BIND9 configuration

[dferraro40]

I have a Bind9 set up on Debian Etch. I have set up static address and have changed the resolve.conf file to point to itself for DNS.
DNS is up and running and I have checked the logging and there are no errors. So basically I have Bind9 running with all the default settings. I have read a ton of howto's and they are all confusing and they differ so much. I obviously cannot ping any machines on my LAN becasue I have not set up any zone files. I am just looking for someone to explain to me the most important files associated with Bind9(from a getting started perspective), and in the simplest terms, how I should configure them.

[coopstah13]

is the sole purpose of this machine to be a DNS for your lan? The reason those machines aren't pingable is because the way you have it is the machine is using itself for DNS, but those machines aren't registered in its DNS. I think you can fix this just by having the other machines use this one for DNS. I have a linux router at home that all I did is install bind9, did no configuration at all, worked out of the box.

[dferraro40]

Yes it is for my LAN. I set a workstation to use 9.33.160.XXX(my DNS box) for dns and it works. If I do an nslookup on google.com it works, but if i do an nslookup on anther machine in my LAN i get "non-existent domain".