ping: unknown host - PLEASE HELP

[linuxjustin]

I have 2 computers both having RH9
One is a gateway
And I am trying to set the other computer as the DNS server.

My first priorty is to setup the DNS SERVER as a local DNS server.

---------------------------
GATEWAY Information
---------------------------
IP - 192.168.0.1
Hostname - gw.myintranet.local
Iptables enabled and all policies are ACCEPT

resolv.conf in GATEWAY: (not sure if this is important)
search ns.myintranet.local
nameserver 192.168.0.2

hosts.conf in GATEWAY: (not sure if this is important)
127.0.0.1 localhost.localadmin localhost

----------------------------
DNS SERVER information
----------------------------
IP - 192.168.0.2
Hostname - ns.myintranet.local

resolv.conf in DNS SERVER:
search ns.myintranet.local
nameserver 192.168.0.2

hosts.conf in DNS SERVER:
127.0.0.1 localhost.localadmin localhost
192.168.0.2 ns.myintranet.local ns

Running "named" on this box

ps -aux|grep "named" returns the fllowing

named 3246 0.0 0.8 29708 1088 ? S 08:05 0:00 [named]
root 4144 0.0 0.0 172 16 pts/1 R 11:59 0:00 grep named

I am able to ping from both computers to each other using the ip address. But I want to be able to ping FROM the GATEWAY TO the DNS SERVER using the name ns.myintranet.local

Currently "ping ns.myintranet.local" in GATEWAY gives me
ping: unknown host ns.myintranet.local

Please help.

(Adding 192.168.0.2 ns.myintranet.local ns in hosts file in GATEWAY solves the problem, but that is like duplicating the hosts information everywhere, which i want to avoid.)

[Ricky]

wht do u want.. intenet domain name server or site specific domain name server ?

[Opnosforatou]

I guess you don't want to run the DNS service on you Gateway, guess this one will also make the connection to the internet.

PC1 = Gateway, PC2 = DNS server..

Tell PC1 in the resolv.conf that the nameserver is the IP of PC2.
Configure PC2 with all the needed zone information, incl de reverse zones.
If you want DNS requests to parse through the DNS server first then be forwarden to your ISPs DNS server, be sure to include the IP address of you ISP in the /etc/named.conf
Example:

options {
        directory "/var/named";
        query-source address * port 53;
        forwarders {
                w.x.y.z; 
                w1.x1.y1.z1;
                };
        allow-query { 192.168.0.0/24; localhost; };
        allow-recursion { 192.168.0.0/24; localhost; };
        };

zone "." {
        type hint;
        file "root.hints";
};

zone "0.0.127.in-addr.arpa" {
        type master;
        file "zone/127.0.0";
};

zone "MyIntranet.com" {
        notify no;
        type master;
        file "zone/MyIntranet.com";
        };

zone "0.168.192.in-addr.arpa" {
        notify no;
        type master;
        file "zone/reverse.rev";
        };

Where w.x.y.z is the IP of the first DNS server and w1.x1.y1.z1 the second.
the options:

allow-query { 192.168.0.0/24; localhost; };
allow-recursion { 192.168.0.0/24; localhost; };
[

will only allow DNS queries from your internal network, In this example the IP range for the internal network is : 192.168.0.x

Don't forget to schedule a cron job to update the root.hints every month.