I have a small network of SuSE SLES 9 servers that are connected with OpenVPN. From the OpenVPN server, I manage all of the servers with SSH connecting to them with their VPN IP addresses.

I recently setup the /etc/hosts file to contain hostnames for each server so I don't have to remember specific IP addresses. The format for my hosts file is..

x.x.x.x hostname.mydomain.man hostname

The mydomain.man portion of the FQDN is a custom private domain that I made up for internal use, primarily so we know which network the servers are on and so they don't conflict with any of the public networks we use.

I decided to attempt to move my /etc/hosts file to a BIND server running locally on my OpenVPN server. Using some readme's I found on the internet, I configured all of the required files to get bind running, and the caching portion is working. However, my custom hostnames are not resolving when I query the local DNS server.

I have setup all the SOA and A records in what look to be the right places, but I must still be missing something.

Anyone have tips on how to get BIND working with a custom, private, domain name.

Thanks, Spencer.