on my system?
> 
> What about the second nslint message above?  Why am I getting a complaint about 0.0.0.1?
> 
> My /etc/namedb/master/gilmer.org file looks like this:
> $TTL    3600
> 
> gilmer.org.     IN      SOA     ns1.gilmer.org. admin.gilmer.org.  (
>                                 20060126        ; Serial
>                                 3600    ; Refresh
>                                 900     ; Retry
>                                 3600000 ; Expire
>                                 3600 )  ; Minimum
> 
> ;DNS Servers
> @       IN      NS      @

This should be:

@	IN	NS	ns1.gilmer.org.

...and you ought to list at least one other NS record which points to a
different nameserver.  Note also that you only need to provide the "IN" column
in the SOA record, it will default from there.  So this:

@	NS	ns2.gilmer.org.

...should be OK, too.

-- 
-Chuck